Ruiz, Distinguished Professor of History & Peter H. Reill Term Chair in European History at UCLA, will address the importance of 1492 from different perspectives by looking at what the events of 1492 meant for Jews, Conversos, Muslims, Moriscos and the natives of the New World. To these groups, 1492 represented a radical and catastrophic change in their individual and collective lives. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Presented with the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in 2011, Ruiz joined the history department at UCLA in 1998 and received the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2008. Prior to this appointment, he taught at Brooklyn College, the CUNY Graduate Center, the University of Michigan, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), and at Princeton as the 250th Anniversary Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching. As an author, his most recent books include “Crisis and Continuity: Land and Town in Late Medieval Castile,” “Spanish Society, 1400-1600,” “Medieval Europe and the World,” and “Spain, 1300-1469: Centuries of Crises.” A photo of Ruiz is available for download at www.usd.edu/press/news/images/releases/Teo_Ruiz.jpg.

The Phi Beta Kappa Society sponsors the Visiting Scholar Program to offer undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America's most distinguished scholars and to contribute to the intellectual life of the campus by making possible an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students. The Visiting Scholar lecture is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Alpha Chapter of South Dakota Phi Beta Kappa, the Department of History, the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Philosophy, and the faculty of the USD Spanish program.

Press Contact
Hanna DeLange
Contact Email [email protected]
Contact Website website