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Sharonah Fredrick

Sharonah Fredrick

Affiliate Global Futures Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory

sharonah@buffalo.edu

Titles

  • Affiliate Global Futures Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory

Biography

Exploding the racism evident in many Eurocentric-oriented manifestations of Latin American history and literature is a personal goal of Dr. Sharonah Fredrick, particularly in relation to Latin America’s Native American civilizations, and their attempts to restructure and rebuild a healthier, post-Conquest environment. And as an anthropologist, one of her specializations is the ecological destruction of the New World during the age of Empire, as well as attempts by indigenous and mestizo communities to restore the lost ecological balance. A bilingual Spanish-English speaker, Sharonah is also fluent in Portuguese and Hebrew. She has published and lectured in all four languages.

At the age of 40, Sharonah embarked on her doctorate in Latin American colonial literature and anthropology, at Stony Brook University, after 17 years in international development and archaeology. Her MA was completed at Tel Aviv University, in Spanish and Latin American colonial history, following a BA at the University of Buffalo in Latin American and Celtic anthropology. A Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Degree followed from the International Teachers’ training Consortium of Guadalajara, Mexico. That pre-doctoral work took her to indigenous communities in Latin America, and to peace and reconciliation projects with Israeli and Palestinian professionals in higher education. Having begun, (and finished) her doctorate at a later age, she wished it to have a genuine meaning in terms of her overseas professional experience, and in terms of the daunting social reality faced by many Latino students in the USA. As Assistant Director of ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies) at ASU, she has striven, with the full support of the Center, to widen the global historical outlook of the Renaissance period, as well as to integrate Hispanic and environmental perspectives in the larger field of medieval and Early Modern research.

An active member of the Nature Conservancy and Amnesty International, Sharonah believes that human rights and environmental stewardship constitute the core elements of social justice. She emphasizes the development of these themes in her studies of Spanish and Portuguese dissidence on behalf of the Native peoples of the Americas, during the colonial (1492-1812) period.

Education

  • PhD, Hispanic Language and Literature, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2014
  • TEFL, International Teacher Training Organization, 2002
  • MA, Latin American Colonial History, Tel Aviv University, 1991
  • BA (summa cum laude), Anthropoology and Languages, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1985

Expertise

External Links

Journal Articles

2003

Fredrick, S. E. 2003. Fighting the gods: The "Popol Vuh" (or why the Conquest of Mexico could not repeat itself with the Maya. Revista de humanidades: Tecnológico de Monterrey 14:207-228.

Thesis (PhD)

2014

Fredrick, S. E. 2014. An Unholy Rebellion: Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript. State University of New York at Stony Brook. (link )