MAY 16, 2012
by Tina T. Underwood, Contributing Writer

GREENVILLE, S.C. —Furman University history professor Erik Ching has co-written a new book about education reform in El Salvador during the Cold War.  The book is co-written by Fordam University history professor Héctor Lindo-Fuentes.

In Modernizing Minds in El Salvador: Education Reform and the Cold War, 1960-1980, the authors examine the processes by which education reform became entwined in debates over theories of modernization and the politics of anticommunism. Further analysis examines how the movement pushed the country into the type of brutal infighting that was taking place throughout the third world as the U.S. and U.S.S.R. struggled to impose their political philosophies on developing countries.

The book is published by University of New Mexico Press and is part of the Diálogos Series of Latin American Studies.

Ching joined the Furman faculty in 1998 after earning master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  At Furman, he teaches Modern Latin America, History of Africa, Revolution in Modern Latin America, and Origins of Global Poverty. He also teaches study away programs in Latin America and Africa.

Ching has also co-written Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador: The Insurrection of 1932, Roque Dalton and the Politics of Historical Memory (University of New Mexico Press, 2007), and Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, (University of Texas Press, 2007).

For more information about Modernizing Minds in El Salvador, go to http://www.unmpress.com/, or contact Ching in the Department of History, 864-294-2119, or erik.ching@furman.edu.

Publications

Manuscripts Under Review: · Authoritarian El Salvador: Politics and the Making of the First Military Regimes, 1880-1940, under review at the University of Notre Dame Press.

Books:

·         Modernizing Minds in El Salvador: Education Reform and the Cold War, 1960-1980 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012), forthcoming, co-author with Héctor Lindo Fuentes.

·         Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador: The Insurrection of 1932, Roque Dalton and the Politics of Historical Memory (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007), co-author with Héctor Lindo Fuentes and Rafael Lara Martínez. Translated into Spanish as Recordando 1932: La Matanza, Roque Dalton y la política de la memoria histórica (San Salvador, El Salvador: FLACSO, 2010).

·         Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), co-author with Christina Buckley and Angélica Lozano-Alonso.

·         Las masas, la matanza y el Martinato: Ensayos sobre 1932 (San Salvador, El Salvador: University of Central America—UCA—Editores, 2007).

Articles and Book Chapters:

·         “Civil War and Guerrilla Radio in Northern Morazán, El Salvador,” in Conslavi, Carlos Henríquez, Broadcasting the Civil War in El Salvador (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), pp. xvii-xlvi.

·         “Patronage and Politics under Martínez, 1931-39: The Local Roots of Military Authoritarianism in El Salvador,” in Lauria, Aldo, and Binford, Leigh, (eds.), Landscapes of Struggle: Politics, Society and Community in El Salvador (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), pp. 50-70.

·         “Indians, the Military and the Rebellion of 1932 in El Salvador,” Journal of Latin American Studies 30:1 (1998): 121-156, co-author with Virginia Tilley.

·         “In Search of the Party: Communism, the Comintern and the Rebellion of 1932 in El Salvador,” The Americas 55:2 (1998): 204-239.

Edited Volumes:

• Revista de Historia (San José, Costa Rica), special issue, “El Partido Comunista de Costa Rica, 1931-1935: los documentos del archivo ruso del Comintern,” no. 37, (enero-junio, 1998). Editor of volume and author of introduction.
• Problems in the History of Modern Africa (New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, 1996). Co-editor.
• Historical Problems in Imperial Africa (New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, 1994). Co-editor.
• Problems in African History: The Pre-Colonial Centuries (New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, 1993). Co-editor