Philip Baltuskonis

Education

PhD, University of Mississippi

MA, University of Mississippi

BA, D'Youville University

About Me

Philip Baltuskonis received his PhD from the University of Mississippi in 2022. Before coming to Auburn University, Baltuskonis taught at Western Kentucky University and the University of Mississippi. In 2018, he was a Mendel Visiting Fellow at the Lilly Library, and a PhD Fellow at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogota, Colombia later that year. His research interests are focused on the history of Latin American independence as part of the Age of Revolutions, the history of imperial reform, and political culture.

Baltuskonis' current book project builds off his dissertation, "The Ties that Bind: Creole Networks and Reform during the Age of Revolution, New Granada 1780-1811," which investigates political culture in New Granada (present-day Colombia), showing how creoles played a crucial role in the royal Spanish government’s growing interest in reforming the empire. Using prosopography and network analysis, the first half of his project explores how families engaged cooperatively with the colonial state in an attempt to mold society based on a Practical Enlightenment that emphasized the importance of useful knowledge and the public good. Local participation and royal support linked together science and empire. Men and women used their local ties to petition the Crown to open, among other things, a botanical expedition, several newspapers, a school for girls, and a library. While families gained social rank and government-backed salaries, the royal government in turn enjoyed peaceful colonial participation in matters of state in a time when other Atlantic empires experienced intense fragmentation. The second half of his project explores the impact of an imperial crisis caused by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and the abdication of its monarchs in 1808. The crisis brought immense uncertainty and opened the door for political experimentation, but importantly, did not immediately result in a struggle for independence. For several years, Spanish Americans joined Spaniards in reconstituting the Spanish Empire around principles of natural rights as well as monarchical rule, showing that revolution was possible within the framework of monarchy. Repeated failures to reconfigure the imperial structure gave way to discontent, however not before a rich (and the first) period of constitutionalism in the Hispanic World emerged.

Research Interests

Latin American History, Atlantic History, Revolutionary era, political culture, imperial reform, science and empire

Courses Taught

• World History I
• World History II
• Latin American History
• Latin American Independence
• Latin America since 1820
• Atlantic World