Dr Jake Blanc is lecturer in Latin American history at the University of Edinburgh. His research and teaching explores the history of human rights, memory, and borderlands in Latin America, with a particular focus on Brazil. He is the author of Before the Flood: the Itaipu Dam and the Visibility of Rural Brazil (Duke University Press, 2019), and the co-editor of Big Water: the Making of the Borderlands between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay (University of Arizona Press, 2018). He is the recipient of major fellowships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, and the Fulbright Foundation. He is currently working on two new projects: a history of Brazil's interior (already under contract with Duke University Press), and a biography of Aluízio Palmar, a former political prisoner and pioneering human rights activist.
Dr. Blanc received his PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his BA in history and Latin American studies from the University of California, San Diego.