Patience Schell

Patience Schell is a Professor and Chair in Hispanic Studies at the University of Aberdeen, affiliated with the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture. She holds a DPhil in History from St Antony’s College, Oxford, and previously taught at Birkbeck College and the University of Manchester before joining Aberdeen in 2012. Her research focuses on Latin American history, particularly 19th-century Chile and 20th-century Mexico, with specialties in education, women’s history, natural history, museums, and eugenics. Current projects include a Leverhulme Trust-funded study of Manuel Antonio Carreño’s Manual de urbanidad y buenas maneras, analyzing its cultural impact from 1853 to the present.

Education: BA in History (UC Berkeley), DPhil in History (Oxford University).

Research Interests: Latin American social/cultural history, history of science and eugenics, museum studies, exploration, and the intersection of Aberdeen’s collections with Latin America. Notable works include Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (2003) and The Sociable Sciences: Darwin and his Contemporaries in Chile (2013).

Awards include the Principal’s Excellence Prize in Teaching (2020 runner-up) and the Cantemir Prize (2011 for co-edited volume). She supervises PhDs in Latin American studies and history, with current students researching topics like the Scottish diaspora in Peru and Aberdeen’s Latin American collections.

Teaching: Courses include 'Encountering the Other in Iberia and the Americas' and 'Women Making History: Mexico and Chile'. She pioneered innovative assessments like Chilean arpillera textiles for student evaluations.

Grants: Leverhulme Trust (2022–2024), British Academy, AHRC, and Carnegie Trust. She curates exhibitions on Latin American themes, including 'Sewing Resistance: Teaching through Chilean Textile Art' (2019–2020).