Panel 14

In between switching out films for the film festival and walking back to Blair for the panel sessions, I was able to catch a few brief moments from the following speakers:

The first presenter, Meghan McInnis-Dominguez, covered a topic about Medicine and Identity in a Pre-Globalized Hispanic world, where she makes the point of authors looking at medical issues to look and find their identity. One of her texts, Cabeza de Vaca, she discusses how he is the ideal shaman figure, where he experiences a minimal space of being both an insider and an outsider. The Spanish reaction is pre-determined, which is why accompanying the shaman character, prayers are often recited to highlight Christian elements. By doing so, he separates himself from the native healer and creates a hybrid; accordingly, the hybridity makes him acceptable to encountering tribes.

The discussion by Alvaro Kaempfer about post colonial Bolivar was interesting. He used a small part of a larger document and studied the perspective of it towards the indigenous community.

Argentina in the 19th century was covered in this panel session by Carlos Rodriguez McGill. He first began with a bit of Argentine history,highlighting how important immigration was in creating the sense that Argentina would be saved through European immigration. "Civilizacion es poblar." However, there was a point when Argentina stopped allowing so many European immigrants because they weren't getting the ones they wanted. Instead of getting Germans, they were receiving south italians, and Spanish. His presentation was based on Gutierrez, who over 10 years produced 35 folletines, and nine novels. He highlighted the transculturation in the 19th century through tradition and modernity. What part of your identity did you want to maintain? And what part did you need to incorporate into the new culture?