Prof. Gerardo Leibner

Associate Professor, Department of History

Latin American 20th century political and social history.

Left-wing political thinking and practices during 20th century. 

Transnational (and transregional) politics during Cold War era.

Main issues of interest:

Latin American Communists and Socialists during 20th century.

Italian left and Latin American during Cold War. 

Social and cultural conflicts and their political implications, revolutionary political movements, social organizations, political violence, collective identifications, women history in social movements and political parties, social values and concepts in political and social organizations, the relations between political mobilization and social mobility, women political practices, "history from below", oral history and life stories.

Ongoing research projects:

Italian communists and Latin American revolutionaries, 1958-1976. 

Revolutionary internationalism in the 1960s and 1970.

Challenges of oral and contemporary history.

Latin American communism and its social and cultural contexts.

DOCTORAL STUDENTS SUPERVISED

2005-2010 Nahuel Ribke, “Globo Television Network during the military regime in Brazil (1965-1985)”, supervised together with Prof. Jerome Bourdon (Communications Dept.), School of History, Tel Aviv University.

2006-2013 Leandro Kierzsembaum, “The Origins of the Repressive Regime in Uruguay (1945-1968)”, School of History Tel Aviv University.

2006-2013 Lior Ben David, “Indians and Indigenistas in the Field of Criminal Law: The Cases of Mexico and Peru, 1910s-1960s”, supervised together with Prof. Assaf Likhovski (Law Faculty), School of History, Tel Aviv University.

2010-2015 Claudia Stern, “Middle classes in Chile (1930-1962), fragmented identities”, supervised together with Dr. Alfredo Riquelme (Instituto de Historia, Universidad Católica de Chile), School of History, Tel Aviv University.

2011-2018 Yael Mabat, “Adventist missionaries and Indians in the Peruvian Altiplano, 1900-1930”, supervised together with Prof. Steven Kaplan (Department of Comparative Religion, Hebrew University of Jerusalem), School of History, Tel Aviv University.

2020, Michal Haramati (Universidad del Pais Vasco), “Auto-Emancipation: Decolonial Perspectives on Autonomous Political Mizrahi and Sephardic Organizations in Israel 1948-1967”, supervised together with Prof. Zesar Martínez.

MA Thesis supervised:

2003: Adi Goren, “José Manuel Balmaceda and the origins of the Chilean civil war of 1891”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2003: Aviv Cohen, “A revolution and a leader in headlines: Cuba, Castro and the US press, 1956-1960”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2004: Barak Afik, “The Capaccocha rite. Imperial human sacrifices in Cusco area under Inca rule”, supervised together with Prof. Yohanan Bar Yaffe (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2005: Uri Rozenheck, “Between two cities, Concepción and Santiago: regional conflicts and loyalties during Chile war of independence”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2005: Ezer Vierba, “Coira, an introduction. A history of a penal colony in Panama, 1919-1935”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2006: Lior Ben David, “Civilized, Semi-civilized and Savages: The Indians in the Criminal Law of Peru, 1915-1940”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2006: Sary Shenhar, “Cuban initiatives of multilateral agreements in the international sugar markets, 1926-1933”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2010: Ilan Diner, “Professional Imperialism: The Marines, Professionalism and the USA Occupations in Central America and the Caribbean, 1916–1934”, supervised together with Dr. Michael Zakim, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2011: Anat Stolarsky, “Foreigners in the service of liberation theology. Foreign priests in Lima shantytowns, 1968-1983”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2014: Orly Benjamin, “The indigenous peoples in the Bolivian educational books and programs, 1930-1970”, student of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, supervised together with Prof. Yohanan Bar Yaffe.

2015 Basma Fahoum, “Tabac growers narratives in the Galilee”, supervised together with Dr. Khaled Furani (Sociology Dept. Tel Aviv University), in the framework of the Oral History Laboratory of the Cultural Research Unit at the Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University.

2016 Shelly Shaul, “The social history of Dimona through narratives of the first inhabitants of Morrocan origins”, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2018 Joao Koatz Miragaya, “Rio de Janeiro narratives on soccer professionalization during the 20s”, together with Dr. Ori Preuss, History Dept., Tel Aviv University.

2018 Maayan Nahari, "Domestic workers in 1960's and 1970s Buenos Aires"

2019: Yarden Avital, “Jehudo-sovieticus: the motivation for "making Aliya" among the USSR Jewry in the 1970's”, together with Prof. Igal Halfin (History Dept), in the framework of the Oral History Laboratory of the Cultural Research Unit at the Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University.

2021: Johnatan Verissimo Yanai, "The Pedagogical Program of Ben Shemen Youth Village: Boarding School Graduates’ Narratives (1964-1980)", together with Prof. Avner Ben Amos, in the framework of the Oral History Laboratory of the Cultural Research Unit at the Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University.

2022: Sharon Wolfowich, "An unclear revolutionary identity: Juan García Oliver – anarchist-syndicalist and Minister of Justice"

2022: Hadas Segal, "The strange case of the Luisi sisters: professional pioneers and breakthrough women at the Uruguayan public debate of the early 20^th century"

Books

Camaradas y Compañeros. Una historia política y social de los comunistas del Uruguay.
Vol. 1: La era Gómez 1941-1955.
Vol. 2: La era Arismendi 1955-1973.
Montevideo: Ediciones Trilce, 2011.

‘The New Indians’. The Rising of Mass Politics in Peru, 1895-1932, Tel Aviv, Iberoamerica Series – Ramot Publishers, 2003. (Hebrew)
'האינדיאנים החדשים'. צמיחתה של פוליטיקת ההמונים בפרו, 1895-1932, תל אביב, סדרת איברו-אמריקה, רמות, 2003.

El Mito del Socialismo Indígena en Mariátegui. Fuentes y Contextos Peruanos.
Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1999.

Articles

"The Italian Communist Party between 'Old Camarades in Arms' and the Challenges of the New Armed Left", in Tanya Harmer and Alberto Martín Álvarez (Eds), Toward a Global History of the Latin America's Revolutionary Left, (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 2020), pp.171-198.

“Women in Uruguayan Communism: Contradictions and Ambiguities, 1920s-1960s”, Journal of Latin American Studies. 1-30, October 2017. Doi:10.1017/S0022216X17001201 

“Repensar la dependencia ideológica y el eurocentrismo en el comunismo uruguayo, 1934-1955”, in Patricio Herrera González (coord..), El comunismo en América Latina. Experiencias militantes, intelectuales y trasnacionales (1917-1955), (Valparaíso, Chile: Universidad de Valparaíso, 2017), pp.101-118.

“Consolidar un viraje en medio de una tormenta. El Partido Comunista del Uruguay ante la desestalinización de 1956”, Nuestra Historia. Revista de Historia de la Fundación de Estudios Marxistas (Madrid), No.2, 2016, pp. 48-65.

“Parti de masses, parti masculinisé? Les femmes dans le Parti communiste uruguayen (1946-1968) ", in Berges K., Burgos D., Ludec N. et Yusta M., Resistantes, militantes, citoyennes : L’Engagement politique des femmes aux XXe et XXIe siecles [Mondes Hispanophones 43] (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015), pp. 139-151.

“HaTikva Encampment 2011 or the Ambiguous Agency of the Marginalized”, Current Anthropology Supplement, Vol. 56 No. S11; Politics of the Urban Poor: Aesthetics, Ethics, Volatility, Precarity (October 2015), pp. S159-S168

“La experiencia de A.S.O. (1948-1953): Fracaso político e impulso a la renovación clasista de la izquierda uruguaya”, Contemporánea. Historia y problemas del siglo XX 4 (2013), pp. 145-166.

“The Memory of Labour Overshadowed: Latin America’s Labour Movements”, in Jürgen Mittag and Berthold Unfried (eds.), The Memory of Labour and Social Movements: A Global Perspective, ITH Conference Proceedings, Vol. 45 (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2011).

“José Luis Massera y la reconstrucción del Partido Comunista del Uruguay (1955-1973)”, in Roberto Markarian y Ernesto Mordecki (coordinadores), José Luis Massera, ciencia y compromiso social, Montevideo, PEDECIBA – Orbe, 2010. Republished in: Jaime Yaffé (coord.), Cinco estudios recientes sobre el comunismo uruguayo, Programa Buenos Aires de Historia Política del siglo XX, 2012.

“Condicionantes de “la teoría de la revolución continental” de Rodney Arismendi”, in “¿Las “ideas fuera de lugar”? El problema de la recepción y la circulación de ideas en América Latina, Mesa 9, Antiimperialismo, comunismo y nacionalismo popular en las izquierdas del Cono Sur, V Jornadas de Historia de las Izquierdas, (Buenos Aires: Centro de Documentación e Investigación de Culturas de Izquierda en la Argentina, 2009), pp. 67-89.

“Las ideologías sociales de los revolucionarios uruguayos de los 60”, Nuevo mundo – mundos nuevos 7 (2007) (“L'idée de Révolution en Amérique Latine du 19e au 20e siècle”).

"Nosotras (Uruguay, 1945-1953), las contradicciones de la escritura femenina comunista y sus significados sociales”, in Roland Forgues and Jean-Marie Flores (eds.) Escritura femenina y reivindicación de género en América Latina (Paris: Mare & Martin, 2005).

“Radicalism and Integration: The Tahuantinsuyu Committee Experience and the Indigenismo of Leguía Reconsidered, 1919-1924", Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 9:2 (2003), pp. 1-24.

“Indigenismo, autoridad intelectual y jerarquías sociales. Dos reportajes sobre un indio en Amauta”, Histórica 27 (2003), pp. 467-483.

“Pedro Zulen: Del indigenismo paternalista al humanismo radical”, European Review of Latin American Studies 63 (1997), pp. 29-47.

“Pensamiento Radical Peruano: González Prada, Zulen, Mariátegui”, Cuadernos Americanos, No. 66 (1997), pp. 47-66. Re-published: Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (EIAL) 8:1 (1997).

“Mariátegui: the formation of a revolutionary indo-american identity”, Zmanim, Tel Aviv, No. 54 (1995), pp. 27-41 (Hebrew)
"מריאטגי: עיצובה של זהות מהפכנית אינדו-אמריקנית", זמנים, 54 (1995), עמ. 27-41.

“La Protesta y la andinización del anarquismo en el Perú, 1912-1915”, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (EIAL), 5:11 (1994), pp. 83-102.