Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the School of Advanced Study

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Dr Matthew Butler (University of Texas, Austin)

The conventional historiographical narrative of revolutionary Mexico (1910-1940) stresses the institutional, intellectual, and affective animosity separating Catholicism and the country’s liberal and revolutionary traditions. The Revolution was godless and secularizing, as seen in the defanaticization campaigns of the 1930s or the cristero civil war of the 1920s. If the Revolution had a religious face, it is often argued, then this was Protestant. This paper will argue that an historic tradition of reformist Catholicism represented a little acknowledged but significant component of revolutionary ideology and practice, as can be seen in the written testimonies of many revolutionary ideologues––the Constitutionalist Luis Cabrera; the Zapatista Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama; the anarchist Miguel Mendoza López Schwerdtfeger; and the Marxist Vicente Lombardo Toledano, among others. The paper then discusses the Revolution’s main religious project in a positive sense: the attempted foundation in the 1920s and 1930s of a national Catholic Church resting on primitive discipline and genuinely “Mexican” devotional bases. This emphasis on restorationist religion and early Church history, the paper argues, reminds us that Mexico’s Revolution should be seen as a period of religious experimentation as well as social and economic ferment. It also shows us that the Revolution sought to retie a thread to an early vein of nineteenth-century, Catholic-inspired, liberalism, as embodied by the likes of Fray Servando and Father Mora: and that some revolutionaries, at least, conceived the 1910 Revolution as a struggle over religious purity with the Church.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Dr Matthew Butler (University of Texas, Austin)

The conventional historiographical narrative of revolutionary Mexico (1910-1940) stresses the institutional, intellectual, and affective animosity separating Catholicism and the country’s liberal and revolutionary traditions. The Revolution was godless and secularizing, as seen in the defanaticization campaigns of the 1930s or the cristero civil war of the 1920s. If the Revolution had a religious face, it is often argued, then this was Protestant. This paper will argue that an historic tradition of reformist Catholicism represented a little acknowledged but significant component of revolutionary ideology and practice, as can be seen in the written testimonies of many revolutionary ideologues––the Constitutionalist Luis Cabrera; the Zapatista Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama; the anarchist Miguel Mendoza López Schwerdtfeger; and the Marxist Vicente Lombardo Toledano, among others. The paper then discusses the Revolution’s main religious project in a positive sense: the attempted foundation in the 1920s and 1930s of a national Catholic Church resting on primitive discipline and genuinely “Mexican” devotional bases. This emphasis on restorationist religion and early Church history, the paper argues, reminds us that Mexico’s Revolution should be seen as a period of religious experimentation as well as social and economic ferment. It also shows us that the Revolution sought to retie a thread to an early vein of nineteenth-century, Catholic-inspired, liberalism, as embodied by the likes of Fray Servando and Father Mora: and that some revolutionaries, at least, conceived the 1910 Revolution as a struggle over religious purity with the Church.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Dr Matthew Butler (University of Texas, Austin)

The conventional historiographical narrative of revolutionary Mexico (1910-1940) stresses the institutional, intellectual, and affective animosity separating Catholicism and the country’s liberal and revolutionary traditions. The Revolution was godless and secularizing, as seen in the defanaticization campaigns of the 1930s or the cristero civil war of the 1920s. If the Revolution had a religious face, it is often argued, then this was Protestant. This paper will argue that an historic tradition of reformist Catholicism represented a little acknowledged but significant component of revolutionary ideology and practice, as can be seen in the written testimonies of many revolutionary ideologues––the Constitutionalist Luis Cabrera; the Zapatista Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama; the anarchist Miguel Mendoza López Schwerdtfeger; and the Marxist Vicente Lombardo Toledano, among others. The paper then discusses the Revolution’s main religious project in a positive sense: the attempted foundation in the 1920s and 1930s of a national Catholic Church resting on primitive discipline and genuinely “Mexican” devotional bases. This emphasis on restorationist religion and early Church history, the paper argues, reminds us that Mexico’s Revolution should be seen as a period of religious experimentation as well as social and economic ferment. It also shows us that the Revolution sought to retie a thread to an early vein of nineteenth-century, Catholic-inspired, liberalism, as embodied by the likes of Fray Servando and Father Mora: and that some revolutionaries, at least, conceived the 1910 Revolution as a struggle over religious purity with the Church.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

2012: The Falklands Issue Erupts Again - An Opportunity for Reflection on the New South America and its Importance to Britain

Speakers:

Hal Klepak, Emeritus Professor of the Royal Canadian Military College

Professor Maxine Molyneux

The current heating up of the political and military situation in the South Atlantic area as we move closer to the 30th anniversary of the Argentine seizure of the islands in 1982 is a troubling event which might have been foreseen in the context of the major changes occurring in South America at the present time. Despite all manner of ideological and other differences among the governments of the continent, there is a level of political collaboration going on which most observers feel has never existed before. The impact of this on the international relations of the region, and specifically on the question of the Falkland Islands, is substantial and potentially worrying.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

2012: The Falklands Issue Erupts Again - An Opportunity for Reflection on the New South America and its Importance to Britain

Speakers:

Hal Klepak, Emeritus Professor of the Royal Canadian Military College

Professor Maxine Molyneux

The current heating up of the political and military situation in the South Atlantic area as we move closer to the 30th anniversary of the Argentine seizure of the islands in 1982 is a troubling event which might have been foreseen in the context of the major changes occurring in South America at the present time. Despite all manner of ideological and other differences among the governments of the continent, there is a level of political collaboration going on which most observers feel has never existed before. The impact of this on the international relations of the region, and specifically on the question of the Falkland Islands, is substantial and potentially worrying.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

2012: The Falklands Issue Erupts Again - An Opportunity for Reflection on the New South America and its Importance to Britain

Speakers:

Hal Klepak, Emeritus Professor of the Royal Canadian Military College

Professor Maxine Molyneux

The current heating up of the political and military situation in the South Atlantic area as we move closer to the 30th anniversary of the Argentine seizure of the islands in 1982 is a troubling event which might have been foreseen in the context of the major changes occurring in South America at the present time. Despite all manner of ideological and other differences among the governments of the continent, there is a level of political collaboration going on which most observers feel has never existed before. The impact of this on the international relations of the region, and specifically on the question of the Falkland Islands, is substantial and potentially worrying.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Speaker: Dr. Roderick J. Barman (University of British Columbia)

The Empire of Brazil, 1822-1889, conformed, it is widely agreed, to the Liberal model. The constitution of 1824 incorporated its precepts; political discourse was conducted in those terms; reform campaigns sought to remove imperfections. While not untrue, this narrative evades the inconsistencies and contradictions, some innate to the ideology, some specific to the country, that characterized Liberalism in Imperial Brazil. Radical liberals (such as Teófilo Ottoni, “the king of the people,”) eschewed social reforms. Slavery long remained a taboo subject, being abolished only in 1888. The impetus for reform often lay not in popular pressure but in imposition from above. Very importantly, the Liberal order depended on the oversight and management of Pedro II (“I have sworn the Constitution”) who, as one critic observed, “spent fifty years pretending he ruled a free people”. Liberalism in Imperial Brazil was an enigma, simultaneously a reality and an artifice.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Speaker: Dr. Roderick J. Barman (University of British Columbia)

The Empire of Brazil, 1822-1889, conformed, it is widely agreed, to the Liberal model. The constitution of 1824 incorporated its precepts; political discourse was conducted in those terms; reform campaigns sought to remove imperfections. While not untrue, this narrative evades the inconsistencies and contradictions, some innate to the ideology, some specific to the country, that characterized Liberalism in Imperial Brazil. Radical liberals (such as Teófilo Ottoni, “the king of the people,”) eschewed social reforms. Slavery long remained a taboo subject, being abolished only in 1888. The impetus for reform often lay not in popular pressure but in imposition from above. Very importantly, the Liberal order depended on the oversight and management of Pedro II (“I have sworn the Constitution”) who, as one critic observed, “spent fifty years pretending he ruled a free people”. Liberalism in Imperial Brazil was an enigma, simultaneously a reality and an artifice.

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Fifty years of Jamaican Independence: Developments and Impacts - Opening Adress

Opening Address (Chair: Kate Quinn)

H.E. Anthony Johnson, Jamaican High Commissioner in London

Institute for the Study of the Americas

Fifty years of Jamaican Independence: Developments and Impacts - Opening Adress

Opening Address (Chair: Kate Quinn)

H.E. Anthony Johnson, Jamaican High Commissioner in London