Panel 3

So the next sets of posts will be our reports from the panel presentations. The first panel I went today was "Latin American Cultural Movements." The presentations were given by four graduate students from American University. Only about five other people besides the presenters attended, which was a little disappointing, but it created a nice intimate atmosphere. All the presenters presented in Spanish. The topics of the presentations included the mixture of Catholicism and African religions in Latin America, cultural images of Spain, education initiatives for street children, and the murders of women in Ciudad Juarez. It was a very diverse panel and there was a lot of discussion, especially about the education of street children. I was surprised because the projects were somewhat different from our Hispanic studies work because they did not focus on cultural production. That is not a negative thing, but it showed another way to approach the discipline.