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STONE CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES Stone Center Meet our Graduate Students
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Christina Abreo Christina Abreo is originally from southeast Louisiana. She became interested in indigenous culture and language preservation after living with her parents who were stationed as missionaries in Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. She received her B.A. in English and History from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, LA in 1999. Shortly after graduating she moved to Oregon and worked on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation as the curriculum developer for the native languages program. In May 2004, she received her MA from Tulane in Latin American studies with an emphasis on indigenous language preservation that she is continuing to explore. Her master’s thesis is titled Yours, Ours and Mayan. It traces the cultural preservation movement in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico. After graduating from Tulane she moved to Fayetteville Arkansas where she worked as the Academic Counselor for the REAL (Realizing Educational Aspirations for Latinos) Upward Bound program at the University of Arkansas. Her current area of interest is the implementation of the Guatemalan peace accords in relation to the bilingual-bicultural education system. Adam Beebe Adam grew up mostly in suburban Chicago. His interest in Latin America was ignited after he started studying Portuguese at the University of Chicago. While in college, Adam was able to spend a semester studying with the School for International Training in Fortaleza in the Brazilian Northeast. For his BA thesis, Adam focused on Brazilian pop music and, specifically, the countercultural Tropicália movement of the late 1960s. What he found most interesting in Tropicália was its dual nature as a modern, experimental form of rock music that at the same time incorporated indigenous instruments and archaic Brazilian themes. Adam observed a similar dichotomy between tradition and modernity in Mexico City, where he spent half a year teaching Adult ESL post graduation. At Tulane, Adam hopes to continue studying the ways in which people incorporate relics of their past into contemporary culture and the implications this has on national identity. In his free time Adam likes to play the guitar and is always trying to find new music to listen to. He is very excited about being in New Orleans and at Tulane, and is very excited about hearing brass instruments. Jennifer Boone Derek Burdette Derek Burdette, a native of Arizona, completed his undergraduate work at Northern Arizona University in 2004. While at NAU Derek completed his BA in both Spanish and Art History, laying the foundation for continued investigation into the field of Latin American visual culture. His three years in Flagstaff simultaneously concretized his love of the outdoors and set into motion a relationship with international travel, beginning with a semester in Valencia, Spain. Derek’s arrival at Tulane coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Katrina and was consequently converted into his unceremonious return to Arizona. After a semester at Arizona State University he returned to Tulane to complete an MA in Art History, focusing on the role of religious statuary in New Spanish culture. His interest in processional imagery and their ritual context led him to Peru in the summer of 2006 to carry out research on the images employed in the celebration of Corpus Christi, presenting the results of that research at the ILASSA conference held in Austin, Texas later that year. His masters thesis, entitled “Seeing Sanctity: The Presentation and Perception of the Image of the Virgin of Remedies in Early Colonial Mexico,” details the various social and cultural discourses deployed in relationship to the image and their relationship to the viewing experience. Derek is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies and Art History at Tulane, focusing on similar issues of procession and religious imagery. Rachel Crouch Rachel Crouch was born and raised in Galesburg, IL and graduated with honors from Illinois College in Jacksonville, IL in May 2006 with a degree in Spanish and creative nonfiction writing. During the spring semester of 2004 Rachel studied at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico; and in the fall of 2005, she studied at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina. During both semesters abroad, she researched the migration of middle-class university students to the United States. Elise Dietrich
Troy Foote has called New Orleans home for the past eight years. Originally from New York City, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School and the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he earned a B.S. in General Engineering and Spanish Language & Literature. He served more than ten years as an active-duty Army officer in Panama, Georgia, Florida, and Guatemala. He holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies, with a concentration in Tropical Agriculture, from the University of Florida. As part of thesis research he conducted surveys on tropical home gardens in David, Panama. During 18 years of Latin American work experience, he has spent time in 15 of the region's countries. He has been a civil affairs officer in the Army Reserve since 1996, and currently holds the rank of Major. Troy's main area of concentration is international development. At Tulane he has taught "Introduction to Latin America", varying levels of Spanish, and English as a second language. His personal interests include: the outdoors, personal fitness, reading, and nightlife. He is a member of the Tulane Gymnastics Club and Runners Club as well as the New Orleans Track Club. Professional interests include: civil-military relations, natural disaster management, sustainable agriculture, conservation of natural resources, and the region of Central America. His current dissertation research examines the importance of disaster management to the Guatemalan Military. Upon completion of his doctoral degree at Tulane, he plans on working either in academia or within the international development arena. Anna Frachou Denise
Frazier Denise Frazier is a native Houstonian, who graduated from Southwestern University in 2002 with a BA in Spanish and a minor in Economics. While at Southwestern University, Denise presented at the Southwestern University undergraduate conference on Chinese literature and migration in Cuba, and is currently co-publishing a website on the Chinese influence in Cuba--the results of a trip to Cuba in the summer of 2001. For over five years, she has translated for Spanish-speaking patients in clinics and hospitals in and outside Houston's Medical Center. Denise has also tutored bilingual students and taught elementary school classes, and translated for Spanish-speakers seeking legal aid in Austin, TX. New Orleans has given her the opportunity
to continue volunteering in the schools as a teacher's assistant at
the New Orleans Charter Middle School. She has presented as several
conferences. And was also awarded the Tinker Grant, which enabled her
to conduct research on Cuban hip hop in the summer of 2003. This research
resulted in a thesis on the commercialization of Cuban hip hop. Denise's studies has centered around performance, text, race and class identities, contemporary music, and how these issues are contextualized in the African diaspora of the Caribbean, Latin America, and the U.S. Her interests and career goals will ultimately lead to a greater engagement with performance, music, and community. Cynthia
Garza Originally from the Texas-Mexico borderlands, Cynthia Garza has nurtured a curiosity for Latin America from a young age, and while living and performing in South America, developed an interest in the performance of racial and ethnic identity. After completing her studies in Spanish and music at Loyola University New Orleans, Cynthia lived briefly in Cochabamba, Bolivia and for two years in Tacna, Peru as a social worker at the Center for the Working Child. While living abroad, Cynthia was drawn in to South American performance while dancing with an Afro Peruvian performance company, conducting dance workshops for teens, and training in various cities throughout Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Upon returning to the US, Cynthia combined her love of performance with community organizing while working at Casa del Pueblo Community Program and as Director of Advocacy at the DC Immigrant Coalition in Washington, DC. At both NGOs, she worked with local musicians, grassroots activists, and street theater companies to address housing rights and other issues of social justice through performance in DC immigrant communities. Currently, Cynthia is working as Coordinator for the Latin American Immersion Project, dedicated to the instruction of Latin American Studies in New Orleans public schools. As a doctoral candidate with training in Performance Studies and Anthropology, Cynthia is conducting dissertation research on how performance in coastal Peru shapes racial, ethnic and national identity. She has just returned from a summer in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil where she trained in Afro Brazilian and modern dance and is the co- founder of an all female Mardi Gras dance troupe. Maria Gaztambide Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, María C. Gaztambide is Research Coordinator at the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Previously she was at Tulane University where she spent close to four years as Visual Resources Curator at the Woldenberg Art Center. At Tulane she also pursued an MA in Art History and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Latin American Studies with emphasis in Caribbean Art History. Prior to this, María spent over two years conducting the Puerto Rico and New York Documentation Projects for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Through intensive archival and field research both in New York City and in the island, she uncovered valuable primary source material in the study of Puerto Rican and Latino art in the United States. María also holds a BS degree in Management and Studio Art also from Tulane, and an MA in Arts Administration, from the University of New Orleans. Annie
Gibson Annie Gibson, a native of Davidson, North Carolina,
began Bradley Hentschel Originally from the Tampa area, Bradley Hentschel attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL and graduated in 2007 with a B.A. in Hispanic Studies and English. His work in English culminated with an extensive comparative study of verbal and visual (novel versus film) in JAWS, while final research in Hispanic Studies explored perspectives of the Cuban Revolution in literature and film. During his undergraduate experience, Bradley served as student government President, student coordinator of alternative spring break immersion trips to Belize and Nicaragua, resident assistant, temporary editor of Spring Hill's underground newspaper, and English as a Second Language teacher. Bradley's research interests are focused on urban social structures that give rise to organized crime, criminal networks, and gangs and their proliferation. With the understanding of Latin American language and culture as a precondition to addressing gang formation and activities, this research approach identifies the driving forces that precipitate the creation and growth of gangs in communities throughout the Americas. A secondary but related source of interest lies on U.S. government policies towards, involvement with, and intervention in Latin-American governments and law enforcement establishments. Outside of the classroom, Bradley enjoys Tulane intramurals, Audubon Park, New Orleans cultural offerings, and the Florida Gators. Jordan Hooper Stephen
Paul Jacobs A former member of the faculty of Tulane’s School of Architecture, Steve Jacobs taught design as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia. He was a Fulbright Lecturer in Bogotá, Columbia and has taught in Argentina and Mexico. He has practiced architecture in New York and New Orleans. He graduated with a Bachelor in Architecture from MIT, where he was awarded the Grunsfeld European Traveling Fellowship, and a Masters in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Louis I Kahn. At Tulane, he directed exchange programs with the Facultad de Arquitectura of the Universidad de Yucatán. He helped organize two international conferences on the Latin Roots of New Orleans Architecture jointly sponsored by the Stone Center and the School of Architecture. Recently, was part of the team that presented the first conference of the Bolivian Studies Association. Most recently, he was a Visiting Professor at the Facultad de Tecnología of the Universidad de San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca in Sucre, Bolivia. Graduate study at Tulane, presents the opportunity to integrate and support a range of long-time interests in the historical and social context of forms of cultural expression. Katharina Kniess Aaron Lorenz Aaron Lorenz grew up in Oakland, Ca. He has a B.A. in Theater and Anthropology from the Gallatin School at New York University. There, he began working with Children & the Classics, a not-for-profit theater-literacy organization, through a community-based internship program led by Prof. Jan Cohen-Cruz. He continued working at C & C after graduation and coordinated children and teen theater projects in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. After three years, he returned to NYU to the Performance Studies M.A. program. There he coordinated an Arts & Social Policy conference, worked as a theater consultant in the Bronx and assisted Prof. Schechner in addition to his course work. During this same period, Aaron began studying Afro-Haitian and Afro-Cuban dance as well as capoeira angola at local dance schools around New York City. He has had the honor of studying with Mestre Joao Grande from 1995 – 2001. After finishing his thesis at Performance Studies on capoeira angola and critical utopian practice, Aaron moved to Brazil to work with the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics on their course website at the Universidade do Rio de Janeiro. After the project ended, he continued on in Rio teaching English and studying dance, capoeira angola and music. He is currently in the Ph.D. program of Latin American Studies at Tulane University focusing on performance, international public health and development. During his time at Tulane University, He has focused on reproductive health and HIV in Latin America with a special focus on social marketing programs. He is also focusing on issues of social capital and change in Brazilian and Cuban popular music. He presented a paper entitled, “A Geografia da Exclusão: O espaço de um utopia negativa em Clara dos Anjos, de Lima Barreto” at the BRASA conference at the PUC in Rio de Janeiro in 2004, and a paper entitled, “Folklore or Gangsta music, The music of Bezerra da Silva”, at the Caribbean Soundscape Conference organized by the Cuban Studies Institute at Tulane university. He was awarded a Tinker Grant this last summer, for a project entitled, “Ripples of Continuity and Change: the Afro-Haitian cultural legacy in Eastern Cuba.” He is also teaching an Intro to Latin American Studies and is the founder and Treasurer of the Tulane Capoeira Angola Club. He is currently finishing his last year of course work of the PhD program. Eric Mackintosh I was born and raised in Fairfax, Virginia. After graduating High School, I moved to Austin, Texas, in order to attend the University of Texas at Austin. I spent the fall semester of my Junior year studying abroad at La Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile. There I developed an interest in Latin American studies. I graduated from UT in August 2002, where I received a degree in Economics and one in Spanish. I was a Peace Corps volunteer from 2003 to 2005, working in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Upon returning to Virginia, I worked as an interpreter in Charlottesville, VA. I have two brothers and am very close to my family. Gray
Miles Before coming to Tulane to pursue a PhD
in Latin American Studies through the Stone Center, Gray Miles lived
and worked as a freelance journalist in Mexico, Spain, Chile and Colombia.
Mr. Miles has traveled extensively in the Andean region of South America.
He received a double honours BA from the University of King's College
in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Spanish and Contemporary Studies (philosophy).
Mr. Miles was later awarded a Master's degree in Journalism with a minor
in Latin American Studies from the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver, B.C. where he successfully defended his thesis on the framing
of Colombian news by U.S. correspondents working out of Bogota. Mr.
Miles has just completed post-production of his second documentary film,
entitled "Cruel Courage," the subject of which is Laurýn Minter Laurýn Tamar Minter is a native of Western New York. She earned a BA in Political Science (Pre Law) and Spanish graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Fisk University. Her primary interests in Latin America and the Caribbean began as a child, raised in a family of those of Latin American and Caribbean ancestry. Her initial undergraduate interests were in Immigration and Migrant Worker policy reform. This interest was as a result of attending a United Farm Workers Association conference and from many conversations with her great aunts and uncles. However, attending an illustrious Historically Black College, like Fisk University, afforded her the opportunity to develop her interests in Latin America and the Caribbean as it relates to the entire African Diaspora. Fisk University allowed her to channel great alum (i.e. WEB Du Bois, Booker T. Washington) who have contributed wonderfully to the study of the African Diaspora. Laurýn Tamar has used their research as a cornerstone to developing her interests in Latin America and the Caribbean. Laurýn Tamar’s interest in Latin America and the Caribbean are political and psychological in nature. She wishes to identify the reasons in which those who identify themselves as Latin American or Caribbean make a distinction between color, once living in the United States. Based upon this division, she’d like to identify the ways in which to bring together the entire community (Latin American and Caribbean) and join in political concert with those who identify themselves as African American. Laurýn Tamar operates under the premise that if successful in unifying these three ‘separate’ groups that a third political party could operate within a two party political system. In her free time Laurýn Tamar teaches table/social etiquette and image consulting workshops (in kind service). The goal of the workshops is to help young people of color become comfortable within their own skin and prepares them for navigating the social shoals of society. She also enjoys dancing the bachata, teaching salsa and pleña and cooking with her friends. Lisa Mosier Lisa Mosier is trained as an architect and architectural historian, with an emphasis on the history of urban forms and culture. She holds a professional Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Kentucky and received her Master’s degree in Architectural Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. Her previous research has focused on multiple issues surrounding the study of non-Western architecture, and she has worked with the Escuela de Estudios Árabes in Granada, Spain; the Agence pour la Dédensification et la Réhabilitation de la médina de Fès in Fez, Morocco; and the India National Trust for Art, Culture and Heritage in Delhi, India. Lisa has also acted as a curator and exhibit designer, working with contemporary artists and architects to explore topics such as city, identity, and the meaning of place. At Tulane, her research combines aspects of art history, museum studies, and architectural theory/criticism within Latin American area studies as she focuses on questions of representation and the agency of display in exhibitions of Latin American art and architecture of the 20th century. Monique Moss Lauren Nussbaum Lauren Nussbaum, from Amherst, Massachusetts, graduated from Barnard College (the women's college at Columbia University) in 2005 with a major in Spanish: Latin American Studies and a teacher's certification in Spanish. She studied abroad in Havana, Cuba, with Sarah Lawrence College and in La Paz, Bolivia, with Duke University. She wrote her senior thesis on the ideological and practical ties between Cuba and Venezuela since the election of President Hugo Chavez. After graduation, Lauren returned to La Paz, where she volunteered for the Centro de Promoción de Salud Integral, a Bolivian NGO specializing in public health, women's empowerment, and social justice. She also taught English and discovered capoeira there. At Tulane, Lauren is attempting to hone her wide-ranging interests in Latin America into a coherent topic of study. These interests include issues of political economy, sustainable free trade alternatives, regional cooperation and independence, women's health, and gender in the Andes and Cuba. She has also taken on Portuguese. In her spare time Lauren plays capoeira, eats Lebanese food, and listens to Shakira.Kevin O'Connor M.A./J.D. Candidate. Southern Cone, Migration, Identity A 2006 graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Kevin O’Connor joins the Stone Center with plans to focus his studies on Andean identity and Argentine literature and film. Kevin has studied and lived in Argentina and Bolivia. Jana Radmann Ph.D. Candidate. U.S.-Latin America Relations, Neopopulism A native of Germany, Jana Radmann studied at the University of Mainz and completed an exchange program at Louisiana State University in 2002. In 2005, she received an MA in Spanish linguistics from LSU, where she also instructed Spanish. Jana plans to focus her research at the Stone Center on political relations between the U.S. and Latin America, especially the affect of U.S. foreign policy on the domestic politics of the region. Hilary Smith M.A. Candidate. Contemporary Literature, Gender, Cultural Identity. A native of Vidalia, Georgia, Hilary Smith graduated with a B.A. in Spanish and a certificate in Latin American Studies from Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. She has traveled and studied in Peru, Uruguay, and Spain; and she has studied abroad in Argentina and Brazil. During the 2005-2006 school year, Hilary taught Spanish at Carolina Day School in Asheville, North Carolina. Since joining the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Hilary has focused her research on gender, memory, and cultural identity in contemporary Latin American literature, particularly that of Central America and the Southern Cone. Last summer she conducted a research project on the formal and informal manifestations of memory in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Recently she presented a paper entitled "Recovering Marginalized Voices in Libertad Demitrópulos's Un Piano en Bahía Desolación" at the 2007 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association in Montreal. Hilary's Master's thesis will focus on Post-dictatorial Culture in Argentina. Amelia Steadman David Weaver David Weaver is originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Semester study abroad programs in Denia, Spain and Merida, Mexico created a life-long interest in Spain and Latin America. Upon graduation at Calvin College with a triple major in History, Spanish and Secondary Education, David moved to Denver, Colorado to teach high school Spanish. After two years teaching Spanish, he again felt the urge to travel and live abroad. He received a position teaching English at the National Polytechnic School in Quito, Ecuador. His two years in Ecuador allowed him ample time to travel throughout South America with significant time in Argentina and Peru. Currently, David’s research interests include social movements in Ecuador along with Otavaleño migration to Quito. George
Young George's research interest, beginning with a survey
of Louisiana companies in 1996, is the impact of the Internet on International
Business, specifically between Louisiana and Latin America. |
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STONE CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES |
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| Please report updates to Denise Woltering |
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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