Dr. Daniel James

Department of History Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405-7103 Phone: (812)855-6321 Email: dajames@indiana.edu Office: BH 825

Daniel James was educated at Oxford University and received his doctorate from the London School of Economics. He was a Research Fellow at Cambridge University and from 1979 to 1982 taught sociology at the University of Brasilia. Since coming to the United States he has taught Latin American history at Yale University and Duke University until coming to Indiana in 1999 to take up the Bernardo Mendel Chair in Latin American History.

His primary research interests have been in Argentina. Since first going to Argentina in 1972 he has spent frequent prolonged periods in Argentina. His principle interest has been in modern Argentine labor, social and cultural history. Much of the focus of his work has been on Peronism. His first book, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class 1943 - 1976, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1988. Since the late 1980s he has been engaged in a long-term collaborative project with Professor Mirta Zaida Lobato of the University of Buenos Aires focused on the history of the meatpacking community of Berisso. A central part of this project has involved the collection of oral testimonies in the community. This interest in oral history led to a second book, Dona Maria’s Story: Life History, Memory and Political Identity, published by Duke University Press. This book presents a long testimony by an elderly woman meatpacking activist. In addition, there are a series of chapters that offer a prolonged meditation on the practice of oral history, its methodology and its ethical and epistemological assumptions. Daniel James has recently been appointed codirector of the Center for History and Memory at Indiana University.

Daniel James and Mirta Lobato are currently working on a book on the history of the community of Berisso. This book will focus on issues such as immigration, ethnic identity, political mobilization, deindustrialization and the cultural bases of community. A crucial part of Daniel James’ research interests has centered on the history of women workers and the theme of gender. This interest was reflected in the publication in 1997 of a collection of essays entitled, The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers, edited with John French and published by Duke University Press. This book brought together a wide range of essays on the topic of women workers in Latin American history. Many of the essays adopted innovative historical research methods and the collection was framed by a theoretical introduction by the James and French setting the essays within the context of recent work on feminism and gender theory. As a result of his work on Berisso Daniel James has also developed a growing interest in the use of photographs as historical evidence, and the general theme of the relationship between the visual and the historical. He and Mirta Lobato have recently authored an article “Family Photographs and Ethnic Identity: the Ukrainians of Berisso” to be published in the Hispanic American Historical Review, 2002.

Much of his scholarship of the past decade has been focused on and influenced by the emergence of what is called the new cultural history. At Duke Daniel James was involved in the setting up of a Latin American Cultural Studies doctoral program. Since coming to Indiana he has also been active in the creation of the Cultural History graduate program.

Daniel James has long experience of graduate teaching, having supervised many dissertations at both Yale and Duke. Most recently his graduate students have taken positions at University of Pennsylvania, University of Mississippi and UC Irvine. He has been involved in either directing or co-directing graduates doing research on topics as widely dispersed as the history of the Sephardic Jewish community in Argentina and women textile workers in Medellin, Colombia. Recent graduate seminars that he has offered include, “Voices from the Past: the Problems and Promise of Oral History in Latin America”, “Social and Cultural History Topics in 19th and 20th Century Latin America” and “Revolutions in 20th Century Latin America” co-taught with Jeffrey Gould.

---

The ProgramHow to Contact UsWhen to Apply
Meet the FacultyGraduate Courses
Our Graduate StudentsResearch ResourcesFunding

---

Click Here to Learn More about Bloomington, Indiana,
home to Indiana University