Aaron Pollack

The Langlands program has been a very active and central field in mathematics ever since its conception over 50 years ago. It connects number theory, representation theory and arithmetic geometry, and other fields in a profound way. There are nevertheless very few expository accounts beyond the GL(2) case. This book features expository accounts of several topics on automorphic forms on higher rank groups, including rationality questions on unitary group, theta lifts and their applications to Arthur's conjectures, quaternionic modular forms, and automorphic forms over functions fields and their applications to inverse Galois problems. It is based on the lecture notes prepared for the twenty-fifth Arizona Winter School on ""Automorphic Forms beyond GL(2)"", held March 5-9, 2022, at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The speakers were Ellen Eischen, Wee Teck Gan, Aaron Pollack, and Zhiwei Yun. The exposition of the book is in a style accessible to students entering the field. Advanced graduate students as well as researchers will find this a valuable introduction to various important and very active research areas.

Central America was the only part of the far-reaching Spanish Empire in continental America not to experience destructive independence wars in the period between 1810 and 1824. The essays in this volume draw on new historical research to explain why, and to delve into what did happen during the independence period in Central America and Chiapas. The contributors, distinguished scholars from Central America, North America, and Europe, consider themes of power, rebellion, sovereignty, and resistance throughout the Kingdom of Guatemala beginning in the late eighteenth century and ending with independence from Spain and the debate surrounding the decision to join the Mexican Empire. Their work reveals that a ""conflict-free"" separation from Spain was more complex than is usually understood, and shows how such a separation was crucial to late-nineteenth-century developments. These essays tell us how different groups seized on the political instabilities of Spain to maximize their interests; how Latin American elites prepared elaborate rituals to legitimize power dynamics; why the Spanish military governor Bustamante's role in Central America should be reconsidered; how Indian and popular uprisings had more to do with tax burdens than with independence rhetoric; how the scholastic thought of Thomas Aquinas played a role in political thinking during the independence period; and why Mexico's Plan de Iguala, the independence program promoted by Agustín de Iturbide, finally broke Central American elites' ties to Spain. Focusing on regional and small-town dynamics as well as urban elites, these essays combine to offer an unusually broad and varied perspective on and a new understanding of Central America in the period of independence.