Latin American & Caribbean Studies

International Institute, University of Michigan

LACS Events - Winter 2006

Monday, January 9, 4:00 pm, 2609 SSWB/International Institute

LACS Queer Latino/a American Speaker Series: DENILSON LOPES (Professor at the Faculty of Communications at the University of Brasília, Brazil) will speak on “In Search of Queer Invisibility.” In this talk, Professor Lopes presents a general panorama of LGBTQ issues in Brazil from the 1970's to nowadays, from activism to culture, emphasizing the role of literature. He then discusses the work of Brazilian writer and critic Silviano Santiago, making a reading of his novel Stella Manhattan in a comparative and transnational perspective and appointing to an ethics of invisibility as a counterpoint to the politics of outing. Professor Lopes is part of the Faculty of Communications at the University of Brasília, has been former President of the Brazilian Association of Homocultural Studies, and a Visiting Scholar with a Post-Doctoral grant from Capes (Brazil) at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University (2005-06). He is author of The Man who Loved Young Men and Other Essays (Rio de Janeiro, Aeroplano, 2002), We the Dead: Melancholia and the Neo-Baroque (Rio de Janeiro, 7Letras, 1999), co-editor of Image and Sexual Diversity (São Paulo, Nojosa, 2004), and editor of The Cinema of the 90's (Chapecó, Argos, 2005).

Tuesday, January 10, 12-1 pm, 2609 SSWB/International Institute

LACS Bate-Papo Series: MARIA HELENA MACHADO (Professor of History, USP, Brazil) will speak on “O Brasil segundo Louis Agassiz e William James. A Expedição Thayer, 1865-66.” A autora pretende abordar seu trabalho atual sobre a Expedição Thayer que percorreu o Brasil entre 1865-1866. A expedição foi liderada pelo famoso cientista de origem suíça e professor da Harvard University, Louis Agassiz, um dos maiores defensores nos EUA do criacionismo e do poligenismo. A expedição contou também com a participação de William James, na figura de coletor-voluntário.

Wednesday, January 11, 12-1 pm, 2609 SSWB/International Institute

LACS Brownbag Series: JOHN MONTEIRO (Professor of Anthropology, UNICAMP, Brazil) will speak on "Colonial Indians in Portuguese America: Soldiers, Converts, and Slaves."

Tuesday, January 17, 6pm, 3512 Haven Hall

Queer Hispanic Caribbean/Diasporic Film Series. Mauvaise conduit/ Conducta impropria/Improper Conduct (1984, 110 minutes)
[In Spanish and French, with Eng. Subtitles] Controversial documentary about lesbians and gays in Cuba by Nestor Almendros and Orlando Jimenez Leal.

Friday, January 20, 12:00pm at the Art and Architecture Bldg, room 2213.

LACS Series on Architecture and Urbanism: LUIS CARRANZA (Associate Professor at Roger Williams University, School of Architecture) will speak about Uncontaminated Truth: (Mis)Reading Ancient History and Culture in Modern North America. One of the central discourses of North American architectural modernity was founded on the architectural heritage of "ancient" indigenous America. Through this, a theory of origins was generated to justify the formal and theoretical investigations of a group of Mexican and North American thinkers and architects. In this talk, Luis Carranza will discuss the seemingly contradictory role of so-called "archaic cultures" within the center of modernist debates. Luis Carranza is one of the leading scholars in Latin American modern architecture, whose research centers on his native Mexico. He has published on the Mexican architect and artist Juan O´Gorman, as well as on the Mexican avant-garde. Recently, Carranza was guest editor for a special issue of the Journal of Architectural Education focusing on "Expressions of Modernity in Latin American Architecture". Luis Carranza holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and currently is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation at Roger Williams University. He has also lectured at Harvard and the University of Texas.

Friday, January 20, 9:30am-6:30pm, School of Social Work (Educational Conference Center)

1st Annual Conference on Immigration and Social Justice Series: Organizing Migrant and Immigrant Workers. The conference will bring together leading academics and activists, as well as union leaders and students, to discuss recent developments and new strategies in the fight to organize immigrant workers. The conference will open with a panel on the international human rights framework and innovative domestic legal strategies. The conference will include panels focusing on the agricultural and service sectors, and small group discussions with the speakers. In addition, conference participants will discuss creating a university-community-labor partnership in support of immigrant workers in the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area.
Co-sponsors: MIRA (Migrant and Immigrant Rights Awareness), Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, Department of Sociology, Latin and Caribbean Area Studies, Labor Law Roundtable, School of Social Work, Residential College, LEO.
Confirmed Speakers: Baldemar Velasquez (human rights activist, founder and president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, FLOC, AFL-CIO); Jennifer Gordon (Associate Professor of Law at Fordham Law School); Lance Compa (Senior Lecturer at Cornell University 's School of Industrial and Labor Relations); Jose L. Oliva (Director of the Interfaith Workers' Rights Center and Coordinator of the Interfaith Worker Justice National Workers' Centers Network); Fran Ansley (Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law); and Rene Perez Rosenbaum (Associate Professor in the Department of Community Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies and Senior Scholar with the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University).

Tuesday, January 24, 12-1 pm, 2609 SSWB/International Institute

LACS Bate-Papo Series: RITA MARQUILHAS (Departamento de Linguística da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa ) will present on “Uma Certa História da Língua Portuguesa." A língua Portuguesa é, hoje em dia, património de duzentos milhões de pessoas que a herdaram, a usam e a recriam dentro de comunidades culturais muito diversas. Uma história deste idioma que se concentre nas raízes da sua heterogeneidade tem de ser uma história de encontros, de lutas, de preconceitos, mas também de tolerância e sobrevivência. Neste bate papo a Professora Rita Marquilhas abordará o processo de preparação de uma Exposição sobre este tema destinada aos Leitorados de língua portuguesa em universidades estrangeiras. The Bate-Papo is a series of informal meetings of students, scholars, and invited guests to discuss issues of broad contemporary interest. Conversations will be primarily in Portuguese, but accessible to beginning Portuguese students.

Wednesday, January 25, 12-1 pm, 1644 SSWB/International Institute

Caribbean Workshop Series: Femme in Time: Freddie Mercado's Gender Disruption
Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is Assistant Professor of American Culture/Latino/a Studies and Spanish. His fields of specialty include
Hispanic Caribbean (Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican), Latino/a (especially Diasporic Caribbean), and Queer Latin American literary
and cultural studies, with a special emphasis on Hispanic Caribbean and U.S. Latino/a theater and performance.

Light refreshments will be served. Sponsored by the Rackham Graduate School, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Romance
Languages and Literature.

Tuesday, January 31, 6 pm, in 3512 Haven Hall

Queer Hispanic Caribbean/Diasporic Film Series. Before Night Falls (2000, 133 minutes). [In English] Narrative film by Julian Schnabel based on the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arena's autobiography (with Javier Bardem as Arenas).

Tuesday, February 7, 6 pm, in 3512 Haven Hall

Queer Hispanic Caribbean/Diasporic Film Series. Fresa y chocolate/Strawberry and Chocolate (1994, 104 minutes). [In Spanish, with Eng. Subtitles] Narrative film by Thomas Gutierrez Alea, based on story by a Cuban Senel Paz.

Friday, February 10, 4:00 pm, in 3512 Haven Hall

Caribbean Workshop Series:"Transnational Migration from the Hispanic Caribbean" , presented by Jorge Duany (University of Puerto Rico.)

Thursday, February 16, 4:00-5:30 pm, 1528 CC Little

LACS Queer Latino/a American Speaker Series: Achy Obejas (Cuban-American author) will speak on “Identity and Dislocation.” In her presentation, she will discuss the flow and limitations of our identities from the perspective of a queer Cuban-American author. Achy Obejas is an internationally-renowned Cuban-American author whose work is characterized by her insights on issues of immigrant community, Latina lesbian identities, the recuperation of Jewish family histories, and Caribbean politics. She has published a book of short stories called We Came All the Way from Cuba so You Could Dress Like This? as well as two novels, Memory Mambo and Days of Awe. She is also a journalist and lives in Chicago.

Tuesday, February 21, 6 pm, 3512 Haven Hall

Queer Hispanic Caribbean/Diasporic Film Series. Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puertan Rican (1994, 55 minutes). Hybrid narrative/documentary film by Frances Negron Muntaner. In English and Spanish, with Eng. Subtitles] Preceeded by Orgullo en Puerto Rico/Pride in Puerto Rico (1999, 17 min., dir. Jorge Oliver).

Thursday, February 23, 12-1 pm, 2609 SSWB/International Institute

LACS Bate-Papo Series: Letícia Marteleto (U-M Institute for Social Research) on “Educação no Brasil Contemporâneo: O Papel da Raça e do Gênero." Despite recent improvements, Brazil's educational system has produced low levels of education and an unequal distribution of schooling. The country has showed a disappointing performance in its educational system, with both the level and the rate of growth of its schooling lagging behind other countries with similar levels of per capita income. In this Bate-papo, Leticia Marteleto will discuss how gender and race have operated and interacted in shaping educational inequalities in contemporary Brazil. She will show results from analyses of approximately 30 years of nationally representative survey data to enlighten the recent debate on the university race-based quota system in Brazil. Leticia Marteleto has conducted extensive research on educational opportunities in Brazil, particularly on racial and gender inequalities. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and currently is Research Investigator at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Leticia Marteleto has also lectured at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in Brazil. The Bate-Papo is a series of informal meetings of students, scholars, and invited guests to discuss issues of broad contemporary interest. Conversations will be primarily in Portuguese, but accessible to beginning Portuguese students.

Wednesday, March 8, 12pm, in 1644 SSWB/International Institute

Caribbean Workshop Series:"Fractured Memories of Belonging: National Diasporic Identity and the Return to Africa in Sugar Cane Alley and Sankofa" , presented by Radost Rangelova, University of Michigan.

Friday, March 10, 1pm, room 180 Tappan Hall.

LACS Series on Architecture and Urbanism: Tom Cummins (Dumbarton Oaks Professor of the History of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American Art at Harvard University) on Engaged Images: The Odyssey of Prints and Portraits between Spain and the New World in the Sixteenth Century". The talk will be about how European, Aztec and Inca images are exchanged in the XVI century at the highest levels of power and how a dialogue is created through these images.

Professor Cummins is Departmental Chair and Dumbarton Oaks Professor of the History of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American Art at Harvard University. He is a specialist in both Pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American Art. He has been awarded numerous grants, such as a J. Paul Getty Senior Research Grant and cited in the list of people who "are regarded by their peers as an expert's expert" in Art News. His publications include, Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Kero Vessels; Native Traditions in the Postconquest World; Arte Prehispanico del Ecuador: Huellas del Pasado - Los Sellos de Jama-Coaque; and Native Artists and Patrons in Colonial Latin America .

This event is sponsored by LACS, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and the Department of History of Art.

Friday, March 10, 12:00-2:00 pm, 3512 Haven Hall

LACS Queer Latino/a American Speaker Series: Javier Laureano (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras) will speak on “Historia, política y performatividad: el rompecabezas inicial de la parada de orgullo LGBT en Puerto Rico.” Este trabajo cubre de 1991 a 1997, el período de gestación y despunte de la parada LGBT local y la máxima expresión de visibilidad que ha tenido la minoría queer del país. La parada tiene intersecciones con un gran abanico de problemas historiográficos de importancia, como el asunto de los derechos civiles, la intersección entre geografía y deseo y el encuentro de distintas identidades que reclaman un espacio político, entre otros. Javier E. Laureano is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in the History Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. His dissertation is titled “Negociaciones especulares: travestismo, parada LGBT, SIDA y cruising en San Juan, 1948 al 2000” [Specular Negotiations: Transvestism, LGBT Parade, AIDS, and Cruising in San Juan, 1948-2000]. In addition to his scholarly work, Laureano has worked with ecological non-profit corporations and non-govermental organizations for the last ten years. He is currently the Executive Director of the "Estuario de la Bahía de San Juan” [ San Juan Bay Estuary]. This organization is one of 28 national programs that the U.S. Congress created under Section 320 of the Clean Water Act and whose mission is to protect the ecosystems and biodiversity of the national coastline.

Friday, March 10, 2:30 pm, Hussey Room in the Michigan League

LACS Queer Latino/a American Speaker Series: Rubén Ríos Avila ( University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras) on “The End of Gay Culture?” Using as a pre-text Andrew Sullivan's recent article for The New Republic, Professor Rios will explore the mainstreaming of gay culture vis-à-vis the parallel phenomenon in Latino Culture and re-examine gender/ethnic politics after 9/11. Rubén Ríos Avila teaches Comparative Literature at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where he specializes in theory, queer studies, Lacanian psychoanalysis and modern poetry. He has written two books: La raza cómica: del sujeto en Puerto Rico (Callejón, San Juan, 2002) and Embocadura (Tal Cual, San Juan, 2003). He co-produces and hosts a weekly film criticism program for TUTV ( Puerto Rico 's Public Broadcasting network), En Cinta, and wrote the script for the documentary Cantera, ciudad de las aguas, (Luna Films, 2005). He has published extensively on Puerto Rican and Latin American contemporary literatures.

Friday, March 10, 4:30pm, Michigan League, Kalamazoo Room (911 N. University, 2d floor)

Colloquium: What Is The Atlantic? João Reis (History, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil) on "Domingos Sodré, a Yoruba Priest in Bahia, Brazil, c. 1810s-1887."

Saturday, March 11, 11:00am-1:00pm Michigan League, in the Michigan Room

In this workshop, João José Reis will discuss a paper he co-authored with Marcus Carvalho and Flavio Gomes entitled África e Brasil Entre Margens: Aventuras e Desventuras do Africano Rufino José Maria, c. 1822-1853. The paper is a study of the life of an African Muslim brought as slave to Bahia, then sold to Rio Grande do Sul, where he purchased his freedom. He then proceeded to Rio de Janeiro where he found work as a cook on a slave ship. In 1841 another ship in which he now worked was seized by the British and taken to Sierra Leone . On his return to Brazil , he settled in Recife , where he was arrested in 1853 as a suspect for involvement in a slave conspiracy, and under interrogation he told the story of his life. Professor Reis will discuss the experiences and meanings of this African's circulation in the Atlantic world.

João José Reis is Professor of History at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador, Brazil. He is the author of numerous works on African slavery and the lives of Africans and their descendents in Brazil, including the books Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia and Death Is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil , winner of the 1996 Clarence H. Haring Prize, American Historical Association; the 1992 Jabuti Prize for Nonfiction, Brazilian Book Council; and was chosen as a 2004 Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

Wednesday, March 15, 12-1 pm, 2609 SSWB/International Institute

LACS Bate-Papo Series: Esther Hamburger (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil), on "O Brasil Antenado, A Sociedade da Novela." Brazilian television audience is among the eight largest audiences in the world. While most Third World countries basically import what they show on television, Brazil produces and exports a significant parts of its programs. This highly developed television industry plays a strategic role in a society marked by profound social inequality and low reading rates. This presentation discusses the specific ways in which telenovelas - daily prime time soaps which achieve an average 40 to 60% of national audience - captures and expresses shifting representations of the Brazilian nation. Presentation includes clips of a couple of telenovelas such as "Vale Tudo" (1988), "Deus nos Acuda" (1992), "Pantanal" (1990), that dealt with political corruption and lack of ethics in Brazil.

Wednesday, March 22, 12:00pm in 1644 SSWB/International Institute

Caribbean Workshop. Lecture by Kamille Gentles (graduate student in Communication Studies) on ‘West Indian Women, Body Image and Television.' Kamille Gentles' scholarship examines women and media, namely how women are represented in the media, and the effect that those images have on women of the real world. Her current interests pertain to the issue of body image among women within immigrant communities, particularly those from the Caribbean. Kamille hopes to examine the beauty ideals fostered and encouraged within this population, and the role of the media in increasing or helping to negotiate tensions between conflicting images that these immigrants to the U.S. may face. She is also interested in the function of the media in the formulation of the complex identities of Caribbean women, that is, how they come to see and represent themselves in U.S. society.

Thursday, March 23, 4:00-6:00 pm, Tisch 1014

The Institute for Historical Studies presents a lecture by Stella Nair (History of Art, Society of Fellows) on "The Disappearing Inca? Architecture as History in a Colonial Peruvian Parish." Discussants: Diane Hughes (History) and Rebecca Scott (History and School of Law).

Thursday, March 23- Sunday, March 26; see website for details

To celebrate the 125th anniversary of the School of Music, the Institute for the Humanities and the School of Music are sponsoring a symposium and some opera performances on the theme "Opera in the Americas - American Opera." The symposium will bring together scholars, performers, directors, singers, and various others in and outside of the business of opera. LACS is cosponsoring the events. The complete program will be posted soon on the School of Music website: http://www.music.umich.edu/performances_events/perf_events.htm

Tuesday, March 28, 2:30-4:00 pm, room 1636, International Institute

LACS Queer Latino/a American Speaker Series: Rane Arroyo (poet) “How to Name a Hurricane” (reading). Rane Arroyo, a leading Puerto Rican poet and playwright, was born and raised in Chicago. Arroyo received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh where he wrote his dissertation, Babel USA: A Writer of Color Rethinks the Chicago Renaissance. He is currently associate professor and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Toledo and also teaches at the Brief Residency MFA program at Spalding University. Previous work has included arts management, hospital billing, a variety of odd temporary assignments, and factory work. He is the author of five books of poetry, including Home Movies of Narcissus, published by the University of Arizona Press; The Singing Shark, winner of the Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize; and The Portable Famine, winner of the John Ciardi Prize. His plays have been showcased in many festivals, including the New Works Festivals in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and New York. He recently published his first book of prose, How to Name a Hurricane (Arizona, 2005).

Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 30, 31 and April 1 (check Conference Website for complete information, including time and venues)

Conference: “Slavery and Freedom in the Atlantic World: Statutes, Science, and the Seas" is a gathering of an international community of scholars whose current work seeks to excavate the daily dynamics of slavery and freedom, while reshaping the broad narratives within which we situate them. Central to the conference theme is legal culture—from legislatures and courtrooms to the jurys cantonnaux of the French Antilles and the office of notaries public in Brazil, Cuba, and Louisiana. Also essential are discourses of science--from labor systems and medicine to architecture and land management. Science served as meta-text that rationalized systemic inequality and exploitation, while simultaneously providing the terrain upon which struggles over the daily lives of the enslaved and the meaning of freedom were waged. The many waterways of the Americas provide the conference's final theme. Be it the Atlantic itself, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River or the Great Lakes, a focus on the seas allows us to see how law, science and the life of the sea constructed the Atlantic World and the African Diaspora as imagined communities and lived experience.

Tuesday, April 4-Thursday, April 6, Various times and locations, please see below.

LACS Queer Latino/a American Speaker Series: Carmelita Tropicana. To close the Queer Caribbean Series, LACS will co-sponsor a performance, film screening, and brown-bag by multilingual, cross-cultural performance artist Carmelita Tropicana, aka Alina Troyano, the self-proclaimed "National Songbird of Cuba" and "Queen of Loisaida," who was born in Cuba and raised in New York. She supports herself as a building superintendent on New York 's Lower East Side and reigns supreme at neighborhood performance spaces such as the WOW Cafe, PS 122, and Dixon Place. Author of I, Carmelita Tropicana: Negotiating Between Cultures (Beacon Press, 2000). She is also the star of Ela Troyano's 1994 short film, Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst Is Your Waffen.

Tuesday, April 4, 7:00-9:00 pm, Film and Video Studio, Duderstadt Center, N. Campus
Performance: "I, Carmelita Tropicana."

Wednesday, April 5, 11:30-1:00 pm, 3512 Haven Hall
AC Brown Workshop Lunch Presentation: Carmelita Tropicana.

Thursday, April 6, 4:00-5:30 pm, 1528 CC Little
Public film screening of the film "Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst Is Your Waffen" and discussion with artist, in conjunction with the class Spanish 430.

Wednesday, April 5, 12:00 pm in 1644 SSWB/International Institute

Caribbean Workshop. Rafael Boglio Martinez (University of Michigan) will present on "The Project of Civil Society: Development Aid and Democracy Development in the Dominican Republic."

Friday, April 7, 12pm, room 2609, International Institute

LACS Series on Architecture and Urbanism: Vicente Del Rio is a leading urban designer in Brazil. Before going to California Polytechnic University, where he is currently an Associate Professor, he received a doctorate in Architecture and Planning from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and taught at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.He served as consultant to the Regional Development Agency of Rio de Janeiro, was an urban designer on a waterfront revitalization plan in Baltimore, and was involved in the master planning and design for new communities in Brazil. Professor Del Rio is author and co-author of five books related to urban design and environmental design published in Brazil, including "Introduction to Urban Design in the Planning Process" and "Environmental Perception and the Brazilian Experience." His recent articles include "The legacy of modern urban planning in Brazil:
Paradigm realized or projects incomplete." His articles have appeared in a wide range of journals including Urban Design and Preservation Quarterly, Cities, and the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research. Currently Professor Del Rio is finishing the edition of a book with essays on Brazilian Urban Design after Brasilia.

Saturday, April 8, 9:00am-6:30pm, Room D in the Michigan League (3rd Floor)

The Circulo "Micaela Bastidas Phuyuqhawa" of Michigan Andeanists presents a one-day Conference on Race, Ethnicity, and Political Violence in the Andes (7th-21st Centuries). The goal of this conference is to understand whether specifically Andean notions of race and ethnicity are related to political violence. How have changes in these notions shaped the character of violence used for political purposes? How, through the ages, have episodes of imperial expansion, armed resistance, domestic violence and other actions changed or reinforced ideas of social classification? Today in the Andes , the growth of indigenous political movements demonstrates how important issues of ethnic identity, racial discrimination, and violence are in this region. This is not a recent phenomenon. The long existence of complex states which have had to incorporate multiple ethnic groups in this region offers a rich context to study change over time. By inviting scholars to present case studies from various time periods, we hope to have a panoramic view of the changes and continuities in the interrelationships between Andean notions of race and ethnicity and the uses of violence. Speakers at the conference include Tiffany Tung (Vanderbilt), Liz Arkush (Wayne State), Bruce Mannheim (UM), Cecilia Méndez (UC-Santa Barbara), Nathalie Koc (UM), Javier Sanjines (UM), Krista Van Vleet (Bowdoin), and Margarita Huayhua (UM). For a complete schedule, see the Circulo website: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/andeanists

Tuesday, April 11, 12:00 pm in 3222 Angell Hall

The Caribbean Workshop is pleased to have Silvio Torres-Saillant presenting on ‘ Knowing the Caribbean '. This presentation will offer an overview of the difficult challenges involved in the study of the Caribbean as a culture. Silvio Torres-Saillant is Associate Professor and Director of the Latino-Latin American Studies Program at Syracuse University . Some of his most influential works include: Caribbean Poetics: Toward an Aesthetic of West Indian Literature; An Introduction to Dominican Blackness; El Retorno de las yolas: Ensayos sobre diaspora, democracia y dominicanidad ; The Dominican-Americans (with Ramona Hernández); Desde la orilla: Hacia una nacionalidad sin desalojos ; and most recently, Intellectual History of the Caribbean . He is associate editor of the Journal Latino Studies and a senior editor of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States . Sponsored by Rackham School of Graduate Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, American Culture, Romance Languages and Literatures and the Department of English.

Tuesday, April 11, 4:00-5:30 pm, 2239 Lane Hall

Lecture in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) series "Gender across the Disciplines": Antonia Villarruel (Nursing), " ‘Border’ Issues: Latinas, Sexuality, and HIV/AIDS."

Tuesday, April 11, 4:30pm, 1014 Tisch Hall

“The Historicity of the Left in Latin America Today” : The Arthur Aiton Lecture With Claudio Lomnitz (The New School of Social Research)
Lomnitz is Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical studies at the New School for Social Research. His concentrations include: historical sociology of politics and culture in modern Mexico ; comparative social organization, cultural differentiation, and political articulation of the nation-state; economic modernization and capitalist development. His current research includes: cultural history of corruption; history of political ritual and myth; history of intellectuals; the formation of public opinion as a privileged site of mediation. His most recent publication in 2005 is Death and the Idea of Mexico . Reception following. For further information please contact Richard Turits at rturits@umich.edu .

Tuesday, April 11, 6:00 pm, 3512 Haven Hall

Queer Hispanic Caribbean/Diasporic Film Series. Free screening of The Salt Mines (1990, 47 minutes), and The Transformation (1996, 58 minutes). In Spanish and English, with English sub-titles). Documentaries about homeless Latina drag queens in New York City, by Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio.

Friday, April 14 , 4:00 pm, at Shaman Drum Bookshop on S. State St .

Please join us at Shaman Drum Bookshop when we welcome Julie Skurski & Fernando Coronil to celebrate the release of their new book, States of Violence. By means of a combination of detailed historical studies and imaginative reflection, this book explores the often unrecognized violent foundations of modern nations. Focusing on the relations between the state and the domestic order, it directs attention to contests over the establishment and representation of meanings and addresses the impact of state-centered categories and narratives on the organization and collective remembering of violence. The essays cover a wide range of regions, time periods, and processes, including the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, the United States , and Europe , and span violent uprisings as well as the quotidian administration of the law. As its title suggests, States of Violence brings together the stable and the transient, the institutional and the experiential, the state sanctioned and the insurgent, inviting recognition of the multiple intersections of practices of governance and processes of feeling.

Fernando Coronil is Associate Professor of Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan and Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. Julie Skurski is Lecturer IV in the Departments of Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan and is the Associate Director of the Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History.

Wednesday, April 26 , 3:00 pm, at 1636 SSWB/International Institute

Please join us for our annual LACS end-of-the-year party at the end of this month. We will be featuring students sharing about their theses papers, music and good food. See you there!

Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6, various times, in 1636 SSWB/International Institute

Conference: 'Democracy, Governance & Identity' is an International Institute-wide event that will examine the challenges that the mobilization of identity bring to local and national governance, with special emphasis on the transformation of electoral politics, the legacies of formal and informal state institutions, and the response of state administrations. LACS' guest speaker will be Maria Victoria Murillo (Columbia University, Departments of Political Science and International Affairs), who will be speaking on May 6 on 'Political Identities and Policy Implementation.' For more information, please visit http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/iisite/dgi, or write to dgiconference@umich.edu.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday, May 11, 12, 13 (visit website for times and venues)

Conference: 'Recapricorning' the Atlantic: Luso-Brazilian and Luso-African Perspectives on the Atlantic World will be a forum for discussing new research on the history of the Lusophone South Atlantic. We aim to generate discussion on how this research modifies, challenges, or confirms major trends in the scholarship on Atlantic History, which has focused primarily on the North Atlantic and the Caribbean. For more complete information please visit http://www.msu.edu/~atlantic.

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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 11 am and 3 pm daily. Fernando Coronil has returned as Director this Winter 2006.

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