Gustavo Morales
Gustavo Morales
Associate Professor & Director, Political Science Program, Universidad Javeriana (Colombia)
PhD in Political Science, 2015
After I graduated from Carleton University, I returned to Colombia. I got off the plane and I told my mother: “I came back with a wife, a son and a couple of good ideas”. The first two things were true: my son was born in Ottawa, and my mother had scarcely met my wife. The unsolved question was how good these ideas were. With the first rejections I got when I tried to publish parts of my doctorate research, they did not seem much. However, my luck suddenly changed with the acceptance letter of a leading British journal interested in the problem of modernity in the contemporary world. Later came a book in Spanish, which for my surprise sold well. I told every person I could about the findings of my work, in panels, in books fairs. Once a friend from the arts asked me if I could put my research into songs. Maybe, I replied, and two musicals were born. I joined a theatre company focused in the communications of science through art; we won two grants, including the national cultural scholarship. During this time, I got a tenure at Javeriana University. I teach two courses, Latin America Modernity Problems and International Relations. I am currently working in a research about the Covid-19 pandemic and its differenced effects in world politics. In 2021, I was appointed as head of the political science program since we are working with some German universities in the way to improve curriculum administration.
Carleton University gave me perspective. I was able to interact and discuss with people with different background, nationalities and opinions. It allowed me to see myself and analyze my country and region from a different standpoint and through different theories, which have informed my work on Latin America and Colombia.