Rebecca
Solnit
"Borders and Crossers: Landscapes for Politics"
Rebecca
Solnit will read from her new anthology, Storming the
Gates of Paradise and discuss the cultural geographies
of political protest, the border and the social landscape.
The anthology contains 36 essays from the last decade of
her writing, dealing with everything from gender politics
to the geographies of political protest, the representation
of nature and the hybrid cultures of California.
Rebecca
Solnit is an essayist, contributing editor to Harper’s
and the recipient of a Guggenheim and the National Book
Critics Circle award.
Monday,
September 10, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
International House, Home Room
Article,
webcast and photos of the event
Alain
de Janvry
"'Agriculture for Development': Implications for Latin America?"
With
75 percent of world poverty concentrated in rural areas,
the forthcoming World Development Report "Agriculture
for Development" argues that the role of agriculture
as an instrument for development has been badly underused
by governments and donors, with high social and environmental
costs. Does this apply to Latin America ? The region is
highly urbanized, new developments in production and marketing
threaten the competitiveness of smallholders and agricultural
labor markets have been poorly remunerative. The model
followed has often been rapid growth in commercial farming
with poverty mitigated through cash transfers. Can Latin
America do better? The authors of the report argue that
it can.
Alain
de Janvry is Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics
at UC Berkeley.
Monday,
October 1, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
International House, Home Room
Webcast
and photos of the event
Laura
Nader and Ugo Mattei
"Plunder: When the 'Rule of Law' Is Illegal"
While
the concept of the “rule of law” has widespread
support, few have considered that it is often upheld to
protect the interests of the powerful. Nader and Mattei
will discuss how the rule of law has been used to justify
the plunder of weaker economies, indigenous technologies
and natural resources.
Laura
Nader is Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Ugo
Mattei is Professor of International and Comparative Law
at Hastings College of Law.
Co-sponsored
by the Center for the Study of Law and Society.
Monday,
October 8, 4:00 – 5:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Photo
of the event
Martin
Carnoy
"Cuba's Academic Advantage"
When
UNESCO administered standardized tests to elementary school
students in 13 Latin American countries, low-income Cuban
students outperformed most middle-class students in the
other 12 countries. The test data confirmed years of anecdotal
evidence that Cuba’s primary schools are the best
in the region, perhaps even better than schools in neighboring
Florida. Prof. Martin Carnoy will present the results of
his interviews with Cuban teachers, principals and ministry
officials as well as his visits to university teacher training
programs.
Martin
Carnoy is Professor of Education and Economics at Stanford
University.
Monday,
October 11, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
Photos
of the event
Peter
Selz
"Fernando Botero's 'Abu Ghraib' Paintings"
Deeply
shocked by accounts of American atrocities, the renowned
Colombian artist Fernando Botero turned from his satiric
figures to portray tortured prisoners as victimized, degraded
human beings. Prof. Peter Selz will contextualize his discussion
of Botero’s "Abu Ghraib" series by comparing
it with the oeuvre of other artists who have depicted torture:
Goya, Beckmann, Dix and Picasso.
Peter
Selz is Professor Emeritus in UC Berkeley’s History of
Art Department and the founding director of the Berkeley Art
Museum.
Monday,
October 15, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
International House, Sproul Room
Photos
of the event
Manuel
Castells
"Globalization, Development and Democracy: The Chilean Democratic Model"
The
economic growth and democratic consolidation that took
place in Chile from 1990 to 2007 has made that country
the success story of Latin American development. Chile
has been able to combine a high rate of economic growth
with a substantial reduction in poverty and major improvements
in housing, education and health for low income groups.
Manuel Castells argues, in contrast to the standard view,
that it was the inclusive, democratic model of development
rather than Pinochet’s exclusionary, authoritarian
model that transformed Chile while the region at large
alternated between growth and crisis. Castells will present
the results of several years of research on Chile and
examine its implications for Latin America as a whole.
Manuel
Castells is the Wallis Annenberg Professor of Communication
Technology and Society at the University of Southern
California, Research Professor at the Open University
of Catalonia in Barcelona and Professor Emeritus of City
Planning and Sociology at the University of California,
Berkeley.
He
is the author of the trilogy The Information Age:
Economy, Society and Culture, translated into 22
languages, and, lately, of Globalización,
desarrollo y democracia: Chile en el contexto mundial (Fondo
de Cultura Economica, 2005).
Thursday,
October 18, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
Home
Room, International House
Photos
of the event
James
Holston
"'Treating the Unequal Unequally': The Entrenched Regime of Special Treatment
Citizenship in Brazil"
Since
independence, Brazil has maintained a regime of citizenship that is universally
inclusive in national membership and massively inegalitarian in distributing
rights and legalizing social differences. Thus, Brazilian citizenship has been
a legal means to distribute inequality. This lecture analyzes the development
and persistence of this regime of special treatment citizenship, which, while
still dominant, has been challenged by a new and insurgent formulation of citizenship
arising in the urban peripheries.James
Holston is Associate Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. His forthcoming
book Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil will
be available in January from Princeton University Press.
Monday,
November 5, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street
