Brian Owensby is professor of history in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia.  His scholarly work has ranged from social and political history in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Brazil to legal and imperial history in seventeenth-century Mexico.  Current research includes historiography and historical theory from a Brazilian perspective and a book-length project on the Jesuit New World synthesis of the eighteenth century as a counterpoint to Eurocentric accounts of modernity.  He has taught a variety of courses large and small to undergraduates, including a Global History class, and is supervising several graduate students.  He served as chair of the Corcoran Department of History from 2009 to 2012.