“The Sovereign Colony: Puerto Rico in the Olympic Movement”
Dr. Antonio Sotomayor
Assistant Professor, Historian, and Librarian for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Beckman Auditorium – Monday, 28 September, 4pm
Ceded to the United States unde
r the terms of the Treaty of Paris after the Spanish-American War of 1898, Puerto Rico has since remained a colonial territory. Despite this subordinated colonial experience, however, Puerto Ricans managed to secure national Olympic representation in the 1930s and in so doing nurtured powerful 
ideas of nationalism. By examining how the Olympic movement developed in Puerto Rico, Antonio Sotomayor illuminates the profound role sports play in the political and cultural processes of an identity that developed within a political tradition of autonomy rather than traditional political independence. Dr. Sotomayor’s talk describes the surprising negotiations that gave rise to Olympic sovereignty in a colonial nation, a unique case in Latin America, and uses Olympic sports as a window to view the broader issues of nation building and identity, hegemony, postcolonialism, international diplomacy, and Latin American–U.S. relations. Dr. Sotomayor’s lecture is part of the 2015-16 University Theme “A Nation(s) Divided?” For more information on this event, please contact Prof. Carmela Ferradáns cferrada@iwu.edu
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