Yovanna Pineda

Department of History

Associate Professor

yovanna.pineda@ucf.edu

Phone

407-823-2225

Campus Location

Trevor Colbourn Hall 319

Office Hours

By appointment via Zoom

Biography

Dr. Yovanna Pineda is a historian of technology and of Latin American history. Major published works include the book Industrial Development in a Frontier Economy (Stanford University Press, 2009) and a five-paper series on rural technology and culture that has been published as a chapter in an edited volume by Cambridge University Press and as articles published in the Journal of International Affairs, Agricultural History, and Historia Agraria de America Latina. Her current research focuses on the aesthetics of technology and labor, discourses of science and technology, and users of technology in post-development contexts.

Education

Ph.D. in Latin American and Economic History from University of California Los Angeles (2002)
Certificate in Statistical Methods from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1997)
M.A. in Latin American History from University of California Los Angeles (1996)
B.A. in History and Latin American Studies from University of California Los Angeles (1994)

Research Interests

History of Latin America
History of Argentina
History of Technology
Global Issues of Development: Industrialization, Capitalism, & Neoliberalism

Recent Research Activities

Her ongoing works include:

Aesthetics of Post-Development: Art, Technology, and Media in La Isla Maciel, Argentina explores how a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, made vulnerable by decades of deindustrialization, poverty, and neglect, is overcoming the stigmatizing effects of economic blight by developing a mural art program, Pintó la Isla. In 2014, local teachers initiated a program aimed at fostering students' self-development and attracting tourism to the region. They then added a community museum and center, which serves multiple purposes, such as a headquarters for tourism, sleeping quarters for international artists who arrive to paint, a film house for the community, and as a space to share the villa's historical narratives. This book argues that technology, including cell phones, social media, and the internet, helps residents in the port city of La Isla Maciel reimagine their post-capitalist economy and rebuke negative narratives or stereotypes about the barrio. The benefit of this effort is for the community to rehabilitate its reputation through mural art, technology, and community action.

Specters of Peronism: Aesthetics of Labor & Technology in Twentieth-Century Argentina. This book examines the visual, aural, tactile, and sensory aesthetic that produced a workers’ cultural renaissance during the populist leader Juan Domingo Perón’s first two political administrations and propaganda campaigns during his exile. This study argues that the sensorial aesthetic based on the principles of workers’ dignity, working families, women’s rights, and child welfare led to long-standing effects of perceiving Perón as the delivery man of material benefits and his wife Evita as the spiritual healer of all that ails the poor and working classes. These aesthetics and perceptions led to a haunting of Peronism as the savior of the people that persisted well into the early twenty-first century.

Also, she is co-editing a series on the aesthetics of technology in Latin America with Diana J. Montaño, Washington University in St. Louis and Mikael Wolfe, Stanford University. The volume, Latin American Technocultural Worlds: Histories of Design, Aesthetics, and Technology, focuses on Latin American technological aesthetics and design through an in-depth exploration of state modernization projects for the urban and rural environments and individual users who reimagined or reconfigured the aesthetics of technological devices as these were domesticated in their context of use. Expanding the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries scholars in this volume (1) explore how these imaginaries are/were informed and are informed by the politics of design and aesthetics (2) underline the way these imaginaries are not only textual but visual and aural, (3) and, how users altered and reinvented the aesthetics/design of technological devices to meet their cultural and personal values, needs and desires.

Publications

Books

Yovanna Pineda (2009). Industrial Development in a Frontier Economy: The Industrialization of Argentina, 1890-1930, Stanford University Press.

Films

Yovanna Pineda (2019). Stories of the Harvester, https://vimeo.com/395115057, Producer and director.
Yovanna Pineda (2018). Los Contratistas, https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/646706700, Producer and director.
Yovanna Pineda (2017). Las Reinas, Producer and director.

Articles/Essays

Yovanna Pineda (2022). "Spaces of Design & Repair in Twentieth Century Argentine Factories," Histories of Maintenance and Repair Workshop. Université du Luxembourg, C2DH Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History.
Yovanna Pineda (2021), "Conducting Digital and Ethnographic/Participatory Action Research during COVID." Featured in, H-LATAM, Research Corner Blog.
Yovanna Pineda (2020). "Ways of Seeing Maintenance and Repair," Argentina, Technology Stories, vol. 8, no. 2 (September).
Yovanna Pineda, Christiane Berth, & Mikael Wolfe (2020). "Dialogues: History of Technology in Africa and the Americas in the Twentieth Century,” Technology Stories, vol. 8, no. 2 (September).
Emily Johnson, Amy Giroux, and Yovanna Pineda (2020). Work-In-Progress Paper: Context is Key in Immersive Learning Environments, Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN), conference proceedings, Summer, no. 129.
Yovanna Pineda (2020). "International and Local Collaboration in the Social Design of the Harvester in Argentina during the Long Twentieth Century (1900-2010)," Historia Agraria de América Latina (HAAL, ISSN 2452-5162), April, 1(1): pp. 70-93.
Yovanna Pineda (2019). "The Future of Work in a Historically Volatile Economy: Case Study of Farm Machinery Factories in Argentina," The Journal of International Affairs, 72:1 (Winter): 159-171.
Yovanna Pineda (2018). "Farm Machinery Users, Designers and Government Policy in Argentina, 1861-1930," Agricultural History (Summer).
Yovanna Pineda (2018). "Civic Engagement and Empowering Our Students," Women, Gender, and Families of Color in special issue, "Trump's America? Disquiet Campus? Marginalized College Students, Faculty, and Staff Reflect on Learning, Working, Living, and Engaging," Vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring): 132-134.
Yovanna Pineda (2018). “Graffiti Art, Protest and Memory in the Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires City.” The Metropole (The Official Blog of the Urban History Association). Special Series Metropolis (May).
Yovanna Pineda (2017). “Gendering Poverty in Labor Legislation in Argentina, 1900-1930,” Activist History Review. Special Issue on Poverty.
Yovanna Pineda (2017). El ‘Nilo de Argentina’: Proyectos para el manejo del agua y medio ambiente a lo largo del Río Negro, 1880-1910, (“The ‘Nile’ of Argentina: The Irrigation Projects of the Río Negro, 1880-1910”), translated by Maria Eugenia Vásquez. Revista de Historia Internacional (ISTOR), Special Series on Environmental History, Año XVIII, No. 69 (Summer).
Yovanna Pineda (2016). History and Belonging: First-Generation Latino/a Students and the Discipline’s Future. Perspectives on History, Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association (December).
Yovanna Pineda (2009). "Financing Manufacturing Innovation in Argentina, 1890-1930," Business History Review, Vol. 83 (Autumn), 539-562.
Yovanna Pineda (2007). "Manufacturing Profits and Strategies in Argentine Industrial Development, 1904-1930," Business History, Vol. 49, no. 2 (March), 186-210.
Yovanna Pineda (2006). "Sources of Finance and Reputation: Merchant Finance Groups in Argentine Industrialization, 1890-1930," Latin American Research Review, Vol. 41, no. 2 (June), 3-30.

Book Sections/Chapters

Yovanna Pineda (2023). “Using Virtual Reality to Immerse Students in the Middle Passage: Ethics, Challenges, and Benefits,” in Melody Bowdon, Kevin Yee, and William Dorner, editors. Ethical Considerations of Virtual Reality in the College Classroom: Cross-Disciplinary Case Studies of Immersive Technology Implementation (New York: Taylor & Francis).
Yovanna Pineda & Lucas Izquierdo (2022). “Framing the Future: The Take, Nine Queens, and Argentina’s Neoliberal Soundscapes.” In Christopher Ballengee, editor. Music, Sound, and Documentary Film in the Global South. Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield.
Yovanna Pineda (2018). "The Developmental State and the Agricultural Machinery Industry in Argentina," in edited volume, State and Nation-making in Latin America and Spain, 1930-1990 (Cambridge University Press).

Miscellaneous Publications

Yovanna Pineda (2021), "Law to Protect Free Speech Actually Endangers it," Orlando Sentinel, OpEd, 23 July.
Mikael Wolfe and Yovanna Pineda (2021). "Biden should admit past U.S. interference in foreign elections," Orlando Sentinel, OpEd - https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/guest-commentary/os-op-biden-election-interference-history-2...

Awards

Research Fellow, “Spectacular Bodies: Aesthetics of Labor & Technology in Argentina,” Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2024-2025
Sabbatical Award, Type IA (Competitive), College of Arts and Humanities, UCF, 2023-2024
Collaborative Research Seed Grant, “Latin American Technocultural Worlds: Histories of Design, Aesthetics, and Practice,” University of Washington in St. Louis, with Diana J. Montaño, 2023
Mid-career Research Grant to Advance Virtual Reality Middle Passage Experience Project, University of Central Florida. 2020-2023
Research Incentive Award, College of Arts and Humanities, UCF, 2018-2019
Excellence in Research Award, College of Arts and Humanities, UCF, 2018-2019
Workshop Grant, Swiss National Science Foundation, "The Role of Users in Global Technological History." Co-organizer with Dr. Christiane Berth, University of Bern, Switzerland, 2018
Pauley Endowment Travel Award, History Department, University of Central Florida, 2013, 2015, 2017, & 2019
Sabbatical Award, Type IB (Competitive), College of Arts and Humanities, UCF, 2016-2017
Summer Stipends Award, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2014
Summer Seminar on Jewish Buenos Aires, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2014
Research Development Travel Award, College of Arts and Humanities Research Office, University of Central Florida, 2013
Research Incentive and Development, University of Central Florida, 2012.
In-House Research Award, College of Arts and Humanities and the Office of Research and Commercialization, UCF, 2011-2012.
Equipment and Software Support Grant for Teaching, Center for the Humanities and Digital Research, UCF, 2011.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, 2011
Santander Visiting Scholar, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2009-2010

Course #	Course	Title	Mode	Days/Times	Syllabus
93118	HIS3462	History of Science	Web-Based (W)	7:00 PM - 7:00 PM	Unavailable
83802	LAH4503	History of South America	Mixed Mode (M)	M,W 10:30 AM - 11:20 AM	Unavailable

Course #	Course	Title	Mode	Days/Times	Syllabus
20336	HIS3470	History of Technology	Mixed Mode (M)	M,W 10:30 AM - 11:20 AM	Unavailable
13008	LAH4738	Urban Design of Latin America	Web-Based (W)	7:00 PM - 7:00 PM	Unavailable
19643	LAH4780	Poverty & Devel in Latin Amer	Web-Based (W)	7:00 PM - 7:00 PM	Unavailable