FALL
2005 CALENDAR OF EVENTS |
September | October | November | December
Lavinia
Barros de Castro
“The Brazilian Economy Today”
Is
Brazil improving? In this talk Ms. Barros de Castro will
analyze different perspectives on the Brazilian economy.
Topics to be discussed include fiscal policy, the new
pattern of trade and capital flows, debt and country
risk evolution and the results achieved by the inflation
target model.
Lavinia
Barros de Castro is an economist at the Brazilian National
Development Bank and teaches at IBMEC, Rio de Janeiro.
She is one of the editors of the recently published Economia
Brasileira Contemporanea, which is in contention
for the 2005 Brazilian Jabuti Book Prize. The author
also worked on the Brazilian version of Vocabulaire Économique
et Financier (1998) which has been translated into
four languages. Ms. Barros de Castro is currently a visiting
scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies.
-Government
of Brazil Inflation Report (in Portuguese)
Thursday,
August 25, 2:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
 Welcome
Back Reception
The
Center for Latin American Studies would like to invite
you to celebrate the beginning of another exciting year.
Please join us for an informal reception.
Thursday,
September 1, 4:00 – 6:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room
2334 Bowditch Street
Photos
of the event
 |
Ambassador Adolfo
Aguilar Zinser during a visit to Berkeley.
(Second image: Walking the campus with Professor Harley
Shaiken, Chair of the Center for Latin
American Studies.) |
| |
Adolfo
Aguilar Zinser, Mexico´s former Ambassador
to the United Nations (2002-2003), died tragically in
an automobile accident on June 5, 2005. He played a central
role in Mexican politics over the last several decades,
pushing forward a democratic agenda with intelligence,
integrity, and courage. At the UN, Secretary General
Kofi Annan reflected that “Mr. Aguilar Zinser
served his country with dedication, wit and independence
of spirit at a crucial time for the multilateral system,
and will be remembered with respect and affection by
many colleagues and friends around the world.”
Ambassador
Aguilar’s life and work will be honored by colleagues,
friends, and family at a public event at 5:00
pm in the Morrison Room of Doe Library (map),
on September 9, the date he was expected
to start teaching at the UC Berkeley campus for the 2005-2006
academic year.
Program
and List of Participants
Webcast
of Adolfo Aguilar Zinser: A Tribute, A Reflection
Retrospective of Ambassador Aguilar Zinser's long and fruitful
relationship with the Center for Latin American Studies
and Berkeley
Friday,
September 9, 5:00 pm
Morrison Room, Doe Library (map)
Photos
of the event
 El
Dia Que Me Quieras
Directed by Leandro Katz (1998)
Director
Leandro Katz deconstructs the myth of Che Guevara in
this meditation on the famous photo of Che’s corpse.
Using close-up photography and masking techniques, Katz
re-photographs the image and reflects upon the power
of photographic and cinematic representation in an attempt
to place Guevara back into the Latin American intellectual
life of his day. 30 minutes. English and Spanish
with English subtitles.
“Visually
exquisite and deeply moving... an elegy to the passing
of the age of revolution in Latin America...” — Jeffrey
Skoller, Afterimage.
Cuban
Story
Directed by Victor Pahlen (1959)
Both
Errol Flynn and Fidel Castro appear in this 1959 documentary
that was shelved for 40 years until its 2002 video release.
Flynn and producer Victor Pahlen owned a Havana movie
theater when Castro’s revolution broke out. Taking
to the streets with cameras, they captured footage of
the upheaval. 50 minutes. English.
Wednesday,
September 14, 7:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
 Horacio
Franco
Award-winning
Mexican musician Horacio Franco has been described by
the international press as “one of the most distinguished
recorder players of our time.” Franco has brought
the recorder — an instrument long relegated to
the “early music” genre — to modern
audiences with the help of both Mexican and international
composers who have written a broad repertoire of contemporary
music especially for him. He has established a
very active concert career and has made many recordings
of both early and contemporary music for CD, radio and
television.
Co-sponsored
with Cal Performances and the Mexican Consulate.
Wednesday,
September 14, 8:00 pm
Wheeler Auditorium (map)
Tickets
are available at the Cal Performances Ticket Office,
Zellerbach Hall; by phone at (510) 642-9988; on the web
at www.calperfs.berkeley.edu;
and at the door.
Price:
General public $32; Berkeley students $16
 Xavier
Velasco
“A Conversation With Mexican Author Xavier Velasco”
Xavier
Velasco was an advertising copywriter and rock journalist
before he turned his secret vice — writing fiction — into
a full-time occupation. Now one of Mexico’s best-known
young authors, Velasco won the prestigious Premio Alfaguara
de Novela 2003 for his second novel Diablo Guardián,
an unforgettable journey that followed the turbulent
adventures of Violetta, a 15-year-old immigrant and runaway,
in New York City. His new collection of short stories, El
materialismo histérico: Fábulas cutrefactas
de avidez y revancha was released last fall.
This
event will be in Spanish.
Thursday,
September 15, 3:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Analysis
and photos
of the event
 Art
Opening and Book Presentation
"Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar: Cuba Enters the 21st Century"
Photos by Mimi Chakarova
Capitalism,
God, and a Good Cigar: Cuba Enters the 21st Century, the
recently published book of essays edited by Prof. Lydia
Chávez, examines contemporary Cuban life from
a variety of perspectives and features over 75 photographs
from Chakarova’s Cuba series.
Photographs
on exhibit September 7 – November 1, 2005
Join
us for a talk with Prof. Lydia Chávez, along with
the authors and photographer, followed by an opening
reception.
Friday,
September 16, 6:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Photos
of the reception
Erin
Murphy-Graham
“Para
Seguir Adelante : Women’s Empowerment and Education
in Honduras”
Women’s
empowerment is a common goal of development organizations
and donor agencies. However, we know relatively little about
how and why education might empower women. This presentation
describes results from a qualitative study that investigated
the relationship between an alternative secondary education
program, the Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial or SAT, and
women’s empowerment in Garífuna villages on
the northern coast of Honduras . Spanning grades 6-12, SAT
provides educational opportunities for adolescents and adults
in rural areas who otherwise would not have attended secondary
school.
Erin
Murphy-Graham is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Graduate
School of Education at UC Berkeley. Murphy-Graham has worked
as an education consultant in Honduras , Nicaragua and Colombia
and has co-authored articles on evaluation and policy influence,
gender and secondary education in Latin America.
Monday,
September 19, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Analysis
and photos of the event
 Isabel
Allende and Sandy Curtis
"The Mistresses of Zorro in Conversation"
In
her latest novel, acclaimed author Isabel Allende delves
into the legend of Zorro to create a new version of the story
steeped in both Spanish and U.S. history. Allende’s
masked man is Diego de la Vega, son of a California hidalgo
and the beautiful daughter of a Spanish deserter and an Indian
shaman. As a young man he travels to Spain where he is inducted
into the secret society, La Justicia, and gains the skill
with his sword that will allow him to become the legendary
Zorro. Allende’s mix of historic events with feminist
and racial themes explodes with vivid characterization and
high-speed storytelling.
Isabel
Allende is the author of several novels and a short fiction
collection as well as plays and stories for children.
Sandy
Curtis is the head of creative development for Zorro Productions
in Berkeley, California. She has written seven Zorro novels
as well as Zorro Unmasked: The Official History.
Note:
This is a ticketed event. Tickets
will be distributed one per person at the door on a first
come, first served basis.
CLAS
invites our readers to submit questions for Isabel Allende
and Sandy Curtis electronically in advance of the event. Selected
questions will be asked at the event, and the answers will
be published on the CLAS website. To submit a question,
please contact Greg Louden at galadan@socrates.berkeley.edu.
Moderated
by Harley Shaiken, Chair of CLAS.
Co-sponsored
by International House.
Thursday, September 22, 7:30 pm
2299 Piedmont Ave, Chevron Auditorium, International House
Analysis
and photos
of the event
Armando
Nova
“Cooperatives: A Key Line of Agrarian Development in Cuba”
Armando Nova is a professor and researcher at the Centro de
Estudios de la Economía Cubana, Universidad de La Habana.
He has studied the cooperative sector in Cuban agriculture,
farmers’ markets in the post-1990 period and the international
linkages of the sugar and citrus industries.
Event
in Spanish, with translation available.
Moderator: Laura Enríquez, Associate Professor of Sociology,
UC Berkeley.
-UBPC,
mercado agropecuario y propiedad, paper by Professor
Nova (in Spanish)
Tuesday,
September 27, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Analysis
and photos of the event
 Intermissions
Directed
by João Moreira Salles (2004)
Salles
and his film crew followed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
in the five weeks leading up to the 2002 Brazilian presidential
elections. Granted astonishing access, the filmmakers uncover
behind-the-scenes details, including Lula’s unguarded
conversations and private moments. Intermissions also
documents Lula’s political evolution and his increasing
moderation as he strives to widen political alliances and
move closer to public opinion. 117 minutes. Portuguese
with English subtitles.
Wednesday,
September 28, 7:00 pm
CLAS Conference room, 2334 Bowditch Street
SECOND
SHOWING SCHEDULED
Monday, October 3, 7:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Film
screening and discussion with director Tommy Davis
“Mojados: Through the Night”
Armed
with a handheld camera and an 85-pound backpack full of batteries
and film, filmmaker Tommy Davis follows four young immigrants
from Michocán, Mexico into the desperate world of
illegal immigration. Accompanying them on the 120 mile cross-desert
journey, Davis brings their hopes and stories to life as
they evade the Border Patrol and face barbed wire, brutal
storms and the ever-present confrontation with death that
is the reality for the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants
who make a similar journey into the United States every year. 65
minutes. English and Spanish with English subtitles
“...
manages to capture the danger, fatigue and tedium of an illegal
border crossing from Mexico without becoming tedious itself.” — The
New York Times
-Official
Mojados website
Wednesday,
October 5, 7:00 pm
159 Mulford Hall (map)
Analysis
and photos
of the event
Herbert
Klein
“Popular Mobilization and the State in Bolivia Today”
Professor
Klein will discuss the impact of the “Participación
Popular” reorganization of the state in the late 1990s;
the recent collapse of the traditional party system and the
rise of ethnic parties in the latest municipal and national
elections; and the origins and evolution of the recent popular
protest movements.
Herbert
S. Klein is Professor of History and Director of the Center
for Latin American Studies at Stanford University. He is
the author of several books on Bolivia: Parties and Political
Change in Bolivia, 1880-1952 (1969); Revolution
and the Rebirth of Inequality (co-author) (1981); Haciendas
and Ayllus (1993) and A Concise History of Bolivia (2003).
Among his other recent books are The American Finances
of the Spanish Empire, 1680-1809 (1998), The Atlantic
Slave Trade (1999), Slavery and the Economy of São
Paulo, 1750-1850 (co-author) (2003), and A Population
History of the United States (2004).
-Professor
Klein's webpage at Stanford
-Free
Colored in a Slave Society:
São
Paulo and Minas Gerais in the Early Nineteenth Century, paper
by Professor Klein
Monday,
October 10, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Analysis
and photos
of the event
Juan
Flores
“Financial Instability in Argentina: Microeconomic Evidence From the Baring
Crisis”
In this talk, Prof. Flores will analyze Argentina’s historical
experience with financial crises. In particular, he will examine
the impact of the 1890 crisis, using new microeconomic evidence
drawn from bank archives. Implications will also be drawn for
the country’s subsequent experience with financial instability.
Juan
Flores, originally from Mexico, has a doctorate from the
Sorbonne and is currently Visiting Professor of Economics
and Economic History at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid.
Moderator: Barry
Eichengreen, Professor of Economics, UC Berkeley.
Co-sponsored
by the Economic History Seminar.
Monday,
October 10, 2:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Analysis
and photos
of the event
Roy
Bourgeois
“A Conversation With the Founder of School of the Americas Watch”
Father
Roy Bourgeois will discuss the impact of U.S. foreign policy
on social welfare issues as well as current movements to
create lasting social change.
Father
Roy Bourgeois served as a Naval Officer for two years before
being ordained as a Catholic priest in 1972. Bourgeois worked
with the poor of Bolivia for five years before being arrested
and forced to leave the country, then under the repressive
rule of dictator and SOA grad General Hugo Banzer. In 1980,
events in El Salvador caused Fr. Roy to become an outspoken
critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.
Co-sponsored
by the School of Social Welfare Caucus for International
Awareness, the Townsend Center for the Humanities and SOA
Watch–East Bay.
Tuesday,
October 11, 4:00 pm
YWCA Berkeley, 2600 Bancroft Avenue
Photos
of the event
Tom
Melville
"The Impact of U.S. Foreign Policy: A Priest's Tale of Deception, Destruction
and Devotion in Guatemala"
In
1967, after nearly a decade working with Mayan communities
in Guatemala, Maryknoll priest Thomas Melville was expelled
for sympathizing with the rebel movement against the U.S.-backed
military dictatorship. A year later, he was arrested and
imprisoned in the U.S. for nonviolent civil disobedience
protesting U.S. intervention in Vietnam and Guatemala. Now
he has written Through a Glass Darkly: The U.S. Holocaust
in Central America, a compelling chronicle of resistance
and repression in Guatemala and El Salvador, based on the
life and work of his former colleague, Father Ron Hennessey.
Co-sponsored
by the Guatemala News & Information Bureau, SOA Watch
and the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant.
-Interview
with Tom Melville, from SOA Watch website
Tuesday,
October 11, 5:00-6:30 pm
Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall
Photos
of the event
Paul
Heritage
“Parallel Power: Shakespeare, Gunfire and Silence”
 On
June 8, 2004 Shakespeare silenced the guns in the no-man’s
land separating two warring drug gangs in Rio de Janeiro
. This lecture looks at a production of “ Antony and
Cleopatra” produced in association with the Cultural
Group Afroreggae on the frontier between two favelas.
Exploring the divided nature of the divided city, Paul Heritage
will place the performance of Shakespeare within the context
of the gang culture that dominates the borderlands of Rio
de Janeiro.
Paul
Heritage is Professor of Drama and Performance at Queen Mary,
University of London . For over a decade he has been working
on a range of socially engaged arts projects across Brazil
, including the Love in Time of War project in Rio ’s favelas.
-
Short biography of Professor Heritage
- Article on the People's Palace Project
-
Taking
Hostages: Staging Human Rights, by Paul Heritage
Co-sponsored
by the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies.
Friday
October 14, 4:00 – 6:00 pm
Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall
Analysis
and photos
of the event
João
André da Rocha
“Workshop on Brazilian Dance”
Popular
celebrations and festivals allow us to reflect upon social
integration and regulation, creativity and interaction among
groups. Popular culture can also be used as a tool to promote
cooperation and conflict resolution among social groups.
In this workshop, João André da Rocha will
focus on Brazilian popular dance as a means of creating a
dynamic of social interaction and communication.
João
André da Rocha is a visiting scholar at Queen Mary,
University of London and a lecturer in the Department of
Communication and Performance at the Pontifícia Universidade
Católica de São Paulo.
Co-sponsored
by the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies.
Saturday,
October 15, 11:00 am – 12:15 pm
Room 126, Barrows Hall
Photos
of the event
Paul
Heritage
“Seminar: Staging Human Rights”
Theater
director Paul Heritage will discuss Human Rights in Scenes,
a performance-based human rights project in Brazilian prisons
from the Amazon to São Paulo . Professor Heritage
will also discuss strategies to improve social integration
and communication by using elements of popular culture and
arts. João André da Rocha will present his
research on Mané Gaiola, Brazilian street artist.
Paul
Heritage is Professor of Drama and Performance at Queen Mary,
University of London . For over a decade he has been working
on a range of socially engaged arts projects across Brazil
.
João
André da Rocha is a visiting scholar at Queen Mary,
University of London and a lecturer in the Department of
Communication and Performance at the Pontifícia Universidade
Católica de São Paulo.
Co-sponsored
by the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies.
Monday,
October 17, 10:00 am
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Photos
of the event
Paola
Cortes-Rocca
“Photography and the Law”
From
the time of its first appearance in 1839, photography was
used primarily to take portraits. However, this practice
quickly broke through the limits of the private sphere to
become a technology at the service of the State. The “Register
of Public Women in Mexico City” — which contains
images of the city’s prostitutes and was created by
the order of Emperor Maximilian in 1865 — inaugurated
the relationship between photography and legal control in
Latin America. In the following decades, people ranging from
criminals to those belonging to certain occupational groups
such as journalists and coachman had to submit to being photographed.
In the context of the modernization process of national states,
photography is an unequalled technique for analyzing the
relationship between the body and the Law.
Paola
Cortes-Rocca is a Postdoctoral Fellow of Spanish and Portuguese
at the University of Southern California.
Please
note that this presentation will be in Spanish.
Co-sponsored
by the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese and Ethnic
Studies and the Townshend Center for the Humanities.
Tuesday,
October 18, 12:00 – 1:30 pm
5125 Dwinelle Hall
Tinker
Summer Field Research Symposium
This
two-day symposium is a unique opportunity to learn about
the current research done by UC Berkeley graduate students
who spent last summer in Latin America. Field research grants
were provided by CLAS with the generous support of the Tinker
Foundation.
Schedule
of presentations
Tuesday,
October 18, 2:00 – 4:00 pm and
Wednesday, October 19, 2:00 – 5:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Fernando
Is Back
Directed by Silvio Caiozzi (1998)
Powerful
and uncompromising, Fernando Is Back documents the
horrors committed during the Pinochet regime. Recording the
work of Chiles’s Forensic Identification Unit, the
film chronicles the efforts of a devoted group of individuals
who are reclaiming their country’s troubled history,
one person at a time. As one of the doctors explains, “Before
we were talking about ghosts. Now we have full proof.” 31
minutes. Spanish with English subtitles.
“Powerful
and moving, this film shows the viewer the consequences of
the Chilean dictatorship and what it did to the people of
the nation.” — Educational Media Reviews Online
-
Film abstract and awards
100
Children Waiting for a Train
Directed by Ignacio Aguero (1988)
This
film poetically tells the story of a group of 100 or so Chilean
children who discover a different world through the cinema.
Every Saturday, Alicia Vega transformed a chapel in Santiago
into a screening room, conducting a film workshop for children
who had never seen a movie. After learning about cinema through
films such as The Red Balloon and The Arrival
of the Train to the Station, they design their own films
with drawings and take a trip to the theater in Santiago. 55
minutes. Spanish with English subtitles.
-
Film abstract and awards
Wednesday,
October 19, 7:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Benjamin
Lessing
"Banning Guns in Brazil : The Disarmament Referendum in Perspective"
On
October 23, Brazil will hold a nationwide, obligatory-vote
referendum on a single question: “Should the sale and
purchase of firearms be prohibited in Brazil?” With
parliamentary fronts formed and media campaigns regulated by
the Federal Election Court , the first referendum in Brazil ’s
history is forcing a national debate on crime, public security,
constitutional rights and the democratic process itself. A
brief presentation, including an update on the current state
of the campaign, will be followed by an open discussion of
the implications of this historic event.
Benjamin Lessing has worked as a researcher on public security
issues for the Small Arms Survey and the Brazilian NGO Viva
Rio since 2002. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department
of Political Science at UC Berkeley.
Thursday,
October 20, 4:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Photos
of the event
Cori
Hayden
“Economies of the Similar: Generic Drugs and the Question of Access in
Mexico”
This
talk addresses the recent emergence of generic drugs in Mexico,
currently Latin America’s biggest, and fastest growing,
pharmaceutical market. Unlike in Brazil, where antiretrovirals
and HIV/AIDS treatment have been the centerpiece of the powerful,
state-led generics ‘revolution,’ in Mexico, the
promise of cheaper, generic medicines has made its strongest
mark in the private sector. This talk will focus on the rapidly
growing pharmacy chain, Farmacias de Similares, whose populist
nationalism, affiliated laboratories, political movements,
health clinics and motto—“The same but cheaper”—have
begun to transform the face of health care provision in that
country. With the Similares phenomenon firmly in sight, Prof.
Hayden will explore the specific contours of Mexico ’s “pharmaceutical
publics.”
Cori Hayden is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley.
She received her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from UC Santa
Cruz in 2000 and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University
of Cambridge and the Center for U.S.–Mexican Studies
at UC San Diego. Prof. Hayden is the author of When Nature
Goes Public: The Making and Unmaking of Bioprospecting in Mexico (Princeton
University Press, 2003).
-
Professor Hayden's webpage
- Introduction
and sample chapter from When Nature Goes Public
Monday,
October 24, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Analysis
and photos
of the event
Alex Fattal
“Shooting Cameras for Peace in Colombia”
 In 2002 Alex Fattal founded the participatory photography
program, Disparando Cámaras para la Paz (Shooting
Cameras for Peace), in Colombia. The project targets children
who have been displaced by the armed conflict or who are at
high social risk, teaching them to use photography and other
audiovisual tools to express themselves. These young photographers
and their intimate portraiture of their daily lives provide
a unique and insightful perspective on the perplexing Colombian
conflict.
For more info see www.ajaproject.org — Colombia
Project.
Monday,
October 24, 12:00 – 2:00 pm
Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall
Robert
Irwin
“Joaquín Murrieta and la Santa de Cabora: History, Legend and Law
in the Borderlands”
Gold
rush bandit Joaquín Murrieta and insurgent faith healer
Teresa Urrea, popularly known as “la Santa de Cabora,” were
both major 19th century borderlands outlaws. Marginalized
by historiography and glorified in popular legend, each was
punished without legal process for crimes never clearly articulated.
How might a criminal trial have affected the cultural meanings
that have been generated through these icons on both sides
of the border?
Robert
Irwin is Associate Professor of Spanish and Classics at UC
Davis.
-Professor
Irwin's homepage
Co-sponsored
by the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese and Ethnic
Studies.
Thursday,
October 27, 12:30 – 1:30 pm
370 Dwinelle Hall
Peter
Evans
“Counter-Hegemonic Globalization and the Nation State: A Brazilian
Lens”
Globalization
is often seen as displacing the nation state from the center
of progressive politics. While it is true that alliances
between local and transnational social movements lie at the
core of opposition to the current neoliberal global regime,
nation states — particularly the major states of the
global south — are also essential actors in the politics
of “counter-hegemonic globalization.” This talk
will use the case of Brazil to illustrate this proposition.
Peter
Evans teaches in the Sociology Department at the University
of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Marjorie Meyer
Eliaser Chair of International Studies. He has worked for
many years on the comparative political economy of development,
focusing for most of those years on questions of industrial
transformation, as discussed in his 1995 book Embedded
Autonomy. This talk builds on his chapter on counter-hegemonic
globalization in the 2005 edition of the Handbook of
Political Sociology.
-Professor
Evans' homepage
Monday,
November 7, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Photos
of the event
Oswaldo
Peredo
"New Political Trends in Latin America: Focus on Bolivia"
Oswaldo
"Chato" Peredo was the political advisor to Evo Morales and
the MAS party and the former leader of Bolivia's Socialist
Party, PS 1.
This talk will be in Spanish with English translation.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and
the Center for Latin American Studies.
Monday, November 7, 4:00 pm
5125 Dwinelle, Spanish & Portuguese Library
Photos
of the event
John
Kraniauskas
“Deathworks: The Politics and Ethics of Amores perros”
Amores
perros is a Mexican work of urban neo-naturalism with
the populist scope and will-to-representativity of a moving
three-paneled mural. In this paper, Prof. Kraniauskas will
read each of the film’s three parts with a view to
understanding their autonomous compositional principles
and themes, as well as their specific articulation to the
film’s narrative as a whole. If each part focuses
on a broken familial relation, they do so in different
ways. The three sections examine economic, cultural and
political aspects of Mexican life, together producing an
overarching narrative centered on “el Chivo” that
that dramatizes the deathwork of the state.
John
Kraniauskas is Senior Lecturer of Spanish and Latin American
Studies at the University of London.
Co-sponsored
by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
-Dr.
Kraniauskas' homepage at the University of London
-Dr.
Kraniauskas' introduction to "The Fourth World War Has
Begun"
Tuesday,
November 8, 12:00 – 1:00 pm
370 Dwinelle Hall
Madrid
Directed by Patricio Guzmán (2002)
Offering
up a whimsical, personal view of one of the world’s
truly great cities, Chilean director Patricio Guzmán
captures Madrid ’s secrets. Exploring the city inside
the traffic-snarled ring, he uncovers a place where people
enjoy the finest things in life: superb food, engaging conversation
and the company of friends. 41 minutes. Spanish with
English subtitles.
Robinson
Crusoe Island
Directed by Patricio Guzmán (1999)
Patricio
Guzmán was 13 years old when he discovered Daniel
Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe. In 1999, he
directed this film on Robinson Crusoe Island off the coast
of Chile , a place he had long believed to be fictitious.
This intimate and sentimental visit to the “lost” island
is a personal meditation on the Crusoe legend and an exploration
of the story’s actual setting. 45 minutes. Spanish
with English subtitles.
-the
films of Patricio Guzman, from the First Run Icarus
Films website
-Interview
with Patricio Guzman, from IndieWire website
Wednesday,
November 9, 7:00 pm
CLAS Conference room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Nancy
Scheper-Hughes
“Human
Rights, Democracy and Citizenship in Northeast Brazil”
Death
squads are nothing new to the sugar plantation zone of rural
Northeast Brazil, an area with a long history of self-styled justiceiros — often
in the employ of the region’s sugar barons — taking
justice into their own hands. What requires some explanation
is the resurgence of extermination groups and death squads
in the neoliberal, democratic, civil rights-oriented decades
of the 1990s to the present day. In the plantation market
town of Timbauba a state of siege and political anarchy peaked
in the late 1990s when a particularly virulent death squad
took control of the municipio. An unanticipated
turn of events in 2001 led to the arrest of 14 gang members
when a small group of local activists joined forces with
a fearless judge and a tough-minded district attorney in
a battle to wrest the town from the vigilantes. In the past
year, however, death squad and vigilante attacks have resumed.
Among the targets today are journalists and members of the
activist human rights community themselves.
Nancy
Scheper-Hughes is Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley.
She is best known for her award-winning books Saints,
Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland and Death
without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil.
-video
interview with Professor Scheper-Hughes
-Professor Scheper-Hughes' web page
Monday,
November 14, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Analysis
and photos
of the event
Born
to be Blind
Directed by Roberto Berliner
(1998)
Following
three blind sisters as they perform their daily chores and
earn money singing and playing ganzá in the streets
of poverty-stricken northeast Brazil , this film weaves a
complex tale of survival, humor, love, anguish and art. Maria
Barbosa, the oldest and most talented of the three sisters,
invokes “the will of God” to describe her existence,
largely dependent on the kindness of strangers. The camera
continues to accompany them as their lives take an unexpected
turn as a result of the film. 84 minutes. Portuguese
with English subtitles.
-New
York Times review of the film
Wednesday,
November 30, 7:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Adolfo Gilly
"The Mexican Revolution: A People’s History"
In
his talk, Adolfo Gilly will discuss his seminal work, The
Mexican Revolution: A People’s History, which has
recently been published in English. His book — which
spans the years between the first peasant uprisings against
Porfirio Diaz and the inauguration of Álvaro Obregón
in 1920 — has been described as the definitive study
of a critical stage in Mexico’s history. Gilly portrays
the Mexican Revolution as the starting point for the socialist
uprisings of the 20 th century, emphasizing that its reverberations
are still felt today in social justice movements in Latin America
and the rest of the world.
Adolfo
Gilly is Professor of History at the Universidad Autónoma
de México. He is the author of numerous books on the
history and politics of Mexico and Latin America.
Wednesday, December 7, 4:00 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch
Street
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