JAKSIĆ , Iván (Andrades) 1954-

PERSONAL: Born March 14, 1954; immigrated to the United States, 1976; son of Fabian and Nidia (Andrade) Jaksić; married Carolina Arroyo, August 20, 1982; children: Ilse. Education: Attended Universidad de Chile, 1971-75; State University of New York at Buffalo, M.A. (American and Puerto Rican studies), 1978, M.A. (history) and Ph.D., both 1981. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, soccer, theater and film.

ADDRESSES: Office—Center for Latin America, University of Wisconsin, Cutin Hall, Room 902, Milwaukee, WI 53201.

CAREER: Philosophy teacher in Santiago, Chile, 1975-76; University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral research associate at Center for Latin American Studies, 1982-83, vice chairperson of the center, 1984-89; University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, associate professor of history, 1989—, became director of Center for Latin America, 1989; currently professor of history, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN. State University of New York at Buffalo, assistant professor, summer, 1983; University of California, Berkeley, visiting lecturer, autumn, 1986, 1987; Stanford University, consulting assistant professor, winter, 1988.

MEMBER: Conference on Latin American History (life member), Society for Iberian and Latin American Thought (vice president, 1989-91; president, 1991-92), Latin-American Studies Association, American Historical Association, New England Council of Latin-American Studies, Cervantes Society of America, Commonwealth Club of California (chairman, Western Hemisphere section, 1985-89).

AWARDS, HONORS: State University of New York at Buffalo, travel grants, 1982-83; American Council of Learned Societies grant, 1985; Tinker Foundation and Andrew Mellon Foundation travel grants, Berkeley Center for Latin American Studies, 1985, 1988, and 1989.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Jorgé J. E. Gracia) Filosofía e identidad cultural en America Latina, Monte-Avila (Caracas, Venezuela), 1988.

Academic Rebels in Chile: The Role of Philosophy in Higher Education and Politics, State University of New York Press (Buffalo, NY), 1989.

(Editor, with Paul W. Drake, and contributor) The Struggle for Democracy in Chile, 1982-1990, University of Nebraska Press, 1991.

(Editor, with others) Sarmiento: Author of a Nation, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1994.

(Editor and author of introduction) Selected Writings of Andrés Bello, translated by Frances M. Lopez-Morillas, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Andrés Bello and the Problem of Order in Post-Independence Spanish America, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (Cambridge, MA), 1997.

(Editor, with Paul W. Drake) El modelo chileno: democracia y desarrollo en los noventa, LOM Ediciones (Santiago, Chile), 1999.

Andrés Bello: Scholarship and Nation-building in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Work represented in anthologies, including Latin American Education: A Quest for Identity, edited by Nancy J. Nystrom, Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane University, 1985; Student Political Activism: An International Reference Handbook, edited by Philip G. Altbach, Greenwood Press, 1989; and International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, edited by Rina Benmayor and Andor Skotnes, Oxford University Press, 1993. Contributor of articles, translations, and reviews to scholarly journals. Editor, "Stanford-Berkeley Occasional Papers in Latin American Studies," 1984-89; member of editorial board, Explicacion de textos literarios, 1983—.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on modern Latin-American history, Latin-American philosophy, Latin-American higher education, and Chile.

SIDELIGHTS: Iván Jaksić once told CA: "I lived through the turmoil of Chile and Argentina in the 1970s. This prompted my immigration to the United States in 1976. Much of my writing is academic, but deals with subjects very close to my experience in Chile. I continue to write on non-academic subjects and hope, at some point, to produce some autobiographical reflections on immigration and personal identity, especially as it is impacted by the acquisition of a new language. I find writing to be indispensable for providing structure to one's life, but also for sharing experiences that might be of value to others."

Jaksić helped edit the twenty-two essays by leading Latin-American scholars in Sarmiento: Author of a Nation. The book helped shed light on the life of one of that region's most important nineteenth-century politicians. As president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento helped shape politics in the region for decades with his liberal stance on export and trade. In addition to being a crafty diplomat, Sarmiento is also considered one of Argentina's finest writers. His greatest work, Facundo, is considered to be a brave and impassioned outcry against political oppression in the years following Argentina's independence from Spanish rule. As David Rock pointed out in a review for Historian, Jaksić's book "is the first collected work of its kind published in English."

Although every major city in Latin America has a statue or road named after Venezuelan Andrés Bello, very little has been written about him in the United States. Publication of the Selected Writings of Andrés Bello helps fill this void on the hugely influential politician, orator, teacher, and philosopher. As editor, Jaksić includes essays on subjects ranging from education, political reform, and grammar to international relations. Bello, who played a major role in establishing Venezuela as an independent nation, is often compared to Thomas Jefferson. Booklist contributor Mary Carroll noted that Jaksić's book "should bring him overdue attention farther north."

Jaksić's Andrés Bello: Scholarship and Nation-building in Nineteenth-Century Latin America is the first biography of Bello to be published in the English language. Bello was a towering intellectual figure in nineteenth-century Latin-American politics and is regarded by many as its greatest thinker. "This intellectual biography is impressively researched," according to Leo Zaibert of the Times Literary Supplement. In addition to examining Bello's contributions to Latin-American history, Jaksić's portrait is also a personal, poignant examination of Bello's life.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, April, 1991, p. 646.

American Political Science Review, December, 1992, p. 1082.

Americas, April, 1990, p. 547; January, 1996, Georgette Magassy Dorn, review of Sarmiento: Author of a Nation, p. 418.

Comparative Education Review, February, 1991, p. 196.

Foreign Affairs, summer, 1992, p. 176.

Hispania, Volume 72, number 3, 1989, p. 558; March, 1991, p. 81.

Hispanic American Historical Review, May, 1990; November, 1992, p. 637.

Historian, winter, 1994, David Rock, review of Sarmiento, p. 379.

Journal of Developing Areas, October, 1990, p. 137.

Journal of Latin American Studies, October, 1992, p. 702.

Latin American Literary Review, July-December, 1994, Susana Rotker, review of Sarmiento, p. 98.

Times Literary Supplement, January 4, 2002, Leo Zaibert, review of Andrés Bello: Scholarship and Nation-building in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, p. 29.*