Randal Sheppard, Universität zu Köln
Casa Diego Rivera, Mexico City, by Juan O’Gorman, 1931
Mexico City was one of the most important and culturally vibrant hubs of political exile in the Western Hemisphere during the twentieth century. However, the scholarly literature about this phenomenon has so far been limited by disciplinary specialization and a mostly Eurocentric tendency to focus on national communities of exile, particularly Spanish Republicans. Based at the University of Cologne and funded by the European Research Council, the postdoctoral project Left-Wing Exile in Mexico, 1934-1960 aims to produce research that moves beyond such limitations. Lead investigator Aribert Reiman is researching the urban topography of exile in Mexico City in a way that cuts across national communities of exile, while my fellow postdoctoral researcher Elena Díaz Silva is taking a multidisciplinary approach to the study of gender identities and particularly masculinities in exile.
Global Urban History 