Julia Sarreal
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Mail code: 2151Campus: West
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Trained as a historian of Latin America (M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University) with a background in economics (B.A. from Swarthmore College), I have diverse interests in food, drugs, commodities, capitalism, business, and ethnohistory.
My second book, Yerba Mate: The Drink that Shaped a Nation (University of California Press, 2023) is the first to explore the history of this iconic beverage in Argentina from the precolonial period to the present. From yerba mate's Indigenous origins to its ubiquity during the colonial era, from its association with rural people and the poor in the late nineteenth century to its resurgence in the last years of the twentieth century, Yerba Mate documents yerba mate's consumption, production, and cultural importance over time.
My first book, The Guaraní and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History (Stanford University Press, 2014) integrates quantitative and qualitative analysis to expose the daily experiences of the Guaraní Indians residing in Catholic missions during the eighteenth century. Socioeconomic in focus, my work takes a new approach to ethnohistory. It was translated into Spanish and published as Los guaraníes y sus misiones: Una historia socioeconómica (Prometeo Libros, 2018).
My interest in Latin America was sparked when, as an undergraduate, I took a year off from college to live in and volunteer at the Salvation Army homeless shelter in Mexico City. After returning to Swarthmore College and completing a bachelor's degree in economics, I spent two years working in finance with Price Waterhouse LLP in New York City. I then joined the Peace Corps and moved to Curuguaty, Paraguay where I taught at a local university and worked in rural development before going to graduate school.
While conducting research for Yerba Mate: The Drink that Shaped a Nation, I created a personal website about work and life: http://materesearch.weebly.com/.
- Ph.D. History, Harvard University 2009
- A.M. History, Harvard University 2003
- B.A. Economics (Public Policy), Swarthmore College, 1995 (Graduated with Distinction)
- Latin American Studies
- Food
- Drugs
- Commodities
- Capitalism
- Business
- Ethnohistory
Book
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Julia Sarreal. Yerba Mate: The Drink that Shaped a Nation. Berkeley, University of California press, 2022. Reviewed in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America.
- Julia Sarreal. The Guaraní and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History. Stanford University Press, 2014.
- Reviewed in: The American Historical Review; The Journal of Economic History; The Hispanic American Historical Review; Journal of Latin American Studies; Ethnohistory; The Americas; The Catholic Historical Review; Journal of Jesuit Studies; Rey Desnudo: Revista de Libros; and IHS. Antiguos jesuitas en Iberamérica.
- Julia Sarreal. Los guaraníes y sus misiones: Una historia socioeconómica, trans. Thelma Andrea Fernández and Luisa Fernanda Lassaque. Forthcoming, Buenos Aires: Editorial Prometeo, 2018.
Articles
- Julia Sarreal. "From South America to the United States: Guayakí and the Transformation of Yerba Mate." Enterprise and Society (forthcoming).
- Julia Sarreal. "The Rural Woman Speaks in 1970s Argentina." Latin American Research Review 59, no. 2 (forthcoming 2024).
- Julia Sarreal. "Trabajadores de la yerba mate o los esclavos blancos en los bosques del nordeste Argentina al principio del siglo XX." Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana Dr. Emilio Ravignani 60 (forthcoming 2024).
- Julia Sarreal. "The Many Meanings of Yerba Maté: A South American Caffeinated Beverage that Originated with the Guaraní." ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America (Spring 2015): 12-15.
- Sarreal, Julia. "Jesuit Missions and Private Property, Commerce, and Guaraní Economic Initiative.” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Ed. William Beezley. New York: Oxford University Press (2015).
- Julia Sarreal. "Caciques as Placeholders in the Guaraní Missions of Eighteenth Century Paraguay." Colonial Latin American Review 23, no. 2 (2014): 224-251.
- Julia Sarreal. "Revisiting Cultivated Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in the Guaraní Missions." Ethnohistory 60, no. 1 (2013): 101-124.
- Julia Sarreal. "Disorder, Wild Cattle, and a New Role for the Missions: The Banda Oriental, 1776-1786". The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History 67, no. 4 (2011): 517-545.
Book Chapters
- Julia Sarreal. "Counting Heads: Indigenous Leaders in the Guaraní-Jesuit Missions.” In The Rio de la Plata from Colony to Nations: Commerce, Society, and Politics, edited by Fabricio Prado, Viviana L. Grieco, and Alex Borucki, 31-52. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
- Julia Sarreal. “Sucesión de los caciques, elites hereditarias y el debilitamiento de los caciques en las misiones guaraníes (1735-1801),” 17-34. In Paraguay: Investigaciones de historia social y política: III Jornadas Internacionales de Historia del Paraguay en la Universidad de Montevideo, Juan Manuel Casal and Thomas Whigham, eds. Asunción: Editorial Tiempo de Historia, 2013.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship for research at The Huntington Library (2021).
Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities Grant (ASU) for research in Argentina (2018).
Helen Watson Buckner Memorial Fellowship for research at The John Carter Brown Library (2017).
Institute for Humanities Research (ASU) Fellowship (2020-21 and 2016-17).
Institute for Humanities Research (ASU) Seed Grant (2014).
Courses
2023 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 495 | Methods of Historical Inquiry |
| HST 324 | Food in Latin America |
| LAS 324 | Food in Latin America |
2022 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 495 | Methods of Historical Inquiry |
| HST 324 | Lat Am Food: Pol,Econ,Cltr,Soc |
| LAS 324 | Lat Am Food: Pol,Econ,Cltr,Soc |
| HST 493 | Honors Thesis |
| JHR 590 | Reading and Conference |
2021 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 376 | Modern Latin America |
| LAS 376 | Modern Latin America |
| HST 492 | Honors Directed Study |
2021 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 305 | Studies in Latin Amer History |
| HST 375 | Colonial Latin America |
| LAS 375 | Colonial Latin America |
2020 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 495 | Methods of Historical Inquiry |
| HST 376 | Modern Latin America |
| LAS 376 | Modern Latin America |
2020 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 441 | Latin America: World Economy |
| LAS 441 | Latin America: World Economy |
| MAS 598 | Special Topics |
| HST 305 | Studies in Latin Amer History |
2019 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 305 | Studies in Latin Amer History |
2019 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 375 | Colonial Latin America |
| HST 404 | Conquest:Colonial Latin Amer |
| MAS 598 | Special Topics |
| LAS 499 | Individualized Instruction |
| LAS 499 | Individualized Instruction |
2018 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| HST 376 | Modern Latin America |
| LAS 205 | Deep Roots: Latin America |