Africana Studies Faculty Member Earns Research Fellowship

Oscar de la Torre, an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies, received a 2014 College Educators Research Fellowship from the UNC-Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

The fellowship will enable de la Torre to develop the course “Environment, State and Society in the Caribbean and Latin America.” He said the class will be transnational and comparative and will discuss issues “that are currently very controversial, such as the green revolution in agriculture or the impact of the drug traffic among Afro-descendants.”

He earned his doctoratal and master degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as his Diploma in Social and Public Policy in Latin America, University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include History and Current Politics of Black Peasants in Latin America; Comparative Race Relations in the African Diaspora; Atlantic History (Slavery, Revolution, Commodities); and Environmental History.