Indication: Professor Regina Horta Duarte – Department of History – Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences/UFMG
Period: August 16 to 30, 2009
Reinaldo Funes Monzote graduated in History from the University of Havana and completed his PhD at the Universidad Jayme I, in Spain, in 2002. He worked between 1992 and 2000 at the Centro de Estudios de Historia y Organización de la Ciencia y la Tecnología and Museo Nacional de las Ciencias Carlos J. Finlay and, since 2002, he has been Coordinator of the Geohistorical Research Program of the Fundación Antonio Núñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y el Hombre, in Havana.
In 2002, he received the Juan Marinello Cultural Research Award in Cuba and, in 2003, the Environmental Thinking Award from the Universidad de Quintana Roo, Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores and UNESCO. He is an associate professor at the University of Havana, where he teaches courses on Environmental History, as well as summer courses at universities in the United States (University of Berkeley, Fordham University and University at Buffalo). He was elected member of the Board of Directors of the Sociedad Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Historia Ambiental (SOLCHA), from 2006 to 2010, member of the Sociedad Cubana de Historia de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (SCHCyT), since 2007. He belongs to the Grupo de Ecología Política del Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO).
His current research focuses on the environmental history of the Caribbean, focusing on topics such as the impact of the sugar industry and the slave plantation, the history of livestock in Cuba since the 18th century, the interaction between men and animals in the history of Cuban society, the emergence of environmentalism and Latin American and Caribbean environmental historiography.