Education

 Work Experience 

Project: "The International Congress of Americanists in the Age of Museums, 1885-1915"

Supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Dr. hc. Stefan Rinke, Freie Universität Berlin

In its early stages at the end of the 19th century, Americanism was conceived as a new exciting science that could help discover the “truths of human nature”. In light of its material culture, many of its practitioners feared the disappearance -mostly violent- of the indigenous cultures in the Americas. That is why many of them decided to build “archives of humanity” or “archives for the nation” and collect as soon as possible the cultural and biological manifestations of humans that could be preserved for the future. They started collecting systematically the artistic achievements and the traces of human migrations in museums.

This doctoral project analyzes the transnational history of the International Congress of Americanists. This congress emerged as a network of scientific collaboration with members from thirty different countries in Europe and the Americas. In the beginning of the 20^th Century it was centered in the French-, German- and Spanish-speaking scientific communities and helped to discuss the achievements of the ancient cultures in the Americas. Americanism gathered disciplines such as archeology, anthropology, linguistics, history, and paleontology and was conceived by its practitioners as a science that could help to understand the history of the populations in the Americas prior to 1492.

The Congress helped to form a strong scientific community immersed not only in discussions and production of new anthropological theory. They were essential in the formation of collections for national, ethnographic, and imperial museums and contributed to form ethnic, national, and cosmopolitan identities. Americanists were not only known for being the avant-garde in many scientific discussions, but also for working in the most prominent museums in the world like the Museo Nacional in Mexico, Museo de La Plata in Argentina, Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Germany and the US National Museum. 

The research examines the geopolitics of the Americanism within the XVII International Congress of Americanists in 1910, during the Centennial of the Independence festivities in Mexico and Argentina. As a conjunctural moment, the Centennial opened a social and intellectual space to rethink the past and to rethink aspirations for the future. Americanism contributed to this within two legitimating phenomena of its time: science and nationalism, which promoted a series of future projections based on the study of the past. Heritage-nation-science built a strong connection in regards of scientific and nationalist interests.

López Jáuregui, Lorena (2020). The Ancient Object and its Modern Negotiation. A History of Latin American Archeological Heritage in International Museum Networks of Collaboration and Competition (1894-1914). Intervención 2(22), 188-244.

López Jáuregui, Lorena (2020). Glosario de Pandemia. Una Cronología Covid-19 desde la Lengua Alemana. Cadernos do Tempo Presente 1(11), 35-45.