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IAS Book Launch: Liberation Theology and Praxis in Contemporary Latin America
11 June 2025, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Join editors Pablo Bradbury and Niall H.D. Geraghty for the launch of their book which brings together cross-disciplinary approaches to reevaluate the legacy and significance of liberation theology in Latin America.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Institute of Advanced Studies
Location
-
IAS Common Ground (G11) & onlineground floor, South WingUCL, Gower St, LondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
ABOUT THE BOOK
This interdisciplinary volume brings together approaches from history, theology, cultural studies, architecture, sociology, and anthropology to reevaluate the legacy and significance of liberation theology in Latin America.
Liberation theology was born in the 1960s at a time of Church renewal and socio-economic ferment, as many sought radical solutions to the perceived exhaustion of developmentalist projects and the institutionalised violence of capitalism and dependency. By focussing on praxis – the lived experiences, spiritual, and embodied practices of those engaged in social action – the book challenges the assumption that liberation theology had reached its twilight by the late 1970s. Indeed, it demonstrates that liberationist Christianity was more diverse and internally conflicted, more widely resonant outside ecclesial confines, and more interconnected over time, than often allowed.
The chapters provide new perspectives on liberationist engagements with, and influence on, ecclesiology, Participatory Action Research, architecture and urbanism, feminism, human rights, ecofeminist political theology, and more, from the 1960s to the present moment in Latin America. Drawing these threads together, the book invites us to reconsider liberation theology’s praxis in retrospect and the continuities and changes that reach into the present day.
Liberation Theology and Praxis in Contemporary Latin America. As it Was in the Beginning? was published in February 2025 by University of London Press.
ABOUT THE EVENT
The editors, Pablo Bradbury and Niall Geraghty, will provide a short introduction to the book, its content and motivations. This will be followed by reflections on the text: Daniel McDonald (History, St Antony's College, Oxford) is an expert on the history of liberation theology in Latin America and Joanne Davis (Centre of World Christianity, SOAS) an expert on theology in Africa. Further speakers will be announced soon.
About the Speakers
Pablo Bradbury
at University of Greenwich
Pablo Bradbury holds a PhD in History from the University of Liverpool, with a thesis on the emergence and mobilisation of liberation Christianity in Argentina and in particular its political responses to state terrorism. His research more broadly focuses on left-wing political cultures and social movements during Latin America’s Cold War, exploring religion, international solidarity and strategies for resisting state repression.
Niall H.D. Geraghty
Associate Professor in Latin American Cultural Studies at University College London
Niall H.D. Geraghty’s first book was The Polyphonic Machine: Capitalism, Political Violence, and Resistance in Contemporary Argentine Literature (University of Pittsburgh Press: 2019). He has published articles and book chapters on literature and film from Latin America, with a particular interest in memory, urban culture, and religion in the region. He is currently working on a project involving a radical re-examination of the work of Argentine artist León Ferrari (1920–2013) which also explores the interrelations between politics and religion in twentieth-century Argentina, and the potential correlations between contemporary philosophy and liberation theology.
More about Niall H.D. Geraghty