RUGELEY, Terry 1956-

PERSONAL: Born September 3, 1956, in Wharton, TX; son of Frank (a doctor) and Theresa (a nurse; maiden name, Matocha) Rugeley; married Margarita Peraza Sauri (an instructor). Ethnicity: "Caucasian."

Education: University of Texas, B.A., 1977; Rice University, M.A., 1982; University of Houston, Ph.D., 1992.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Department of History, University of Oklahoma, 455 West Lindsey, Norman, OK 73019-0535. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Oklahoma, Norman, professor of history, 1992—.

WRITINGS:

Yucatán's Maya Peasantry and the Origins of the Caste War, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1996.

Of Wonders and Wise Men: Religion and Popular Cultures in Southeast Mexico, 1800-1876, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 2001.

(Editor) Maya Wars: Ethnographic Accounts from Nineteenth-Century Yucatán, University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK), 2001.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Rebellion Now and Forever: Mayas, Hispanics, and the Yucatecan Civil Wars, 1800-1880.

SIDELIGHTS: Terry Rugeley told CA: "I am interested in many features of Mexican history: its geographic panorama, its pre-Columbian past, the Hispanic tradition that took root in Mexico, the language that came and the languages that refused to die, the struggle to transcend ancient ills and create a better life. Historical research is unsolicited detective work, and I find myself particularly drawn to the case of themes and individuals that are unknown or forgotten, often people living tiny lives in the remotest corners of nowhere, but who tell us something about the dramas we create and the absurdities we endure. Above all, the words and scenes of the tropical southeast have provided my inspiration. There is a sultry glow to a Tabascan river, or a pelican-lined coast, or a Yucatecan pueblo on a late Saturday afternoon which awakens the sense of an immense past lost these many years but waiting to return.

"The historian enables that return. Yet to do so the historian also becomes the writer. Fact must be present as the precondition, but those forgotten people and their scenes of bloodshed and reconciliation no longer exist apart from the words which we use to reanimate them, and for that reason the act of historical expression carries its peculiar weight. The world of all boils down to the words of one. And since things lost demand of each person a manner of statement that no other person would use, history must always emerge from what happens among ourselves, the artifacts of the past, and the blank page."