9/28/18 September

9/28/18
     I’m in New York now, after spending some time in Chicago visiting colleges with my father. I love it there— and here. In Chicago this past week, I was fortunate enough to get to meet and talk with two professors, both from the University of Chicago. Ramon Gutierrez and Dain Borges are scholars of Latin America, Borges specializing in Brazilian and Caribbean studies and Gutierrez in colonial Latin America, Chicano/Latino studies, and Mexican immigration. 
    To sit down with both and hear about the content of their classes was fascinating, and it made me all the more excited to pursue, among other things, global studies in college. This quarter, Ramon Gutierrez, a MacArthur fellow, is teaching a class that aims to cover 500 years of Latin history in just five weeks. At the end of the course, Gutierrez will prompt the students to apply their new, historical knowledge to contemporary politics, looking at the ways in which race relations (specifically in regards to forced servitude) have shifted and changed over the centuries. Borges, who’s currently on sabbatical, is working on a book that will shed light on the ways in which Brazilian intellectuals between the period of 1880 and 1920 came to understand and make sense of the social and religious shifts occurring all around them. 
    It’s safe to say that I’m very excited for college.

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