Gary VanValen, Ph.D.

Professor of History
School of Humanities College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

678-839-6036
gvanvale@westga.edliYtxyjTahru

Technology Learning Center - Room 3206
Office Hours
M/W 2:00pm-5:00pm or by appointment

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Gary VanValen, Ph.D.

Fields of Study: Latin America, Indigenous Peoples

Dr. Van Valen is a historian of Latin America and Indigenous peoples who teaches classes in these fields as well as in Atlantic and World history. He also serves as Graduate Coordinator for the History program. His research centers on ethnohistory and cultural contact in Bolivia and New Mexico. He is the author of Indigenous Agency in the Amazon: The Mojos in Liberal and Rubber-Boom Bolivia, 1842-1932 (University of Arizona Press, 2013), which won the American Society for Ethnohistory’s Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Book Award, as well as several articles and chapters in edited volumes. His current research interests include the histories of the Pueblo people of New Mexico under Mexican rule, the Mojo people of the Amazon at Spanish contact, and the African and Indigenous people of Santiago del Estero province, Argentina.

  • B.A., History, Montclair State University, 1988
  • M.A., Latin American History, University of South Carolina, 1995
  • Ph.D., Latin American History, University of New Mexico, 2003

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Fall 2020 Sections

“Pueblo and Genízaro Agency in the Preservation of Indigenous Land, 1815-1825,” chapter in Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez, ed., Indigenous Borderlands of the Americas, University of Oklahoma Press, 2023.

“Don Simón Luna: An Afro-Argentine Leader among the Santiagueño Quichua,” Zanj: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies Vol. 3, Issue 2, 24 January 2023. [View Publication External Resource]

“Bolivia.” In Kimberly J. Morse, ed. The Americas: An Encyclopedia of Culture and Society, Vol. 1. Santa Barbara and Denver: ABC-Clio, 2022.

“Guayocho, Andrés.” In Josep M. Barnadas, ed. Diccionario histórico de Bolivia. Sucre, Bolivia: Grupo de Estudios Históricos, 2002.

Indigenous Agency in the Amazon: The Mojos in Liberal and Rubber-Boom Bolivia, 1842-1932, University of Arizona Press, 2013.

“In Search of Juan Antonio Ignacio Baca, a Pueblo Participant in the Shifting Politics of Nineteenth-Century New Mexico,” chapter in Transnational Indians of the NorthAmerican West (Texas A&M, 2015).

Introduction to Transnational Indians of the North American West, co-authored with Andrae Marak (Texas A&M, 2015).

“The Seven Trees and Ramapough Ethnicity,” Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, Spring/Summer 2014.

“Border Life as Seen through Rural Schools in Southern Arizona,” The Middle Ground Journal:World History and Global Studies, No. 8, Spring 2014.

“De Mojos a Beni: los indígenas y la reforma gubernativa en la Amazonía boliviana, 1842- 1860.” Anuario de Estudios Bolivianos, Archivísticos y Bibliográficos, No. 17, Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia, 2011.

“The Caribbean as Crossroads of World History,” World History Bulletin, Vol. XXII, No. 2, Fall2006.

“Anglo Perceptions of a Cofradía: The Penitentes of New Mexico, 1880-1940.” SECOLAS Annals, Vol. 27, March 1996.