LACS Events - Fall 2006

Latin American & Caribbean Studies

International Institute, University of Michigan

Monday, September 18, 12 pm, 1636 SSWB/International Institute

What's Left in Latin America Lecture Series: ALBERTO MOREIRAS on “Newness, World Language, Alterity: On Borges's Mark” (also part of the International Institute's Citizenship at Risk: International Perspectives series).

Monday, October 2, 12 pm, 1636 SSWB/International Institute

What's Left in Latin America Lecture Series: PETER KORNBLUH: "Coup d' État: The Anatomy of U.S. Involvement in 'Regime Change' in Chile, and Lessons for Venezuela." (also part of the International Institute's Citizenship at Risk:International Perspectives series).

Monday, October 9, 12 pm,1636 SSWB/International Institute

What's Left in Latin America Lecture Series. GREG GRANDIN on “Whither the Latin American Left” (also part of the International Institute's Citizenship at Risk: International Perspectives series).

Monday, October 30, 4 pm, The Annenberg Auditorium of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Weill Hall

The department of Political Science, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Latin American and Caribbean Studies present the talk The Real Challenges of Latin America by José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General Organization of American States.

José Miguel Insulza took office as OAS Secretary General on May 26 of 2005. A lawyer by profession Mr. Insulza has a master's in politcal science from the University of Michigan. Mr. Insulza was Political Advisor to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Director of the Diplomatic Academy of Chile when Salvador Allende was president. Following the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet into power, Mr. Insulza went into exile. After Chileans voted against Pinochet's continued rule in a plebiscite, Insulza returned to his home country and helped to lead a political movement toward democratic elections in 1990. A member of Chile's Socialist Party—part of a moderate coalition of democratic parties—Insulza has held a number of high-level government posts: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister Secretary General of the Presidency, Minister of the Interior and Vice President of the Republic.

Wednesday, November 8, 12pm, 4701 Haven Hall

CAAS Faculty Brownbag, NESHA HANIFF: "Adolescent MSM in Jamaica: HIV Risk, Homophobia and Gender Stereotypes in Relationships,"

Friday, November 10, 12 pm, Kuenzel room at the Michigan Union.

What's Left in Latin America Lecture Series. ERNESTO LACLAU on “The Discursive Construction of the People as a Collective Actor” (also part of the International Institute's Citizenship at Risk: International Perspectives series).

Monday, November 13, 4-5:30, 1644 SSWB/International Institute

Brazilian National Health Policy since 1988: A Universal Right to Health Care versus Neoliberal State Downsizing
CRISTIANI VIEIRA MACHADO, National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Thursday, November 16, at 4 pm in the Anderson Room, Michigan Union

The Center for Afroamerican and African Studies presents the 2006 CLR James Lecture. Professor Rex Nettleford will speak on " The Caribbean's Creative Diversity: The Defining Point of the Region's History ." The Honorable Rex Nettleford is a well-known Caribbean scholar, trade union educator, social and cultural historian and political analyst. A former Rhodes Scholar, he is a Vice Chancellor Emeritus at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. He is also the founder, artistic director and principal choreographer of the internationally acclaimed National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica and is regarded as a leading Caribbean authority in the performing arts. For more info, contact CAAS, (734) 764-5517.

Friday, November 17, 10-12pm, 1014 Tisch Hall

What is the Atlantic World? How does our work draw upon and challenge this framework? Join us in this Atlantic Studies Interdisciplinary Workshop to discuss some of these questions that draw upon three articles posted to our CTools site: Lara Putnam's “To Study the Fragments Whole,” Laurent Dubois's “Enslaved Enlightenment,” and one more piece to be posted shortly. On this, our second meeting, we also seek your input on the future direction of the workshop. Light refreshments will be served.

Please contact Jennifer Palmer ( palmerjl@umich.edu ) with questions or comments.

Friday, November 17, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, in the School of Social Work

LACS and MIRA will sponsor a conference panel on " Contemporary Great Migrations: Changing Character, Evolving Movement Responses ." Pedro Lewin (Centro INAH Yucatan, Mexico) will discuss the changing pace, scale and character of Mexico-US labor migration, especially the increasingly indigenous character of the migrants. Eddie Acosta (Voice@Work, AFL-CIO) will discuss the evolution of AFL-CIO thinking on immigration policy and workers' centers, including the new agreement signed in 2006 between the AFL-CIO and two workers' center networks. Martha Cranshaw (Director, La Red Nicaraguence de la Sociedad Civil Para Las Migraciones, Nicaragua) will discuss the labor displacements occurring in Central America, with particular focus on NGO responses to the massive migration from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, a comparison case. This is the first panel in the two-day conference (sponsored by a dozen organizations), " Crossing Borders: Immigration, Workers' Centers and Universities Conference ." The increased migration of Mexican and Central American workers to the US, Congressional debates on immigration reform, and the unprecedented marches by Latina/o immigrant workers this year have intensified our awareness of two profound needs. Intellectually, we need to understand the impacts of this migration on US labor market dynamics and to assess claims that migrants are displacing young, male, African-American workers. Politically, we need to find the space in which Latino, African-American, and other low-wage workers can engage each another, act upon their common interests as workers, and respect each others' historical experiences, identities and cultures of solidarity. The conference begins at 8:30 on Friday with a continental breakfast and a keynote talk by Janice Fine. For a complete schedule, see http://www.workercenter.org/conference.html .

Friday, November 17, 1pm, 2609 SSWB/International Institute

You are invited to a public lecture by Angus Wright ( Department of Environmental Studies, California State University at Sacramento) entitled “ Pesticides, NAFTA, and Globalization.” He is the author of The Death of Ramon Gonzalez: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma , Revised Edition, 2005 and (With Wendy Wolford): To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil , 2003.

November 17-19, in Trotter House (1443 Washtenaw Ave).

Celebrate Afro-Brazilian artistry in the U.S with Capoeira and Samba! Come and Learn the Dances and History of Brazil with workshops, discussions and performances by Afro-Brazilian Masters from Bahia, Brazil! Featuring: Mestre Lua de Bobo, Mestre Caboquinho and Edison Scovão from Bahia! For registration and information call 734-383-2374 or email vamosbaianos@yahoo.com . Also visit www.tabcat.org .

Wednesday, November 29, 12 noon, 1644 SSWB/International Institute

The Caribbean Workshop invites you to a lecture by Leonora Simonovis ( Ph. D. Candidate in Hispanic Language and Literature, Washington University), entitled PEDRO INFANTE REVISITED. Every year, on April 15 th , thousands of people of Mexico and Latin America commemorate the death anniversary of one of the most revered popular idols of all time: Pedro Infante. This presentation intends to reveal the “behind the scenes” of Pedro Infante's popularity by exploring written and visual texts that focus on Infante's influence in the construction of Latin American masculinity and in the upholding of patriarchal tradition. At the same time, these texts emphasize the importance of ranchera songs as a symbol of the transition between rural and urban –modern life in Mexico and Latin America.

Thursday, November 30, at 12 noon in 4154 LSA (yes, the LSA building is open again!)

The Department of Sociology presents a job talk by Jocelyn Viterna on " When Women Wage War: Explaining the Personal and Political Consequences of Guerilla Activism in El Salvador ." Why do women choose to become guerrilla insurgents? What experiences do they have in guerrilla armies? What are the long-term repercussions of this participation for their personal and family lives, their political activism under democracy, their local communities, and their nation? This talk addresses these questions while providing a rare look at guerrilla life from the viewpoint of rank-and-file participants. Jocelyn Viterna is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Stone Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Tulane, and in 2006 is an Academy Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.

Friday, December 1, 4:00-6:30pm, The William L. Clements Library, 909 S. University Avenue

The Colloquium Series ‘What's the Atlantic?' will be featuring Laurent Dubois (History, Michigan State University), on ‘Voltaire and Dessalines in the Theatre of the Atlantic.'

This paper explores the history of theatre in the French Atlantic, and particularly in Saint-Domingue, arguing that it was the most important vehicle for the circulation of Enlightenment ideas during the late eighteenth century. In order to do so, it explores how one African-born man drew on and reformulated Voltaire's famous play Zaire in requesting freedom for his slave, tells the story of what one of earliest works of literature in creole -- a re-writing of a Rousseau opera set on a plantation and performed by white actors in blackface -- and suggests a possible connection between the ideas of Voltaire and the founder of Haitian independence, Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

Laurent Dubois is Associate Professor of History, Michigan State University . His most recent publication, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 , received the 2005 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition; the 2004 Prize in Atlantic History, American Historical Association, and the 2004 John Edwin Fagg Prize, American Historical Association. This event is open to faculty & graduate students.

LACS hours and staff: The LACS office is open 8-5. Mercedes Santos runs the LACS front desk (763-0553). Bebete Martins is the guru of LACS events and programming. David Frye is in charge of LACS student advising and is available for walk-ins and appointments between 10:30 am and 3:30 pm MWTHF. Fernando Coronil is our Director.

For more information on events as they draw nearer call LACS at 763-0553
or e-mail at lacs.office@umich.edu