Vanessa Freije

Vanessa Freije is an Associate Professor of International Studies and History. Her research examines the history of information and media politics in Latin America, with a particular focus on Mexico. Her book, Citizens of Scandal: Journalism, Secrecy, and the Politics of Reckoning in Mexico, was published in October 2020 with Duke University Press and was awarded the American Historical Association’s Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize in the History of Journalism. The book examines how media scandals shaped social imaginaries and forged new modes of political engagement from the 1960s through the 1980s. Freije has written various articles on rumors, the formation of the public sphere, and inter-American information politics. These have been published in the Hispanic American Historical Review, the Journal of Social History, and the Journal of Global History, among others. Freije’s writing has also earned awards from the Latin American Studies Association Mexico Section, the American Journalism History Association, the New England Council of Latin American Studies, and the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright-García Robles, the U.S.-Mexican Studies Center at the University of California San Diego, and the Dartmouth College Society of Fellows. She is currently working on a new project on the history of outer space communications satellites in Mexico. This book interrogates the significance of connection (and disconnection) for a country seemingly on the periphery of the global space race.