Weatherhead Center awards new initiative on Afro-Latin American studies

The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs recently awarded $250,000 to fund a new Weatherhead Initiative in Afro-Latin American Studies. The Center funds the initiative through its Weatherhead Initiative Research Cluster in International Affairs grant, which supports large-scale and groundbreaking research in the realm of international affairs.

Three Harvard investigators will spearhead this new initiative: Alejandro de la Fuente, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, professor of African and African American studies, and director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute; Doris Sommer, Ira and Jewell Williams, Jr. Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and professor of African and African American studies; and Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America and director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project. These researchers will bring together both scholars and students to develop Afro-Latin American studies at Harvard.

The initiative’s collaborators will host events and conduct research over the next three years that focus on race rights and justice in Latin America. Together with the founding of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard—the first academic unit in the Americas devoted specifically to promote and sponsor research on Afro-Latin Americans—Harvard is poised to become a leader in this growing field.