Meet a Colleague: Marcos Perez Marcos Perez is an assistant professor of sociology.

W&L News Office
April 26, 2023

Q. How long have you worked at W&L?
I started in 2018 so I’ve been at W&L for almost five years.

Q. What courses are you teaching this term?
I teach two sections of Introduction to Sociology, as well as a seminar on social power.

Q. What is your favorite course to teach?
Hard question! I truly don’t have a favorite. I enjoy teaching each class, from introductory courses to advanced seminars. I also love participating in panels and presentations, and doing extracurricular things like the social research and discussion group.

Q. What is the most satisfying aspect of teaching?
Seeing younger people who are interested in similar topics as me come up with new ideas about them. Having the opportunity to discuss different views on difficult and important topics. Finding out about the cool projects students develop.

Q. What do you like most about working at W&L?
The level of academic excellence. The enthusiasm of students, who are always happy to learn and come up with innovative takes on the issues I teach about. Also, the opportunity to learn from colleagues’ work.

Q. Where is your favorite location on the W&L campus?
I love my office! But when the weather is nice and I need some fresh air, I like taking a book and sitting in the rocking chairs at the front porch of Holekamp Hall.

Q. What advice do you have for students?
Remember that you have an amazing opportunity. Few people have the chance to pick what they do for a living! Think of your education not just as way to ensure you can make ends meet. Try to figure out what activities you enjoy doing, what issues you care about, which occupations you find most meaningful, and aim your career that way. If the job you do makes you happy, chances are you’ll be good at it.

Q. What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?
I like taking walks with my children, reading books and watching soccer. I occasionally play soccer, but I’m a better spectator than athlete. Oh, and hiking. I love hiking.

Q. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a soccer player. However, my skills lied somewhere else.

Q. What book are you reading now?
I just finished re-reading Stephen Hawking’s last book “Brief Answers to the Big Questions.” I’m also reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago,” which I have never really finished (in my defense, the whole thing covers three volumes and about two thousand pages). I also just started a new biography of Raul Alfonsín, the president who led Argentina’s democratization.

Q. If you could have coffee with one person, who would it be?
I’d probably like to talk to my great-grandparents, whom I never got to meet. It is remarkable how little most people (including myself) know about their ancestors beyond a few generations in the past. We are their descendants, but even in the best of circumstances we only have basic information about them. They are, for all practical purposes, complete strangers. Who were they? How were their lives? What did they think?

Q. Your favorite film (movie) of all time?
There are tons, but I’ll go with “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Q. If they made a movie about your life, who would play you?
Hopefully, whoever is starring in a Star Wars movie/show at the time.

Q. What is your desert island food?
Definitely Mantecol. It’s an Argentinean candy made with peanuts and it’s totally delicious. It is a good source of protein too!

Q. Tell us something most people don’t know about you.
My version of the speaking tradition was to give high-fives to everyone I walked by on campus. I had to stop that with Covid, hopefully I’ll return to it one day.

Q. What is your secret talent?
I’m very good at cooking stews over an open fire.

Q. Anything else you’d like to share?
Argentina just won its third World Cup!!! But you probably know that already…