Fields of Fire identifies emancipatory networks as loose, discrete, and differentiated actors to explain how activists surmount overwhelming odds. Featuring unique ethnographic material of a sugarcane worker strike in Valle del Cauca and human rights activists in Bogota, as well as over a dozen photographs, Fields of Fire paints a vivid image of Colombian activism amidst violence.
Background
Louis Edgar Esparza is Professor of Sociology at California State University-Los Angeles. He is author of Fields of Fire: Emancipation & Resistance in Colombia (Lexington 2023), co-editor of Human Rights Of, By, and For the People (Routledge 2017), and co-author of Human Rights: A Primer (Routledge 2016). His research has appeared in Global Labor Journal, Contemporary Justice Review, Society & Natural Resources, Partecipazione e Conflitto, and elsewhere. Louis was Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Democracy, Human Rights and Violence Prevention at the University of Brasília in 2022. He served as Co-Chair of the Task Force on Contingent Faculty for the American Sociological Association and is a founding member of the Human Rights section.
Research / Areas of Interest: Political Sociology; Human Rights; Social Movements.
Education
- PhD, Stony Brook University, 2010
- BA, Tufts University, 2003.
Recent Publications
2024
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “Teaching José Martí in Sociological Theory.” Boletin Martiano. 4(1).
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “Lessons from Dom Hélder Câmara.” Journal of Social Encounters 8(2) 299-309.
2023
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “Escape from Academic Freedom.” Journal of Academic Freedom 14.
Esparza, Louis Edgar. 2023. “Making Spaces for Dialogue.” Footnotes: Celebrating 50 Years of the Minority Fellowship Program 51(4): 34.
Esparza, Louis Edgar. Fields of Fire: Emancipation and Resistance in Colombia. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “Occupy Los Angeles: Democracy, Space & Loss at City Hall Park.” Interface 14(1): 101-121.
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “Social Justice & Sociological Theory: Césaire, Mills, & de Beauvoir.” Journal of Social Encounters 7(1): 186-207.
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “Social Democratic Capitalism.” Contemporary Sociology 52(2): 154-56.
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “‘Global, Heartless and Without National Identity’: Oligarchy in Today’s World.” Fulbright Chronicles 1(4): 59-61.
2022
Esparza, Louis Edgar. “Contemporary First Amendment Politics.” Contexts 21(3):22-27.
Courses @ Cal State LA
- SOC 5030: Masters Capstone
- SOC 5021: Contemporary Sociological Theory
- SOC 5020: Classical Sociological Theory
- SOC 4830: Sociology of Human Rights
- SOC 4180: Crowd Behavior & Social Movements
- SOC 4120: Sociological Theory
- SOC 3910: Qualitative Research & Writing in Sociology
Recent Awards
- 2022. Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award, Brazil.
- 2020. American Communities Fellow, CSULA.
ORCID
Social Media
https://www.instagram.com/thereal_esparza
YouTube
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