CSWS Annual Review

Mérida, Venezuela from a distance / photo by Reuben Zahler.

Did You Kill Your Baby?: Gender, Race, and Religion in the Early Venezuelan Republic

by Reuben Zahler, Associate Professor, Department of History

In January of 1811, María Isabel Ribas found herself in jail, charged with murdering her own baby, one of the most heinous acts imaginable for a Catholic woman. A few days earlier, in her neighborhood of Mérida, Venezuela, locals had found the cadaver of a newborn infant in a field, being eaten by vultures. Officials searched in the area for women who had recently been pregnant, and questioned María. She admitted that the baby was hers but also insisted that she was innocent of murder. 

Activist Leshia Evans stands her ground while offering her hands for arrest as she is charged by riot police during a protest against police brutality outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana, USA, 9 July 2016. Evans, a 28-yearold Pennsylvania nurse and mother of one, traveled to Baton Rouge to protest the shooting of Alton Sterling. Sterling was a 37-year-old black man and father of five, who was shot at close range by two white police officers. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A Year in Review: 2016–17

by Michelle McKinley, Director, CSWS, and Dena Zaldúa Frazier, Operations Manager, CSWS

What a year…in many ways for CSWS and for the UO campus community as a whole, this past year was the best of times and the worst of times.