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Renata Keller, Ph.D.

Associate Professor; Undergraduate Advisor
Renata Keller
she, her, hers

Summary

I believe in the power of connection across time and space. What one person or group of people does in one place and time affects other people in different places and times in unexpected and profound ways.

I specialize in Latin American and Cold War history. I am currently completing a book about how people and nations across the Americas caused, experienced, and were affected by the Cuban Missile Crisis. My first book, Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution, explored how the Cuban Revolution transformed Mexico’s domestic politics and international relations. It was awarded SECOLAS's Alfred B. Thomas Book Prize and honorable mentions for RMCLAS's Thomas McGann and Michael C. Meyer Prizes.

I received my B.A. in History and Spanish from Arizona State University and my Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. I taught international relations at Boston University for five years before joining the History Department at the University of Nevada in 2017. I have published journal articles in The Journal of Latin American Studies, The Journal of Cold War Studies, The Journal of Cold War History, The Latin American Research Review, Diplomatic History, Contexto Internacional, and Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, as well as popular articles in History Today and The Washington Post. My research has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Philanthropic Educational Organization, the Kluge Center at the U.S. Library of Congress, the American Philosophical Society, and other institutions. I am co-editor of InterConnections: The Global Twentieth Century, a new book series at UNC Press that is home to innovative global, international, and transregional histories of the long twentieth century.

I am also a dedicated educator. I teach classes on Modern Latin American History, Cuban History, the Global Cold War, and Drugs and Security in the Americas. I also enjoy training the next generation of thinkers, historians, and history teachers in my classes on Historical Research and Writing, Historiography, Historiography of the Americas, and my graduate research seminar on Twentieth Century History.

In my free time, you can find me reading fantasy and sci-fi novels, watching soapy TV shows, gardening, cooking, and shuttling my two children between their excessive number of activities.

Specialties

  • Latin America
  • Cold War
  • International relations
  • Cuba
  • Mexico

Courses taught

  • HIST 228: Introduction to Latin American History and Culture II
  • HIST 229: Drugs and Security in the Americas
  • HIST 300: Historical Research and Writing
  • HIST 346: History of Cuba
  • HIST 407/607: Global Cold War
  • HIST 440A/640A: The Cuban Revolution
  • HIST 723: Research Seminar in Twentieth Century History
  • HIST 781: Historiography of the Americas
  • HIST 783: Historiography

Books

  • Nuclear Reactions: Latin America and the Cuban Missile Crisis (forthcoming, UNC Press, 2025)
  • Mexico's Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
    • Winner, 2016 SECOLAS Alfred B. Thomas Book Prize
    • Honorable Mention, 2016 RMCLAS Thomas McGann Book Prize
    • Honorable Mention, 2018 RMCLAS Michael C. Meyer Prize for Best Book on Mexican History in a Five-year Period

Refereed journal articles

  • “Responsibility of the Great Ones: How the Organization of American States and the United Nations Helped Resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Journal of Latin American Studies 51:4 (November 2019), 883-904
  • “The Revolution Will Be Teletyped: Cuba’s Prensa Latina News Agency and the Cold War Contest Over Information,” Journal of Cold War Studies 21, no. 3 (Summer 2019), 88-113
    • Honorable Mention, 2020 SECOLAS Sturgis Leavitt Award for Best Article
  • “Fan Mail to Fidel: The Cuban Revolution and Mexican Solidarity,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 33, no. 1 (February 2017), 6-31
  • “The Latin American Missile Crisis,” Diplomatic History 39:2 (April 2015), 195-222
    • Winner, 2016 NECLAS Joseph T. Criscenti Best Article Prize
  • “Building ‘Nuestra América:’ National Sovereignty and Regional Integration in the Americas,” Contexto Internacional, 35, no. 2 (2013), 537-564
  • “A Foreign Policy for Domestic Consumption: Mexico’s Lukewarm Defense of Castro, 1959-1969,” The Latin American Research Review 47, no. 2 (Summer 2012), 100-119
  • “The Martyrdom of Monseñor Angelelli: The Popular Creation of Martyrs in Twentieth-Century Argentina,” The Journal of Religion & Society, 12 (2010)

Book chapters

  • “Testing the Limits of Censorship? Política Magazine and Mexico’s ‘Perfect Dictatorship,’ 1960-1967,” in Journalism, Censorship, and Satire in Mexico, ed. Benjamin Smith, Paul Gillingham, and Michael Lettieri (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019), 221-235
  • “Don Lázaro Rises Again: Heated Rhetoric, Cold Warfare, and the 1961 Latin American Peace Conference” in Beyond the Eagle’s Shadow: New Histories of Latin America’s Cold War, ed. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Mark Lawrence, and Julio Moreno (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013), 129-149

Other publications/projects (selected)

  • “The Cuban Missile Crisis Offers Lessons for Diplomacy Today—If We Listen,” co-author with Michelle Paranzino, The Washington Post Made by History section, October 22, 1962
  • “Rockets Here, In Our Pretty Little Cuba: The View from the Epicenter of the Cuban Missile Crisis,” History Today, 72, no. 10 (October 2022), p. 28-41
  • “Research Note: The Cuban Missile Crisis and a War of Words in Argentina,” Journal of Cold War History, 22:4 (October 2022), 521-528
  • Co-Producer, “Historias” Podcast Audio Documentary on the Cuban Missile Crisis, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Historical Association
  • “From One Disaster to Another? Mexico’s Cold War and the War on Drugs,” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) Blog (March 22, 2016)
  • “Mexico: From Cold War to Drug War,” The Strategy Bridge (September 30, 2015), reposted in The National Interest (October 1, 2015)
  • “Stamps, Rum, and Hand Grenades: Fidel Castro’s Recipe for Revolution,” Wilson Center Cold War International History Project e-Dossier, 66 (September 29, 2015)

Prizes

  • Sturgis Leavitt Award for Best Article, Honorable Mention, Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (2020)
  • Michael C. Meyer Book Prize, Special Commendation, Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies (2018)
  • Alfred B. Thomas Book Prize, Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (2016)
  • Thomas McGann Book Prize, Honorable Mention, Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies (2016)
  • Joseph T. Criscenti Article Prize, New England Council of Latin American Studies (2016)
  • Edward H. Moseley Paper Prize, Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (2009)

Curriculum vitae