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Herbert Braun

Professor Emeritus

Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

M.A. Univ. of Pittsburgh

B.A. Univ.of Pittsburgh

Herbert Tico Braun teaches Latin American history, with an emphasis on political culture and daily life in the twentieth century.  He is the author of The Assassination of Gaitán:  Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia/Mataron a Gaitán: Vida pública y violencia urbana en Colombia, and Our Guerrillas, Our SidewalksA Journey into the Violence of Colombia/El Rescate: Diario de una negociación con la guerrilla, which tells the story of his American brother’s-in law kidnapping by the guerrillas in Colombia in 1988.  He is currently writing En los días de don Manuel, which tells the story of the daily lives of Colombians of various social classes living in the cities and in the towns of Colombia during the conflictual years of La Violencia, in the mid-twentieth century.

As an undergraduate teacher he has received various awards, including the Distinguished Service Award, from La Sociedad Latina, the Mónica Vaca Award for the Outstanding Faculty Member, by La Sociedad Hispánica, and the All-University Outstanding Teaching Award, from the History Department.  From 1996 to 1999 he served as the Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities.

In the 2013-2014 academic year, Professor Braun designed and led the first interdisciplinary Latin American Studies Seminar, now a required course for Latin American Studies majors.  In May 2014, he was awarded the Pablo Davis Award by the Office of the Dean of Students and The Bolívar Network.

Publications 

“’¡Que haiga paz!’:  The Cultural Contexts of Conflict in Colombia, in Gustavo Gallón and Christopher Welna, eds., Democracy, Peace and Human Rights in Colombia, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming, 2005.

“Aves de corral, whisky, toallas y algo más:  Colombia entre el recuerdo y el olvido,” in Revista Numero 38 (2004):  Separata Especial.  http://www.revistanumero.com/40sepa.htm

“Laureano y Saúl,” UNPeriódico/El Tiempo, Bogotá, March 13, 2004. 

Our Guerrillas, Our Sidewalks:  A Journey into the Violence of Colombia, 2nd, Expanded Edition, Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.

“At the Center of Things:  A Nation from Below,” ReVista:  Harvard Review of Latin America, Vol. II, Number 3 (Spring 2003), pp. 8-10.
http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/index.pl/publications/revista

“¿Cómo vivieron los colombianos la Violencia?,” Revista Número, # 35, Bogotá, December 2002-January-February 2003, pp. 72-77.

Cóndores de ayer y de hoy:  De cómo recuperar la violencia colombiana, Revista de Estudios Colombianos, Nos. 23/24, 2002, pp. 15-23.

“Populazos, populitos, populismos,” in Guy Hermet, Soledad Loaeza, and Jean-Francois Prud’homme, eds., Del populismo de los antiguos al populismo de los modernos, México, El Colegio de México, 2001, pp. 251-274.

“¿Que pasó con los intelectuales colombianos?” Revista Número,  # 31, Bogotá,   November-December, 2001, pp. 23-26. 

“Los americanos y el Plan Colombia, Coyuntura Política, Bogotá, 2001.   

“Colombia, ¿Mucha nación?” in Revista Número, # 29, Bogotá, June-July 2001, pp. 70-73. 

“Honor, amnesia, maldad y reconcliación en Colombia,” in Revista Foro, No. 39,   Bogotá, September 2000, pp. 41-55.    Reprinted in Joan del Alcazar and Sonia Mattalía, eds., América Latina:  Literatura e historia ente dos finales de siglo, Valencia, Spain, Ediciones del CEPS, pp. 125-143

"Protests of Engagement: Dignity, False Love and Self-Love in Mexico during 1968," Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 19 # 1 (July 1997), pp. 511-549.

Our Guerrillas, Our Sidewalks: A Journey into the Violence of Colombia. University Press of Colorado, 1994.

El rescate:  Diario de una negociación con la guerrilla. Editorial Norma, 1998.

Mataron a Gaitán: Vida pública y violencia urbana en Colombia. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1987.  Second edition, Editorial Norma, 1998.

The Assassination of Gaitan: Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia. University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.

"Díaz Ordaz y Marcuse," "Los momentos del 68," and "Te acuerdas del 68?" in Nexos (Mexico City), January 1988, March 1988, March 1989.

"El 9 de abril en Colombia y el 2 de octubre en México: meditaciones metahistóricas a partir de dos momentos coyunturales," in Revista de la Universidad
Nacional de Colombia,
May-August,1988.

"Los mundos del 9 de Abril, o la historia vista desde la culata," in Gonzalo Sánchez and Richard Peáranda, eds., Pasado y presente de la Violencia en Colombia.
Fondo Editorial CEREC, 1986.

"Nosotros y los otros: reflexiones sobre la violencia en Colombia," in El Tiempo, (Lectures Dominicales), Bogota, June 22, 1986.