2021-22 Event Series

A 2015 women’s march crowds the streets in Brazil, with calls for greater respect for Black Brazilian citizens and culture. (Photo by Janine Moraes, Courtesy of Secretaria Especial da Cultura do Ministério da Cidadania, Brazil.)

The 2021-2022 Academic Year has a full and diverse program of events. 

These events are online, via Zoom, unless otherwise mentioned.

Indigenous Solutions: art/media/thought

This series of presentations will explore the ways in which Indigenous worldviews and experiences (Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile) offer not only a critique of Western uses of art, technology, science, and language but also paradigms for a decolonized praxis of life that sustains forms of ethical and ecological relationality. Our aim is to show the centrality of reclaiming language and art practices in the contemporary struggles against dispossession, settler colonialism, monolingualism, and binary thinking.

Fall 2021

Oct 4 |Maria Thereza Alves

Colonial Practices and Cultural Repression by the Municipality against the Community Museum of the Valle de Xico but “It is our 25th anniversary and we are still here.”

Maria Thereza Alves is an artist and activist whose work investigates the histories and circumstances of particular localities to give witness to silenced histories. This event is co-organized with Berkeley Center for New Media.

Oct 11 | Sebastián Calfuqueo

Non-Binary Waters / Aguas no binarias: Approaching the work of Sebastián Calfuqueo

Sebastián Calfuqueo is a Chilean and Mapuche artist. This event is co-organized with Arts + Design Mondays

Spring 2022

Feb 7 | Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil

Tequiologies: Indigenous Solutions Against Climate Catastrophe

Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil is an Ayuujk linguist, writer, translator, and human-rights activist. This event is co-organized with Berkeley Center for New Media.

Canceled | Elvira Espejo Ayca

Jiwasan Amayusa: El pensar de nuestras filosofías

Elvira Espejo Ayca is a Bolivia artist and was the director of the National Museum of Ethnology and Folklore. 

New Vocabularies, New Grammars: Imagining Other Worlds

This academic year programming will focus on critics and intellectuals who, in their forms of writing and thinking, undo the divisions and separations between disciplines and genres, and between political action and intellectual engagement. In this practice of border/crossing, new languages and grammars can be imagined to signify other worlds to resist and oppose the imposed violence of colonial epistemes. These scholars, critics, and political actors offer a dynamism of the indeterminacy, inviting practices that bring together words and worlds.

Fall 2021

Dec 1 | Cristina Rivera Garza

Escrituras geológicas: Desedimentación y huella en algunas autoras contemporáneas / Geological Writings: De-sedimentation and Trace in Some Contemporary Authors

Dr. Cristina Rivera Garza is an award-winning author of six novels, three collections of short stories, five collections of poetry and three non-fiction books. 

Spring 2022

Feb 24 | Denise Ferreira da Silva

The Racial Event

Dr. Denise Ferreira da Silva is an academic and practicing artist whose work addresses the ethico-political challenges of the global present. 

Mar 10 | Malcom Ferdinand

A world beyond the colonial epistemology: Writing with engagement

Dr. Malcom Ferdinand is a researcher at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society who works at the crossroad of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology. 

Novedades/Lançamentos: New Scholarship @ Berkeley

This series will highlight new work from UC Berkeley scholars on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Fall 2021

Sept 22 | Daylet Domínguez

Ficciones etnográficas: Literatura, ciencias sociales y proyectos nacionales en el Caribe hispano del siglo XIX 

Dr. Daylet Domínguez is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley.

Oct 25 | Nicolás Pereda

Fauna

Nicolás Pereda is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at UC Berkeley.

Spring 2022

Jan 27 | Charles Briggs

Unlearning: Rethinking Poetics, Pandemics, and the Politics of Knowledge 

Dr. Charles Briggs is a professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. 

Apr 7 | Estelle Tarica

Holocaust Consciousness and Cold War Violence 

Dr. Estelle Tarica is a professor of Spanish & Portuguese at UC Berkeley. 

¡No son 30 pesos, son 30 años! Social movements in Latin America

This series of conversations will map out the cycle of protests that have occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean in the past two decades. We seek to reflect on social explosions and mobilizations - in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, and Paraguay - without limiting ourselves by looking only at the present nor invisibilizing the patience and daily commitment of those who fight for dignified lives free from racism and sexism. We also want to make visible local histories of struggle, as well as solidarity networks that have articulated and sustained these mobilizations. The conversations will revolve around the following questions: 1) What pillars of liberal democracies and/or autocratic governments are being criticized and destroyed, and what forms of government and sovereignty have been proposed and created? 2) Does the current economic crisis in the region, which has deepened during the pandemic, put neoliberal legitimacy in crisis? 3) Beyond the body of the constitution, what constitutional ideas or actions are being proposed and carried out? 4) How can we think about geopolitics in other ways, traversing the history of empires and new empires, and draw other geographies for the future?

More events in Spring 2022

CineLatino

The CineLatino Film Series provides access to Latin American films, challenging stereotypes and providing new perspectives on the region. This series is made possible with the support of Pragda, SPAIN arts&culture, and the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain.

Fall 2021

Sept 10-17  | Ema

Sept 17-24 | Los lobos

Sept 24 - Oct 1 | Xquipi' Guie'Dani

Oct 1-8 | Yo, niña

Oct 8-15 | Un traductor

Download the series poster here