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Epitaph of a Small Winner: My First 50 Years in Academe. An Interview with Judith Ewell

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2018

Kris Lane
Kris Lane*
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Extract

Judith Ewell has been a major figure in modern Latin American history, both as a research scholar and as a teacher. Just before receiving her PhD at the University of New Mexico in 1972, Ewell began teaching at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, from which she retired in 2004. Ewell's books include The Indictment of a Dictator: The Extradition and Trial of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1981); Venezuela: A Century of Change (1984); and Venezuela and the United States: From Monroe's Hemisphere to Petroleum's Empire (1996, Spanish ed. 1998). Ewell has also published numerous articles and book chapters on modern Latin American history and women's history. She is co-editor of the much-loved biographical essay collection, The Human Tradition in Latin America (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) with William H. Beezley, with whom she served on the editorial board of Scholarly Resources Press (now Rowman & Littlefield). Most importantly, Ewell served as chief editor of this journal, The Americas, from 1998 to 2003.

Type
Research Note
Information
The Americas , Volume 75 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 381 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2018 

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References

1. I had the great fortune to be Judy Ewell's colleague at the College of William & Mary between 1997 and 2004. We have remained in touch since her retirement and my move to Tulane University, and we had a chance to reminisce one spring afternoon in New Orleans in 2017. Some of these remarks were presented in a different format at the 2016 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, New York, May 27–30, 2016.

2. Prior to the 1970s and 1980s, relatively few women held earned doctorates. The American Council on Education records that in 1970, of 60,000 doctorates awarded, women received only 6,000, about 10 percent. The world has changed. In 2011, men received 80,000 doctorates and women 84,000. American Council of Education, Higher Education Spotlight Infographic Brief: Pipelines, Pathways, & Institutional Leadership: An Update on the Status of Women in Higher Education, 2015. In 2013, women held 48.4 percent of all tenure-track positions, although only 37.5 percent of tenured positions. Problems persist. In all ranks, women's pay was less than men's, with the largest gap being at the full professor rank, where women earned on average 87.2 percent of what men earned. Catalyst, Quick Take: Women in Academia, July 9, 2015, 1–2.

3. “The Development of Geopolitics in Venezuela since World War II,” paper given at Latin American Studies Conference, Bloomington, Ind., October, 1980.

4. Ewell, Judith, “The Extradition of Marcos Pérez Jiménez: Effective Precedent for Enforcement of Administrative Honesty?” Journal of Latin American Studies 9 (November 1977), 291–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. American Council on Education, Fact Sheet on Higher Education, 2011.

6. For example, see Alexander, Robert, The Venezuelan Democratic Revolution: A Profile of the Regime of Rόmulo Betancourt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Ameringer, Charles, The Democratic Left in Exile: The Antidictatorial Struggle in the Caribbean, 1945–1959 (Miami: University of Miami Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Levine, Daniel, Conflict and Political Change in Venezuela (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and Martz, John D., Acciόn Democrática: Evolution of a Modern Political Party in Venezuela (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Ewell, Judith, The Indictment of a Dictator: The Extradition and Trial of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

8. Ewell, Judith, Venezuela: A Century of Change (London and Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

9. Ewell, Judith, Venezuela and the United States: From Monroe's Hemisphere to Petroleum's Empire (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

10. I don't mean to overlook the nineteenth-century works in English that do exist. I just wish there were more of them. See for example the works of John Lombardi, Winthrop R. Wright, Robert Ferry, Robert Matthews, Arlene Diaz, Doug Yarrington, Reuben Zahler, and Michael McKinley.

11. Ewell, Judith, Juicio al dictador, Cabana, Valentina, trans. (Caracas: Fundación Andrés Mata, 2006)Google Scholar; Ewell, Judith, Venezuela y los Estados Unidos, Carr, David, trans. (Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, 1999)Google Scholar.

12. Beezley, William and Ewell, Judith, eds., The Human Tradition in Latin America (Wilmington, DE, 1987)Google Scholar; Beezley, William and Ewell, Judith, eds. The Human Tradition in Latin America: The Nineteenth Century (Wilmington, DE: 1989)Google Scholar.

13. Ewell, Judith, “Ligia Parra Jahn: The Blonde with the Revolver,” in The Human Tradition in Modern Latin America, Beezley, William H. and Ewell, Judith, eds., revised 2nd ed. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997), 205–222Google Scholar.

14. Ewell, Judith, “Barely in the Inner Circle: Jeane Kirkpatrick,” in Women and American Foreign Policy: Lobbyists, Critics, and Insiders (America in the Modern World), Crapol, Edward P., ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 53–71Google Scholar.

15. Judith Ewell, “Venezuela in Crisis,” Current History (March 1993); “Debt and Politics in Venezuela,” Current History (March 1989); “Venezuela: Interim Report on a Social Pact,” Current History (January 1986).

16. Ewell, Judith, “Venezuela 1930–1989” in Cambridge History of Latin America: 1930 to the Present, Vol. 8, Bethell, Leslie, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

17. Ewell, Judith, “Che Guevara and Venezuela: Tourist, Guerrilla Mentor, and Revolutionary Sprit,” Che's Travels: The Making of a Revolutionary in 1950s Latin America, Drinot, Paulo, ed. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 148–180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. de Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado, Epitaph of a Small Winner, Grossman, William L., trans. (NY, 1990), 209Google Scholar.