By Dr. Adriana Corral Bustos
When
Thursday, November 19, 12.30 pm
University of Arizona Library, Special Collections Instruction Space
Free Event, no registration needed
The Southwest Center invites you to the 2026 Bazy Tankersley Southwest Laureate Lecture, featuring Dr. Adriana Corral Bustos. In her presentation, she will examine the epistemological and methodological transformation that digital technologies have brought to the social sciences and humanities, focusing on how historical knowledge is produced, shared, and preserved. From a critical perspective, the lecture explores the intersection between Digital Humanities and Public History. It cautions against the risks of "technological fetishism" and the sociopolitical biases built into algorithms, arguing that digitization goes beyond a simple change of medium to fundamentally redefine collective memory and identity. Drawing on her experience in different Mexican institutions, the lecture demonstrates how digital repositories safeguard both tangible and intangible cultural heritage while fostering the co-production of knowledge and expanding democratic access to information. Finally, it reflects on the vulnerability and ephemeral nature of virtual archives amid today's information overload. The presentation concludes that the greatest challenge for 21st-century humanists is not merely technical, but ethical and political: ensuring democratization and open access to historical heritage without sacrificing analytical rigor, ethics, or epistemic diversity in the face of the digital whirlwind.
Adriana Corral Bustos is a Senior Research Professor ("Titular A") in the History Program at El Colegio de San Luis, A.C. (COLSAN) and holds Level I recognition from the National System of Researchers and Scholars (SNII) for the 2026–2031 term. She possesses a robust interdisciplinary background: she earned her Ph.D. in History from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), her M.A. in History from COLSAN, and her Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the Law School at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí (UASLP).
Throughout her distinguished career in teaching and research, her work has focused on unraveling Mexico's historical, economic, social, and cultural processes from the 19th through the 21st centuries. Recently, she has positioned herself at the academic vanguard by integrating digital humanities and public history into her projects. Among her highest-impact social initiatives are the recovery and digitization of public memory through the audiovisual archives of Canal Nueve TV (San Luis Potosí, Mexico) and her research on corporate practices for managing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
She is the author, co-author, and editor of numerous publications that serve as benchmarks in the study of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Her prominent recent works include El Concepto efímero para los estudios históricos (The Ephemeral Concept in Historical Studies, 2024), co-authored with Jennifer L. Jenkins; Historia pública: cultura material e inmaterial (Public History: Tangible and Intangible Culture, 2025), co-authored with Jennifer L. Jenkins; Prácticas y estrategias empresariales para la gestión de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (Corporate Practices and Strategies for Managing Sustainable Development Goals, 2025), co-edited with Juan Carlos Neri Guzmán and Montserrat Gómez Martínez; and Las Humanidades Digitales y la Historia Pública: memoria, identidad y patrimonio (Digital Humanities and Public History: Memory, Identity, and Heritage, 2026), co-edited with María Isabel Monroy Castillo and Luiz Mezeta Canul.
Her research excellence has been recognized with prestigious honors, including the "Francisco Javier Clavijero" National Award granted by the INAH (2005) for best research in History and Ethnohistory, and the "20 de Noviembre" State Award for Historical Research (2003). Deeply committed to knowledge dissemination and community engagement, Dr. Corral Bustos actively serves as a peer reviewer, a voting member of the Citizen Council of Culture of San Luis Potosí, and a dedicated mentor to emerging generations of professionals and scholars.