Olga  Gonzalez-Silen

Visiting Graduate Researcher
olga.gonzalez.silen@gmail.com
Keywords: Venezuela

Olga Gonzalez-Silen is a historian of Venezuela, Spain, and the United States during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. Her work maps the ways Spanish American Independence intersected with other contemporary wars and revolutions. Her latest journal article, "Judging Freedom and Loyalty in Venezuela during the War of Spanish Independence," was published in the Hispanic American Historical Review. In 2012, the Conference of Latin American History recognized another one of her journal articles with the Tibesar Prize.
 
As a visiting scholar in UCLA Latin American Institute, Dr. Gonzalez-Silen gave a lecture on her editorial project on Philip DePeyster's travel notebook (1807-1813), an extraordinary series of documents that illuminate many linkages between Venezuelan independence and the Anglo-American War of 1812. During her time at the Institute, she will be conducting research for two projects: a critical anthology of documents related to the history of Venezuela and a book manuscript based on her dissertation about the impact of the Supreme Junta Central on the genesis of Spanish American independence. She looks forward to attending in person the many conferences and presentations about Latin America at UCLA and meeting students and colleagues interested in colonial and early republican Latin America.