Tulane University

Space and Identity: The Politics of Expression in Latin America

View Full Event Description

Call for Papers

Extended Deadline: October 31, 2009
Submit abstracts to: LAGO

The Latin American Graduate Student Association (LAGO) of Tulane University invites you to submit an individual paper or a panel for our conference entitled “Space and Identity: The Politics of Expression in Latin America” to be held December 4-5, 2009.

The history of Latin American has maintained a legacy of struggle at the intersection of space and identity. The manifestation of this struggle has been expressed in various forms ranging from political, social mobilization, artistic expression, literary movements, and multifaceted trends in music and popular culture.

We welcome abstracts relating to the theme from all disciplines. Please submit a 250 word abstract (Microsoft Word format) that includes your name, phone number, paper title and institutional affiliation. Conference presentations may be up to 15 minutes in length.

Conference Details

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: JEAN FRANCO, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Professor Franco has been decorated by the governments of Mexico, Chile and Venezuela for her work on Latin American literature and has received awards from PEN and from the Latin American Studies Association for lifetime achievement. She has served as President of the Latin American Studies Association in both Great Britain and the United States. Some of her noted publications include:

The Modern Culture of Latin America (1967)
César Vallejo. The Dialectics of Poetry and Silence (1976)
An Introduction to Latin American Literature (1969)
Plotting Women. Gender and Representation in Mexico (1989)
Marcando diferencias. Cruzando Fronteras (1996)
The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America and the Cold War (2001)

Preliminary Conference Program Coming Soon

Photo by Ph.D. Candidate Hilary Smith, Stone Center for Latin American Studies

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

View Full Event Description

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.

Seventh Annual Tulane Maya Symposium & Workshop

View Full Event Description

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.

Latin America & Outreach

View Full Event Description

A working meeting sponsored by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs aims to highlight five themes of outreach in order to generate discussion, ideas, and a final report on best practices of educational outreach on Latin America. The Latin America & Outreach Meeting will take place at Tulane University's Stone Center for Latin American Studies in New Orleans, LA on May 20-21, 2010.

We are currently seeking paper proposals that address one of the five highlighted themes.
Please submit a 200-300 synopsis of paper presentation and please include the title, all authors/co-presenters (if appropriate), affiliations, addresses, and email addresses for all authors to crcrts@tulane.edu by March 1st, 2010.

Proposed Discussion Themes

• I. Evaluation
• II. Collaboration
• III. Standards
• IV. Non-educational Outreach
• V. Travel & Outreach

Funded through a Title VI U.S. Department of Education grant, the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, this meeting seeks to bring together veterans and novices in educational outreach in Latin American Studies. The meeting is open to any program or individual interested in the subject matter. Funding is available for travel and lodging. Please check back regularly for details regarding hotel and travel.