Tulane University

"Revolutionary Cuba: Memory, Culture and Politics" - A Title VI-A UISFL Meeting

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The Title VI-A Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language (UISFL) Project Directors' Meeting – “Revolutionary Cuba: Memory, Culture and Politics”

This symposium is co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane University.

Note: This event is only open to Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language program grantees.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Ned Sublette: Musician, Author, Independent Scholar

Ned Sublette, who served as a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow at Tulane University and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies from 2004-2005, is the author of the recently published book The Year Before the Flood which chronicles Sublette’s experience of living in New Orleans during the year prior to Hurricane Katrina. He is also the author of The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square (2008). Sublette’s range of musical experience is unusually broad, ranging from original musicological field work in New Mexico, to conservatory study in classical guitar and composition, to aggressive loud-guitar bands, to cutting-edge Latin music. In 1990, he traveled to Cuba for the first time and was inspired to co-found Qbadisc, the first American record label dedicated to marketing contemporary Cuban music in the U.S. He was soon recognized as a major U.S. advocate for Cuban music, introducing American audiences to Cuban artists. His book on Cuban music, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo, was published in 2004.

PANEL DISCUSSION

“Architecture & the Revolution”
John Loomis: Architect

Loomis’ multidisciplinary career spans architecture, teaching, scholarship, and writing. He holds a B.A. with Distinction in Art History from Stanford University and a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University. He is a licensed architect registered in New York where he lived and worked for fifteen years and was an associate professor of architecture at the City University of New York. His book, Revolution of Forms, Cuba ‘s Forgotten Art Schools, examines the convergence and collision of architecture, ideology, and culture in 1960s Cuba through the architectural design for the Escuelas Nacionales de Arte. This book prodded the Cuban government to commit to the preservation and restoration of these works of architecture, and has received an award from the World Monuments Fund. It is also the basis for the operatic work in progress by Charles Koppelman Revolution of Forms. John’s other activities involving Cuba have been chairing the 2002 ACSA International Conference "Architecture, Culture, and the Challenges of Globalization – Havana /La Habana" and as a member of the 2002 California State Business Delegation to Cuba. His honors and awards include a World Monuments Fund Certificate of Significant Accomplishment, Honors from the XII Bienal de Arquitectura de Ecuador, an NEA Award for Superior Design, and an AIA Education Award. He has been a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute.

Communication, Film & Politics
Ana López: Director of the Cuban & Caribbean Studies Institute, Senior Associate Provost, and Associate Professor of Communication, Tulane University

A long-standing faculty member of the Stone Center, Ana M. López became the director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute in Fall 2000. She is also an Associate Professor in the Communication Department and Associate Provost of the university. She holds both an M.A. in Communication and Theater Arts and a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa. Her scholarship and publications are focused on Latin American film, media, television, and popular culture. She has also worked extensively with Latino cultural production in the U.S. Her work has been widely published in film and Latin American studies journals and she is the co-editor of the volumes Mediating Two Worlds (BFI, 1993), The Ethnic Eye: Latino Media Arts (University of Minnesota, 1996), and the three-volume Encyclopedia of Latin American Culture (Routledge, 2000). As director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute, she oversees the Summer in Cuba program, the Summer in the Dominican Republic program, and academic and cultural programming aimed at promoting a true Cuban and Caribbean presence on Tulane's campus. López will be discussing the movie Coffea Arabiga (1968, Nicolás Guillén Landrián) and the history of both the “high point” of the Cuban documentary as well as its complex political valences.

Visual Imagery of the Revolution
Guadalupe García: Assistant Professor of History, Tulane University

Lupe García is a recent addition to the Department of History at Tulane, joining the faculty after spending two years as an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida. She received her M.A. in Latin American Studies from California State University and her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. García specializes in late-colonial and early-modern Latin American history, with a particular focus on urban history, the Caribbean and Cuba. Her research interests include race and ethnicity in urban spaces, border identities in Latin America, and social revolution. García is currently working on her first book project tentatively entitled "Beyond the Walled City: Race and Exclusion in Colonial Havana." The manuscript offers a comprehensive analysis of urbanization in colonial Havana and explores the ways in which racial ideologies and black colonial subjects shaped and reshaped the urban environment. She is also working on a collaborative book project on the visual iconography of revolutions.

EXHIBIT

Newcomb Gallery of Art
Polaridad Complementaria

Developed by the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Havana, Polaridad Complementaria offers audiences the opportunity to become acquainted with the island's current and upcoming artistic talent. The more than 50 works of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation art provide a sense of the serious aesthetic and conceptual concerns that characterizes Cuban art today. The 27 artists presented here are mainly young artists who have attained international recognition. The majority of these artists have taken part in fairs and biennials abroad and all have exhibited in Europe, Latin America and were featured in the 2009 Havana Biennial. Several have exhibited in the United States, including René Peña, Abel Barroso, Aimeé García, Yoan Capote and Roberto Fabelo.

Diverse in medium and ideology, the artists featured in Polaridad Complementaria understand the power of their art to address a wide range of social issues. Curator Margarita Sánchez pays particular attention to the works that illustrate the artists' capacity to connect the local reality to global concerns and universal human issues. Often compared to American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, René Peña explores the relationship between individuals within society and the struggle for their own identity. Abel Barroso carves three-dimensional pieces using wood and various printing methods to create a conversation about technology and the third-world. From Zulueta, Cuba, Duvier del Dago takes it one step further combining drawing with handmade 3D design examining the unattainable, whether it be the material or the ideal. Other artists include Juan Carlos Alom, Lidzie Alvisa, Luis Enrique Camejo, Ricard Elías, Adonis Flores, Aimée García, Glenda León, Douglas Pérez, Sandra Ramos, Fernando Rodríguez, Ángel Ramírez, René Francisco Rodríguez Olazábal, Lázaro Saavedra, Ludmila Velasco, Nelson Arellano, and Reinerio Tamayo. From simplistic to intricately fabricated, these artists create a narrative of Cuba today.

UISFL

For more information visit the website of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education's International Education Programs Service.

Registration Information
Note: Pre-Registration runs through January 22, 2010. After the 22nd, full registration fees are required for attendance.

There are several ways in which to register for the Project Directors’ Meeting.

To pay by credit card:

• Online Registration – Click the “Register Online” button at the top or bottom of this page and fill in the required information to submit your application directly to the Stone Center.
• Email Registration – Download the “Downloadable Registration Form” from the top or bottom of this page and fill in and save the required information and email the completed form to rtsclas@tulane.edu.
• Registration by Mail – Download the “Downloadable Registration Form” from the top or bottom of this page and fill in the required information and mail your registration form with credit card information to the address below.

To pay by check:

• Online Registration – Click the “Register Online” button at the top or bottom of this page and fill in the required information (with the exception of credit card information) to submit your application directly to the Stone Center. Mail your check separately.
• Email Registration – Download the “Downloadable Registration Form” from the top or bottom of this page and fill in and save the required information (with the exception of credit card information) and email the completed form to rtsclas@tulane.edu. Mail your check separately.
• Registration by Mail – Download the “Downloadable Registration Form” from the top or bottom of this page and fill in the required information (with the exception of credit card information) and mail the completed form and the check.

All mail (checks and/or registration forms, depending on your chosen form of registration) should be sent to:

Stone Center for Latin American Studies
Attn: Title VIA Project Directors' Meeting
Tulane University
100 Jones Hall
New Orleans, LA 70118

Downloadable Registration Form

Tempo e Imagem: a memória do porvir nos ritos dos Congados e do Povo Maxakali

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A talk by Leda Maria Martins of the Federal University of Minas Gerais / NYU

The talk will address the experience of time and the act of graphically performing images in the Afro-Brazilian dramatic dance Congado as well as in rituals of the Maxacali people. It will be conducted in Portuguese, with bilingual discussion to follow.

Dr. Martins is the author of A cena em sombras (1995) and Afrografias da memória: O Reinado do Rosário no Jatobá (1997), among other books on theater, performance, and Afro-Brazilian culture. She was the guest editor of a special issue of Callaloo on Afro-Brazilian literature and a visiting scholar at NYU in the Fall of 2009.

This event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for Scholars, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. For more information, contact Idelber Avelar.

Talk by LAL Greenleaf Fellow Denise Schaan

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Please join us for a talk by LAL Greenleaf Fellow Denise Schaan, who will be speaking on Geoglyphs: Geometric Earthworks of Pre-Columbian Western Amazonia. The talk will be at 3pm on Thursday, February 25 in the Latin American Library seminar room (4th floor Howard-Tilton Memorial Library); refreshments will follow. The talk will be in English.

Abstract: Indigenous groups who lived between 2,000 and 1,300 years ago in Amazonia built impressive geometric earthworks across a region roughly 60,000 km², that encompasses the western Brazilian state of Acre, south of the state of Amazonas, and northern Bolivia. These enormous earthworks (which reach diameters of up to 380 meters) were only revealed to Western eyes as deforestation advanced across the region. Denise Schaan has been studying the geometric enclosures with colleagues from Brazil and Finland during the last 5 years, locating more than 250 of such structures, which have impressed scholars working in the region, long thought to be unsuited for permanent settlements. As a Greenleaf fellow at the Latin American Library, Schaan has been looking for clues on why indigenous groups in that region would have built such structures, and she will discuss new findings.

DENISE PAHL SCHAAN is an Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Universidade Federal do Pará, in Belém, Pará, Brazil, specializing in the archaeology of the Amazon Basin. She is currently President of the Sociedade de Arqueologia Brasileira, and editor of the prestigious journal Amazônica: Revista de Antropologia. Dr. Schaan has published extensively on ancient Amazonia, particularly on the iconography of Marajoara pottery and society which flourished between 600 and 1600 AD on Marajó Island at the mouth of the Amazon River. She has also worked on gender in Ancient Amazonia. Her publications include two forthcoming monographs, Sacred Geographies of Ancient Amazonia (Left Coast Press); and Cultura Marajoara/Marajoara Culture. At the LAL, Dr. Schaan will develop a project based on her groundbreaking finds and interpretations of enormous, ancient geometric earthworks in the Western Amazon, near the Bolivian border, which have garnered international attention.

Photo by PhD student Camila Pavanelli, Department of Spanish & Portuguese

The State of Labor in New Orleans: Working for Alliances - Alliances for Work

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An event sponsored by UNO-Latin American Studies and the Tulane History Department.

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In the years since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has come to be a symbol for many of the nation's most unjust policies and practices. Endemic racial discrimination, the near erasure of effective governmental and social services, a disastrous criminal justice system, environmental degradation, and a severe housing crisis all plague the city and the broader Southeastern Louisiana region. Issues of workplace justice, security, and health, along with un- and underemployment, have often take a backseat to the numerous other crises that confront 21st Century New Orleans. This conference works to foreground the importance of labor issues both in their own right and because we believe that a strong and united labor movement is absolutely central to the future of New Orleans.

Mayoral candidates have been invited to speak and respond to the labor issues confronting the city.

Speakers include (among others):

• Robert "Tiger" Hammonds, President of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO
• Larry Carter, President of the United Teachers of New Orleans
• Helene O'Brien, President of SEIU Local 21A
• Lorenzo Scott, Field Representative for AFL-CIO
• Professor Adolph Reed Jr., University of Pennsylvania, founding member of the Labor Party
• The New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice
• The Restaurants Opportunities Center – NOLA
• The New Orleans Interfaith Workers' Center
• Professor Thomas Adams, Tulane University
• Professor Steve Striffler, University of New Orleans

For more information, conference program, and to request a free lunch, please contact conference organizers:

Thomas Adams (tadams@tulane.edu) and/or Steve Striffler (sstriffl@uno.edu)

Conference is open to the public.

Seventh Annual Tulane Maya Symposium & Workshop

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GREAT RIVER CITIES OF THE ANCIENT MAYA
February 26 – 28, 2010

The ancient lowland Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America is often celebrated for its achievements in an environment unique for its lack of rivers, unlike that of the ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Indus, and Chinese civilizations. Nevertheless many major lowland Maya cities were indeed located along important rivers such as the Usumacinta, Pasión, Belize, Motagua, among others. These "River Cities" provided the rest of the Maya lowlands access to the resource-rich highlands to the south, as well as contact with to both the Caribbean and Gulf coasts. Moreover, they facilitated the movement of peoples throughout the region, allowed for critical movement and trading of exotic goods, and gave rise to innovative artistic and architectural styles. For these reasons, this conference will focus on how and why the great river cities of the ancient lowland Maya represent some of the most intriguing, opulent, and important segments of this civilization. Speakers at this year’s conference include: David Freidel, M. Kathryn Brown, Takeshi Inomata, Robert J. Sharer, Arthur A. Demarest, Charles Golden, Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo, Jason Yaeger, Nicholas Dunning, Marc Zender, Gabrielle Vail, Christine Hernandez, and Marcus Eberl.

The Middle American Research Institute [MARI] is organizing this year’s Seventh Annual Maya Symposium & Workshop with the collaboration of the Stone Center for Latin American Studies. Please visit their site for more information.

En El Aula: Second Latin American Architecture Symposium

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EN EL AULA brings together scholars and practitioners who have successfully introduced Latin American architecture and urbanism “in the classroom.” Speakers will present the diverse methods they have used to integrate this subject into the traditional study of the built environment and the diverse ways that the parameters of this still emerging field are being framed. Presentations are divided into three categories: The History Survey, Specialized Courses & Emerging Research, and Travel Abroad Programs.

For questions and further information, please contact conference organizer, Assistant Professor Robert Gonzalez, Tulane University, School of Architecture, gonzalez@tulane.edu or visit www.aulajournal.com.

The symposium is free and open to the public.

Call for papers:

EN EL AULA is a symposium and workshop intended to develop and sustain a network of scholars who successfully introduce and address Latin American architecture and urbanism “in the classroom.” Following the success of the first AULA symposium, held at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, we anticipate the participation of a broad range of scholars with diverse interests in the field. We invite paper presentation proposals that share methods for integrating Latin American architecture and urbanism into the standard curriculum and that expose fellow scholars to the diverse ways that the parameters of this still emerging field are being framed.

This call for papers invites proposals in any of these three categories: History Survey, Specialized Courses and Emerging Research, and Travel Abroad Programs. Sessions will feature invited scholars who have integrated these subjects into the Western survey, who have taught specialized courses that emerged from new research, and who explore contemporary theoretical developments through travel programs in Latin America. Topics may range from critiques of the narrative of the Corbusian diaspora to the impact of Latino communities in North America and abroad; they may also range from Pre-Columbian to Colonial to Modern architecture and urbanism.

If applicable, participants will be asked to share their corresponding syllabi, which will be distributed to all participants prior to the conference. We hope the meeting will encourage a discussion on contemporary teaching strategies and resources. Selected paper presentations will also be part of a forthcoming issue of the journal AULA: Architecture & Urbanism in Las Américas, which will focus on pedagogy in the field of Latin American architecture.

Call for Papers: Please submit a one-page abstract and corresponding syllabus (if applicable), a short biography, and a CV. All submissions should be sent in pdf format to Robert Gonzalez. Selected panelists will receive hotel accommodations and a partial travel stipend.

Deadline: January 15, 2010. Participants will be notified by February 1 and will be asked to submit their final paper presentation by February 25.

For questions, please contact conference organizer, Assistant Professor Robert Gonzalez, Tulane University, School of Architecture, at gonzalez@tulane.edu. Please visit www.aulajournal.com for additional conference information, maps, and hotel information. This event occurs during our annual French Quarter Festival, so non-panelists should book hotel reservations well in advance.

EN EL AULA is presented by the Tulane University School of Architecture and is generously supported by the Tulane University Research Enhancement Fund and the School of Architecture.

This symposium is free and open to the public.