Morrissey College Dean's Colloquium
Assistant Professor of History Mar铆a de los 脕ngeles Picone will discuss her recently published book, Landscaping Patagonia: Spatial History and Nation-Making in Chile and Argentina, at the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Dean鈥檚 Colloquium on April 30 at 4:30 p.m. in Gasson 100. The event is free and open to the public.
Mar铆a de los 脕ngeles Picone (Peter Julian)
Picone, who joined the Boston College faculty in 2019, is a historian of modern Latin America specializing in the 鈥淐ono Sur (Southern Cone)鈥濃�攖he southernmost region of South America鈥攚ho describes her research interest as 鈥渢he intersection of nature and nation-making in border regions,鈥� particularly regarding questions 鈥渙n how people experienced a shared sense of community through their spatial practices.鈥�
Between the 1890s and 1940s, according to Picone, explorers, migrants, authorities, and visitors created shared versions of nationhood through regional, often cross-border, interpretations and transformations of the natural environment. Her study shows how different actors sought to make Patagonia their own 鈥渂y transforming a collection of geographical sites into a landscape that evoked a shared past and a common future.鈥�
Picone teaches courses on Modern Latin America, Spatial History, Environmental History, Sports History, and Borderlands. Last fall, she became co-director of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities, and is an affiliated faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program and the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.
Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Dean Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., said that he and MCAS Senior Associate Dean Brian Gareau felt Picone was a 鈥渢imely choice鈥� as colloquium speaker.
鈥淭his event provides us with an opportunity to consider complex questions of national identity. Mar铆a de los 脕ngeles Picone鈥檚 work highlights how national boundaries and identities are not solely imposed by political centers but are shaped, challenged, and reimagined by a diverse range of actors on the ground.
鈥淲hile focusing on Argentina and Chile, her book will also resonate with a United States audience, where debates over national identity, borderlands, migration, and the meaning of territory continue to have a significant presence in contemporary political and cultural life.鈥�
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