Samuel Silva Gotay

Education

Brought up in a Protestant tradition, he became active in the ecumenical movement during his student days. In 1955 he became member of the Executive Committee of the World Christian Student Federation, the oldest ecumenical movement in the world. He holds degrees from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, Yale University and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He is Distinguished Professor of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus at the Faculty of Social Science.

Professional career

Since his early professional work he became aware of the social dimension of the Christian tradition and became involved in movements to challenge the power institution in favor of the poor and the oppressed from the stand point of the Christian faith and the academic truth. Following his first two years as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, he studied theology and sociology or religion at Yale University to become the Student Pastor at the UPR and Director of the Higher Education Office of the Council of Churches in Puerto Rico. In 1967 he became active in the indigenous social movement of the time in favor of the poor and the oppressed by serving as Executive Director of the Foundation of Community Development, with its two hundred plus young "Volunteers in service to Puerto Rico"(VESPRA). During this time the volunteers were able to organize "The First Poor People Congress", led by the poor people from the communities which led a massive awakening among communities of the poor people to challenge the governmental offices with truth and power.

He became the Associate Dean of Students, at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus in charge of cultural and students affairs. During those years he organized the Student Study Travel to the Intercultural and Document Center, Cuernavaca, Mexico of Prof. Ivan Illich. Two years later he returned to Mexico to pursue a doctoral degree on Latin American Studies. His dissertation was on the origins of Liberation Theology

The dissertation was published in several countries with the title of El pensamiento cristiano revolucionario en América Latina y el Caribe Salamanca,1981; and a German translation by Universidad de Wurzburg, Christentum und Revolution in Lateinamerika und der Karibik, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1995, a translation into Portuguese and three other Spanish editions: Salamanca-San Juan, 1983; Santo Domingo, R.D., 1985; San Juan, 1989

fter México, at his return to the Faculty, Prof. Silva-Gotay taught in the fields of Puerto Rican Studies and Latin American Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Faculty of Social Sciences, in the Department of History of the Faculty of Humanities and in the Center for Advance Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Current academic interests

The current focus of his research and scholarship is on the use the categories of "liberation theology" to understand the history and sociology of religion in Puerto Rico. Most of his recent publications are in sociology of religion in Puerto Rico and Latin America. As a result of his work, he was appointed Coordinator for the Caribbean of CEHILA: Comisión de Estudios de Historia de la Iglesia de América Latina, CEHILA is a monumental project of Latino American historians, related to Theology of Liberation, established to produce a 12 volume history of the Church from the perspective of Latin America keeping in mind the and the poor and the oppressed.

Books