Presentation
The journal Historia y MEMORIA presents to the
academic public and researchers in History, its issue number 11, corresponding
to the second semester, July to August 2015.
On this occasion, our SPECIAL SECTION is dedicated to the CIRCULATION OF
KNOWLEDGE in the diverse national historical contexts of Latin America. We start our section with a text titled Libraries in 17th century New Granada: The
library of Brother Cristóbal de Torres at the Colegio
Mayor de Nuestra Señora del
Rosario, written by María del Rosario García, professor at the Universidad
del Rosario de Bogotá. This article
analyzes and compares the important library of Brother Cristóbal de Torres, who
was the Archbishop of Santafé de Bogotá and the founder
of the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra
Señora del Rosario. The
author aims to investigate the circulation of knowledge between Europe and
America, contained in the publications treasured by said Archbishop and to
compare this library to other important libraries of the time, in the New
Kingdom of Granada as well as in Spain and Europe in general.
The second text in our SPECIAL SECTION was written by professors María Isabel Afanador and Juan
Fernando Báez, from the Universidad Industrial de
Santander (UIS-Colombia), and it is called Conduct manuals in 19th century Colombia:
Modernity, pedagogy and body. This article
makes a great contribution of a historiographic nature by making a compilation
of the conduct manuals published in Colombia throughout the 19th century, and
providing a critical analysis of them.
The content of our next article also refers to manuals, but in this case
about the teaching of geography of the old Sovereign State of Santander. Jorge Alejandro Aguirre, professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, offers us School textbooks for the teaching of geography in the Sovereign State of
Santander: 1868-1879. The research carried out by professor Aguirre focuses
on three objectives: first, to comment on the laws on public education in the
old Sovereign State of Santander; second, to point out and describe the content
and the dissemination of some school textbooks of Geography from said state;
finally, the controversy and resistance in the face of the consolidation of the
printed text as a main referent of the dissemination of school knowledge.
Marcela
Vignoli, Argentinian professor at the Instituto Superior de Estudios Sociales ISES (UNT-CONICET), presents us with an
interesting study regarding the work of an educator from Tucumán, Margarita
Todd, titled: Educative career and associative practices of a woman from Tucuman in
between centuries: Margarita Todd, schoolteacher. In Vignoli’s text, Todd becomes a pioneer in
the creation of a provincial university, developing a successful career within
the teaching profession in Tucumán.
Our last text of the SPECIAL SECTION, and also with a topic referring to
Argentina, is the one that is offered to us by professor Matías
Emiliano Casas about the figure of the gaucho. Its title is Representations and publications on the Argentinian
gaucho in the thirties. Between national identity, the
literary field and business strategies. Professor Casas focuses on the 1930s, in the midst of the nationalist
debate in the country, to analyze the role played by the gaucho as a referent
of said national identity, and how companies and commerce took this popular
icon to expand or legitimize their products into new markets.
In the section FREE ZONE, as is customary, we will find in this the 11th
issue, diverse topics. The first one
is a study about the colonial world in the city of Tunja,
in Colombia, in which several researchers (María del Pilar Espinoza Torres,
Abel Fernando Martínez Martín and Andrés Ricardo Otálora
Cascante) make an interesting and innovative study –
due to the interpretative perspectives that it opens and that had never been
explored before- on a highly relevant example of mural painting in Tunja, under the title: “In the city of
god”
The Marian Advocation of Miguel Suárez and the wall paintings in the
Founder’s Manor in Tunja. New documents and interpretations.
Two professors from the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS),
Álvaro Acevedo Tarazona and Carlos Iván Villamizar, focus on the
figure of Simón Bolívar and one of his least studied periods: The last years of Bolívar: resignation and retirement from power
(1829-1830). Between
authority and legality. Based on
Bolivar’s correspondence, both professors analyze the reasons for and
consequences of, both for himself and for the Colombian nation of the time, his
retreat from power and his resignation from the position of President of the
Republic.
Professor Isidro Vanegas Useche, from the
Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica
de Colombia (UPTC), under the title, Eduardo Santos and the dead ends of the Liberal
Republic, analyzes intellectual reflections in relation to the limits of
Colombian liberalism and the problem of violence, of one of the most
significant reformist liberals in Colombian history.
Finally, there is a
reproduction of an interesting speech by the Mexican researcher, Doctor Carlos
Antonio Aguirre Rojas, about the peculiarities of regional history from the
perspective of the history of the Annales.
These are, in summary, the texts that we offer the reader in our Issue
11. As usual, we expect to focus attention and cause reflection on matters that
we consider offer remarkable elements for the understanding of our rich and
complex Latin American History and Memory.
Dr.
Antonio E. de Pedro
Editorial Coordinator