Report from the 2011 Conference on Latin American Freemasonry at UCLA

A stimulating conference on Freemasonry in Latin America was held last weekend at the UCLA Faculty Center. The Welcome and Introductions were presented by -Senior Grand Warden John Cooper, Masons of California; Grand Master Frank Loui, Masons of California; Margaret C. Jacob, PhD, UCLA, and María Eugenia Vázquez Semadeni, PhD, UCLA. Margaret Jacob noted that the partnership forged between the Grand Lodge of California and UCLA of which this conference was born, has been a good one. She noted that much more work needs be done. There is a role for both the research lodges and papers by non academics and individual masons. The academic can learn much from masonic viewpoints and contextualize them while helping to introduce the masonic writer to a more strenuous written style. There was a strong plea that Masons begin to gain control and centralize documents they were loosing everyday, stored in garages, attics, thrown out the back door of the lodge. This should be complemented with digitization.

Among the significant and informative papers read at this conference were those by Ricardo Eugenio Martínez Esquivel, University of Costa Rica, entitled “Mystical Sociability: Freemasons and Theosophists in the organization of Co-Freemasonry and the Liberal Catholic Church in Costa Rica during the 1920s,” Guillermo de los Rayes Heredia, University of Houston entitled “The Relation Between Mexican and American Freemasonry, Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries,” and two stimulating papers on Freemasonry in Cuba delivered by Eduardo Torres Cuevas, PhD, University of Havana, and Jorge Luis Romeu, PhD, Syracuse University. These were accompanied by nearly a half dozen more excellent papers including one delivered by Dr. Margaret C. Jacob, entitled “Where We Now Are in Masonic Studies.”

The conference was just the beginning and perhaps it is time to begin to consider what next steps might be. Dr. Jacob did not allow the conference to end before proposing a global conference on Freemasonry and civil society coming into modernity.

UCLA Freemasonry and Civil Society Program
The Freemasonry and Civil Society Program is a collaborative
partnership between UCLA’s History Department, the Grand Lodge of
California, and the Institute for Masonic Studies. The Program offers
courses investigating the history of Freemasonry within the context of
civil society. Each year, the Program sponsors a post-doctoral fellow
and a research assistant. The International Conference on American
& Latin American Freemasonry is offered in conjunction with the research of this year’s post-doctoral fellow, María Eugenia Vázquez-Semadini, whose specialties include Mexican political culture in the nineteenth century and the history of Freemasonry.

Gibraltar, Cadiz, America y la Masoneria Constitucionalismo y Libertad de Prense 1812-2012, CEHME, Gibraltar.

Gibraltar, Cadiz, America y la Masoneria Constitucionalismo y Libertad de Prense 1812-2012, CEHME, Gibraltar.

XIII International Symposium on the History of Spanish Freemasonry. Gibraltar, 11 to October 13, 2012.

Organized by the CEHME with the assistance of the Government of Gibralta, The Government of Aragon, Andalusia, University of Zaragoza, University of Cadiz, University of Glasgow and the Canonbury Centre.

Since 1983 the Centre for Historical Studies of Spanish Masonry has regularly convened scientific meetings in which many national and international researchers in the disciplines of history, sociology, philosophy, education, literature, musicology, information science, art, anthropology, etc. have participated.

The Prominent role of Gibralta in the development of Spanish Freemasonry, its place as a refuge during times of persecution, and the presence of Spanish speaking lodges in the English colony since the early 19th century as well as Freemasonry’s impact upon Freedom of the Press will be explored.

Info: masoneria.gibraltar@gmail.com.

International Conference American & Latin American Freemasonry: A new past & A new future

A long overdue contribution to the study of Freemasonry in the United States is developing at UCLA. The International Conference on American and Latin American Freemasonry, December 3rd, 2011 is one very welcome contribution and hopefully will be followed by many more!