Jorge Castaneda, this term's Montgomery Fellow, certainly does not have a problem keeping himself busy.
"I have one foot in journalism, one foot in academia and one foot in politics," Castaneda said. "But since no one has three feet, I end up being insufficiently involved in any one of the three."
And Castaneda, who is a political science professor, a political adviser for the Mexican government and an author, has hardly been treating his three months at Dartmouth as a vacation.
He is teaching a 15-student seminar titled "The Politics of Transition and Economic Change in Mexico," and has so many other commitments in Mexico and Latin America that he can not just "shut down for two months."
For instance, he has already flown back to Mexico once this term and will be flying to Ecuador next week.
Castaneda's seminar provides a broad overview of Mexican history, culture, economics and politics. He said the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program "wanted me to do a Mexican survey course."
"The idea is that by the end of eight weeks they will have a broad sense of what Mexico is but not a deep knowledge of any one aspect," he said.
History Professor Marysa Navarro, who chairs the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, said in a press release that Castaneda's visit "offers students the opportunity to be in direct contact with one of the most well-informed, intelligent and perceptive minds in Mexico today."
Brian Bockleman '95, who is taking Castaneda's class, said, "I've known that he's been coming for two years now and I've been waiting to take his class."
"He is such an incredibly well-informed person," he said. "The class is supposed to be about Mexico and he knows more about the United States and the rest of the world than some of the other professors here."
Aleph Henestrosa '96, a Mexican student in Castaneda's class, said he is "honored to be taking a class with him because he is one of the leading intellectuals in Latin America and I have read his books and columns."
"There is nobody better than Jorge Castaneda to explain the transitions that have taken place in the Mexican social and economic spectrum since the revolution through the Salinas administration," he said.
Castaneda, who teaches political science in the National Autonomous University of Mexico's graduate school, said he tries to come to an American university at least one term every year.
Besides Dartmouth, he has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley and Princeton University.
Castaneda said classes in the United States are typically significantly smaller than classes in the United States. While only 15 students could take his class at Dartmouth, his courses in Mexico usually have 50 to 60 students.
Also, Castaneda said in the United States, professors can spend all of their time involved in educational pursuits.
"All you do here is teach and all they do is study," he said. "But in order to make a living in Mexico you have to do a whole bunch of other things. It's an economic issue."
Castaneda, who has served as political advisor to the Mexican government on Central American and Caribbean affairs and as a senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., said he never made a conscious decision to get involved in politics and never will.
Castaneda gave his opinions on Mexico's political and economic policies in a lecture Tuesday called, "The Mexican Meltdown."
Castaneda harshly criticized the way the North American Free Trade Agreement was negotiated and the way it was finally adopted.
"From a Mexican perspective I thought it was a good deal for the United States, but for Mexico I thought it was a bad idea, particularly in the way it was negotiated," he said. Castaneda described the negotiations as "a sell job."
He has written three books, including "Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War," which he recently published with Robert Pastor, an American.
"We argued and fought a hell of a lot because we didn't agree, but the purpose of the exercise was to have two very different opinions juxtaposed," he said.
