Catherine Komisaruk, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, History
Contact
- MH 4.02.70
- Catherine.Komisaruk@utsa.edu
Bio
Spring 2024 Office Hours: N/A - ON RESEARCH LEAVE.
My research focuses on the social history of Mexico and Central America in the colonial era. My first book, Labor and Love in Guatemala: The Eve of Independence, shows how gender and family relations contributed to the erosion of both Indigenous draft labor and African slavery in the late colonial period. Currently, I am writing a book about native marriage, migration, and activism in colonial Mexico and Guatemala. My work has been supported by fellowships from the American Association of University Women, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of California Humanities Research Institute. I am fluent in English and Spanish and have the basic reading ability in Nahuatl, Portuguese, and Russian. Before going to graduate school in history, I was a math teacher in Guatemala City. UTSA has been my institutional home since 2015.
I graduated from the public school system in Sacramento, California, where I achieved mediocrity in various sports.
Teaching
Recent Courses:
- HIS 3013 Historical Research Methods
- HIS 3303 History of Mexico
- HIS 3363 History of Cuba
- HIS 3393 Women in Mexican History
- HIS 3403 Prehispanic and Colonial Latin America
- HIS 4973 Seminar in History
- HIS 6433 Topics in Latin American History
- HIS 6523 Topics on Borderlands and Migrations
Research Interests
- Colonial-era Latin America
Degrees
- Ph.D., UCLA
- M.A., UCLA
- A.B. Magna Cum Laude, Harvard
