Sustainable Development Goals
Research interests
• The left and democratization
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The modernization of the Mexican left
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Relations of the left in Latin America
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Theory and history of Latin American Marxism
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Anti-colonial ideological traditions
Profile
Dr. Jaime Ortega Reyna holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Iztapalapa and completed graduate studies in Latin American Studies at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He holds the rank of National Researcher Level II in Mexico's Sistema Nacional de Investigadoras e Investigadores (SNII).
His research lines center on critical thought and the history of subaltern classes in relation to left-wing movements in Mexico and Latin America. He has published numerous articles, book chapters, and reviews in academic publications across various countries in Latin America and the United States.
He is the author of the books Leer El capital, teorizar la política (UNAM, 2018), La incorregible imaginación: itinerarios de Louis Althusser en América Latina (Doble Ciencia, Chile, 2019), Del Palacio Negro a La Selva Lacandona: Louis Althusser en México (Ariadna, Chile, 2023), La raíz nacional-popular. Las izquierdas más allá de la transición (CEMOS, 2024), En el medio día de la revolución (UAM, 2024), and Es preciso soñar: Lenin en (y para el) marxismo latinoamericano (Atik, Ecuador, 2024).
Co-authoring with Juan de la Fuente, he published El invierno social llega a su fin: las izquierdas frente al resurgir campesino, 1959-1965 (UAM, 2022) and La raíz plebeya de la democracia mexicana (UACh, 2025). Furthermore, alongside Massimo Modonesi, he co-authored Gramsci y Berlinguer en México. Vínculos entre comunistas italianos y mexicanos en los años 70 (UAM, 2023). As a co-editor, his volumes include Antología del pensamiento crítico mexicano contemporáneo (CLACSO, Buenos Aires, 2015 and UNAM, 2018), El asalto al cielo era posible: la revolución rusa y nosotros (Torres, 2019), El espíritu pensante: Engels en su bicentenario (Religación Press, Quito, 2021), Pensamiento agrario radical mexicano (UACh, 2024), and La primavera en la sangre: naturaleza y política en América Latina hoy (UAM, 2025).
He has contributed to international reference works such as the Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus (Berlin, Germany) and the Diccionario Biográfico de las Izquierdas Latinoamericanas (Buenos Aires, Argentina). In 2019, he was awarded the Edmundo O'Gorman Fellowship for a research stay at the Center for Mexican Studies at Columbia University in New York, and in 2023 he received the Silas Palmer Fellowship for research in the archives of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He is a founding member of the Asociación Gramsci México and a member of the International Gramsci Society. He co-coordinates the Working Group "History and Conjuncture: Marxist Perspectives" at the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and serves as co-editor of the bulletin El ejercicio del pensar.
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