ABSTRACT:
Cogitating the dissertation in the Latin Americanist enterprise in North American geography has elicited issues of knowledge generation, disciplinary trends, and social practices of authorship, mentorship, and institutionalization. Over the years, dissertation topics have become more specific, but the permissible themes have greatly widened in scope. By way of example, dissertation titles are analyzed and critiqued to place them in their time and to suggest how the diversity of subject matter now accepted reflects changing ideas about the discipline at large. Most dissertations are not turned into books and the scholarly outcomes and directions of their authors cannot be predicted. Mentors too have different sets of priorities and the departments and universities that sustain these programs vary widely in their commitment and expertise on Latin America. The long-term future of geography and, by extension, Latin Americanist geography, depends on several factors, among which is the implementation of strong scholarly values at the dissertation stage.
