Dr. Olivas has been a professor of History at SUNY Maritime College since Fall 2022.. His research and teaching interests focus on the entangled maritime empires of the Early Modern Atlantic World (c. 1492-1826). He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on World History, with a particular emphasis on global Latin America and Europe (especially Spain).
Dr. Olivas's projects center on the global Hispanic World at the height of the Age of Sail (Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries). His current book manuscript deals with the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715), one of the first world wars waged at sea. Within this topic, the book analyzes the intersections between transatlantic trade, slavery, and politics in Spanish America, specifically their impact on loyalties to the crown during the transition from Habsburg to Bourbon rule. Above all, the project reveals the trans-imperial strategies by which multiethnic subjects in New Spain and Peru expanded their autonomy and gained socio-economic benefits at the dawn of the Eighteenth Century. Such strategies include Spanish American elite entanglements with the ministers of Louis XIV of France to achieve these aims, particularly through the Asiento (colonial slave monopoly). As such, the project sheds light on the integration of Spanish colonial subjects into the broader politics of Early Modern European maritime states. Dr. Olivas is planning a second project on the Consumer Revolution and the roots of globalization in Latin America. Specifically, it will consider the impact of Spanish American luxury consumerism on the rise of the Early Modern Atlantic World economy.
- PhD in History, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (2013)
- MA in History, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (2007)
- MA in Social Sciences, University of Chicago (2004)
- BA in History (minor in Spanish), University of San Francisco (2003)
"How to Stage the History of the New World: Translating the Conquest into Opera in Enlightenment Italy and France," in The Conquest of Mexico: Five Centuries of Reinvention, eds. Peter Villella and Pablo García Loaeza (Oklahoma City: University of Oklahoma Press, 2022)
"Globalizing the War of the Spanish Succession: Conflict, Trade, and Political Alliances in Early Bourbon Spanish America," in The War of the Spanish Succession: New Perspectives, eds. Matthias Pohlig and Michael Schaich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)
"Performance and Propaganda in Spanish America during the War of the Spanish Succession," in Performances of Peace: Utrecht 1713, eds. Renger E. de Bruin, Cornelis van der Haven, Lotte Jensen, and David Onnekink (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2015)
"The Global Dimensions of Catalan Resistance: The Case of the Recollect Mission to the Philippines (1711-1712)," in Els Tractats d'Utrecht: Clarors i foscors de la pau. La resistència dels Catalans, eds. Conxita Mollfulleda and Núria Sallés (Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2015)
"Reinterpreting the Conquest of Mexico for an Enlightenment Audience in Vivaldi’s Opera Motezuma (1733)," in Amicitia fecunda. Estudios en homenaje a Claudia Parodi, eds. Jimena Rodríguez and Manuel Pérez (Madrid: Editorial Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2015)
"The Global Politics of the Transatlantic Slave Trade During the War of the Spanish Succession, 1700-1715," in Early Bourbon Spanish America: Politics and Society in a Forgotten Era (1700-1759), eds. Francisco Eissa-Barroso and Ainara Vázquez Varela (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2013)
Dr. Olivas teaches undergraduate courses such as the History of Technology, Latin America and the World, and Europe and the World. He teaches graduate seminars such as Fantastic Voyagers of the Spanish Indies (c. 1665-1763), Globalization in the Age of Exploration (c. 1415-1598), Literature of the Middle Passage, and Maritime Conquistadors.
Dr. Olivas has conducted extensive research at naval archives in Spain, Mexico, France, and the United States, most notably in Seville, Mexico City, Paris, and Aix-en-Provence.
- President's Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching, SUNY Maritime College, 2024
- School Bell Award for Excellence in Teaching, Mentorship, and Community Impact, Laredo Chamber of Commerce, 2021-2022
- Short-Term Fellowship (Huntington Library), Mellon Foundation, 2015
- Research Grant (Seville), Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and US Universities, 2012
- Short-Term Grant (Paris), International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, Harvard University, 2012
- Fulbright IIE Research Grant (Madrid, Simancas, and Seville), 2009-2010
- Summer Institute in Spanish Paleography (Huntington Library), Mellon Foundation, 2009
- Tinker Field Research Grant (Mexico City), UCLA Latin American Institute, 2008