Contact Information
313 Main Library, M/C 522
1408 West Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801
Biography
Dr. Antonio Sotomayor is an associate professor, historian, and librarian of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also hold faculty appointments in the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese, and Recreation, Sport, and Tourism, and is an affiliated faculty member at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Illinois. His research revolves around issues of identity/cultural politics, nationalism, international relations, religion, hegemony, and U.S.-Latin American relations through the window of sport. His book, The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, and International Politics in Puerto Rico (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016), studies the role that the Olympic movement played in Puerto Rican construction of national identity, in the development of an autonomist political culture, and in Puerto Rican agency in international politics. In 2017 it won the José Toribio Medina book award from the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM), the main association for Latin American librarians. He is a coeditor, with César R. Torres, of Olimpismo: The Olympic Movement in the Making of Latin America and the Caribbean, featured in the book series Sport, Culture, and Society from the University of Arkansas Press. His work appears in journals such as The Latin Americanist, Hispania Nova, The Americas, Caribbean Studies, and The International Journal of the History of Sport, among others. His next book project studies the intersections of religion, imperialism, and sport through the YMCA in Puerto Rico and Cuba (1898-1950s).
As a librarian, he directs the Latin American and Caribbean Studies collection at the University of Illinois. With close to one million volumes and numerous specialized databases, the collection is considered among the best in the nation. He oversee all aspects related to Latin America and the Caribbean at the University Library including collection development, reference, instruction, serial management, and offer specialized research consultations. His main interests at the library include in depth research consultations, collection development, and liaison work with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies. He is the Director of the Digital Library of Latin American and Caribbean Sport (DLLACS). He also Directs the Conde de Montemar Letters, 1761-1799 project, which provides access to a unique collection of 18th century letters from Peru and Madrid.
Education
2012 - Ph.D. - History, University of Chicago
2006 - M.A. - Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2004 - M.S. - Counseling, Indiana University at Bloomington
2000 - B.A. - Psychology, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Mayagüez
Courses Taught
Same Sea, Different Shores: Nationalism and Identity in the Caribbean. (Knox College)
Colonial Puerto Rico under the U.S. Empire. (Univ. of Chicago)
Introduction to Latin American Civilizations, II: The Colonial Period, Independence, and Early Republics. (Univ. of Chicago)
Introduction to Latin American and Caribbean Studies (Univ. of Illinois)
selected publications
Books
Sotomayor, Antonio. Religious Games: The YMCA, Sport, and Imperial Statecraft in Cuba and Puerto Rico, 1898-1950s. (in preparation).
Sotomayor, Antonio. La colonia soberana: Deporte olímpico, identidad nacional y política internacional. (forthcoming 2020).
Sotomayor, Antonio and César R. Torres, editors, Olimpismo: The Olympic Movement in the Making of Latin America and the Caribbean. Sports, Culture, and Society Series. Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansa Press, 2020.
Sotomayor, Antonio. The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, and International Politics in Puerto Rico. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Winner of the 2017 José Toribio Medina Book Award.
Articles
“Sports in Latin America and the Caribbean.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies. Ed. Ben Vinson. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
Sotomayor, Antonio. "Cartas para la historia: El epistolario de los Carrillo de Albornoz y Bravo de Lagunas, condes de Montemar, en el ocaso del imperio español en América, 1761-1799." Revista de Historia de América No. 158 (enero-julio 2020): 404-420.
Sotomayor, Antonio. “Los Juegos del dictador: Rafael Trujillo, el centenario dominicano y la solidaridad antillana durante los Juegos Interantillanos de 1944.” Hispania Nova 17 (2019): 392-425.
Sotomayor, Antonio. "Genetic Genealogy for the Study of Puerto Rican, Spanish, and Portuguese Family History: Lessons from the Sotomayor, Colón, and Pereira." Journal of Genealogy and Family History 3, 1 (2019): 1-20.
Sotomayor, Antonio de. "Linajes encontrados: Genealogía genética para la historia familiar en Puerto Rico, España y Portugal a través de los Sotomayor, Colón y Pereira." Hereditas 19, 2 (2018): 79-112.
Sotomayor, Antonio. "The Triangle of Empire: Sport, Religion, and Imperialism in Puerto Rico’s YMCA, 1898-1926." The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History 74, 4 (October 2017): 481-512.
Sotomayor, Antonio. "Caribbean Soccer: Hispanoamericanismo and the Identity Politics of Fútbol in Puerto Rico,1898-1920s." The Latin Americanist 61, 2 (June 2017): 193-224.
Sotomayor, Antonio, "Colonial Olympism: Puerto Rico and Jamaica’s Olympic Movement in Pan‐American Sport, 1930 to the 1950s," in “Historicizing the Pan-American Games,” ed. César Torres and Bruce Kidd, special issue, The International Journal of the History of Sport 33, 1-2 (2016): 84-104.
Sotomayor, Antonio, "Operation Sport: “Puerto Rico’s Recreational and Political Consolidation in an Age of Progress.” Journal of Sport History 42, 1 (Spring 2015): 59-86.
Sotomayor, Antonio, “Un parque para cada pueblo: Julio Enrique Monagas and the Politics of Sport and Recreation in Puerto Rico during the 1940s.” Caribbean Studies 42, 2 (July-December 2014): 3-40.
Sotomayor, Antonio, "“Patron Saint Festivities, Politics, and Culture: Celebrating the Colonial Nation in San Germán, Puerto Rico, 1950s.” CENTRO Journal, 20, 2 (2008): 100-125.
Book Chapters
Sotomayor, Antonio. “Nationalism and the Struggle for Freedom in Puerto Rico’s Olympic Sport.” In Antonio Sotomayor and César R. Torres, editors. Olimpismo: The Olympic Movement in the Making of Latin America and the Caribbean. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2020, 73-94.
Sotomayor, Antonio. "Colonial Olympism: Puerto Rico and Jamaica’s Olympic Movement in Pan‐American Sport, 1930 to the 1950s." In Bruce Kidd and César Torres, editors, Historicizing the Pan-American Games. London: Routledge, 2016, 82-102.
Sotomayor, Antonio. "Challenges and Alternatives to Caribbean Family History and Genealogy: Archives and Sources in Puerto Rico." In Roberto Delgadillo, editor, Who are We Really?: Latin American Family, Local and Micro-Regional Histories and Their Impact on Understanding Ourselves. Papers of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials. Salt Lake City, University of Utah, 2014. New Orleans, LA: SALALM Secretariat, Latin American Library, Tulane University. 2016, 91-115.
Sotomayor, Antonio. “The Cold War Games of a Colonial Latin American Nation: San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1966.” In Heather L. Dichter and Andrew L. Johns, editors, Diplomatic Games: Sport, Statecraft, and International Relations since 1945. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2014, 217-249.