Carnegie Mellon University

John Soluri

John Soluri

Associate Professor

  • Baker Hall 231 D
  • 412-268-7122

Bio

Professor Soluri's research and teaching explore the relationship between social and environmental change in Latin America. His book, Creatures of Fashion: Animals, Global Markets, and the Transformation of Patagonia (Spring 2024) examines how the commodification of wild and domesticated animals for textiles transformed Patagonia.

New research projects include Coffee Break. Supported by Carnegie Mellon's Center for Arts in Society, the project will promote disruptive thinking about “good coffee” by bringing coffee drinkers into conversations with coffee farmers, roasters, baristas, and one another in order to re-imagine forms of hospitality rooted in sustainability and justice, not connoisseurship.

He is also working on research related to histories of petroleum extraction in Patagonia and agricultural diversity and cuisine in Latin America.His earlier work on export banana production and consumption is available in a second edition (2021) of his award-winning book, Banana Cultures and also here in animation TedEd education video.

He is currently working with three graduate students: Francisco Javier Bonilla who is writing his dissertation on the history of water infrastructure in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Panama City; Matthew Turetsky who is researching quinoa and agrodiversity in highland Perú; and Zach Crouch who is interested in the Mexican Revolution's transnational influences on struggles for land in the Americas.

Education

Ph.D.: University of Michigan, 1998

Publications

  • "The Wild Side: Hunting Guanacos in Patagonia." Global Environment 16, no. 1 (2023): 40-56.

  •  

    “Materializing Cold: Refrigeration and Food Infrastructure in Argentina during the Twentieth Century.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Material Cultures, edited by Irina D. Mihalache and Elizabeth Zanoni, pp. 139-152.  London: Bloomsbury Academic 2023.

  •  

    “Un lugar para guanacos. Integrando animales en la historia social de la Patagonia.” In

    Estudios del Extremo Austral del Continente, edited by María Valeria Álvarez, Jan Ramón Vilaboa and Silvina López Rivera, pp. 115-144. Buenos Aires: Editorial Teseo, 2022.

  •  

    "New Materialisms, Familiar Challenges." Agricultural History 96, no. 1-2 (2022): 248-252.

  • “Fur Sealing and Unsettled Sovereignties.” In Crossing Empires: Taking U.S. History into Transimperial Terrain, edited by Kristin Hoganson and Jay Sexton. Duke University Press, 2020.
  • (with Claudia Leal and José Augusto Pádua) A Living Past: Environmental Histories of Modern Latin America. Berghahn Books, 2018; Spanish-language version: Un Pasado Vivo: Dos Siglos de Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana. Ediciones Fondo de Cultura Económica 2019.
  • “Home Cooking: Campesinos, Cuisine and Agrodiversity.” In Environmental Histories of Modern Latin America, edited by John Soluri, Claudia Leal, and José Augusto Pádua. Berghahn Books: 2018.
  •  “Limits: A Model T in Tierra del Fuego.” In Fueling Culture: 101 Words for Energy and Environment, edited by Imre Szeman, Jennifer Wenzel and Patricia Yaeger. Fordham University Press, 2016.
  • “Labor, Rematerialized: Putting Environments to Work in the Americas,” International Labor and Working-Class History, v. 85 (2014): 1-15.

Courses Taught

  • Food, Culture, and Power: A History of Eating
  • Coffee and Capitalism
  • Animal Planet: An Environmental History of People and Animals
  • Bananas, Baseball, and Borders: A History of Latin America-U.S. Relations
  • Advanced Seminar in Global Studies
  • Transnational Proseminar (Graduate)

Department Member Since: 1999