MACLAS 2009

MACLAS Conference Reflection

2009-03-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

First I have to say that I am so glad that I was able to participate in the MACLAS conference both as an intern and as a presenter. Maritza, Lydia, and I were mainly in charge of the film festival and bringing director Peter Sanders to campus, but I feel like we became involved in many aspects of the conference and that it was great preparation for any future event planning activities. We spent several meetings and many hours deciding which films to show, where to get them, and when to present them. Together we also designed a film festival brochure containing the film schedule to hand out at the conference. Throughout the process we thought about the theory involved as curators of a film festival and Latin American film production in general.
One thing in particular that I learned from my MACLAS experience is that even the best-laid plans sometimes fail. For example, two of the films that we selected fit into our schedule, were available at Swem library, and were relevant to the theme of globalization. However, when I went to check them out two weeks after we had viewed them, the library said that they were unavailable because they could not be located. Additionally, for the film that I had checked-out, the library records indicated that there had been no activity on that film since 2007! Obviously that was impossible since I had checked it out on my card two weeks earlier. We were unable to procure the films from another source because of time constraints, so we had to cut the films from our program. While we were very grateful that Swem had many films that we used in our film festival, it was disappointing and stressful that they could not find films in their own building. We also initially had difficulties as students trying to use VHS tapes for the conference because students are not allowed to check them out. It took a little bit of work to get the necessary forms to check-out more than three DVDs at a time and to check-out VHS tapes. This was both a valuable experience in dealing with bureaucracy and learning how to stay flexible.
Despite some difficulties, I think that the conference was a huge success. It was great to have so many scholars who concentrate in Latin American studies at our campus and to hear about their work. The panels contained a lot of useful information about the field and made me realize the broad nature of the discipline. For example, one of the most interesting panel sections had two speakers who presented on Second Life, a virtual online world, and how it can be used to teach Spanish. That is both a program and an application of technology that I never would have thought about it if I had not heard it at the conference. While I don’t know if I will ever need to use Second Life to teach Spanish, it showed how professors are using technology to push the boundaries of classroom learning. Another panel that I especially enjoyed was the panel on the Hispanic community of Hampton Roads. My freshman seminar focused on this topic, and it was inspiring to hear from a group of professors and scholars who study the Hispanic community of my local area. Beyond the panels I heard a lot of participants having discussions with each other in the hallways and at meals, so hopefully they left feeling like the connected with one another as a community of scholars. It was also an added bonus to be able to show off our campus to MACLAS members, and many people commented to me that they enjoyed attending the conference at William and Mary. I think that the location of the Hospitality House in relation to Blair made it fairly easy for participants to navigate on our campus. Of course it is always nice to hear how beautiful our school is!
I hope that in the future other William and Mary students will be able to serve as interns for the MACLAS conference. We were pioneers this year, but I think that our experience shows that it would be valuable for both the conference and for the academic and professional development of students to continue to have interns.

Marvin de los Reyes : Sueño en llamas

2009-03-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

The final presentation I would like to mention was different to the others I attended because it was about an issue I am pretty well informed on. Sueño en llamas is a book Marvin de los Reyes just wrote, covering the collective memory of the people of Guatemala of the burning of the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City in 1980. It was very interesting to have him as a speaker, learning the process he underwent in order to accomplish his novel. Through newspaper clips, readings of his own passages of the book, and the Q&A afterward we see how even today nobody knows how set the fire at the Embassy and that this issue has never really been treated in the literary form. He had to create a character that would appeal to both sides, so he chose a streetboy, who he could use as a migrant to the U.S. (just like him). This boy, then, could use his hybridity of being from Guatemala but living in the U.S. (like so many of us). Between the victims of his story, he created one to sort of guide, and take the journey with the boy to help him tell the story of the Embassy. One question that I came up with however, is if everyone who was at the Embassy died, how can the boy tell the story? It's definitely a book I would like to read, and see exactly how the author treated the whole subject.

Panel 14

2009-03-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

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?

Panel 6

2009-03-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

Rethinking networks, Interculturality, and Justice

The first presenter, Ann Peters, discussed Aymara lands divided between Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. She brought up very interesting issues concerning the connection between the Aymara history and contemporary leadership. An issue that I also brought up in my presentation about the encomienda system she touched up on, which was personally interesting to me because I learned a little more about something I was also presenting on. She made the note that the Aymara community suffered a great deal from the encomienda system, the feudal form of it. She mentioned Potosi, where the silver mines are located and how there was a long distance llama caravan there. She connected the three countries, saying they were all put under labor obligations by the Spanish and during war, the Aymara would be put on the frontline to fight against each other and create conflict among the Aymara community.

The second presenter, Raquel Nava Ceball, presented an especially interesting topic covering altnerative medicine used by Aymaras in Bolivia. She even got to experience and observe a ritual which was the most captivating part of the presentation, seeing her pictures of the process. The main points that Ceball made during her presentation was the importance of both Biomedic and traditional Aymara practices. The Aymara believe in spiritual illness which means that the social order of the person, their relationship with the community, must be balanced in order to have a healthy life. The Yatiri (El que sabe) is a special ethnic group, who are taught and raised to be the "specialists" in the Aymara culture. Bio medicine focuses on the treatment of the person and the physiological illness they may have; whereas, the Yatiri acts as the mediator between deities and the sick person.
It was interesting to learn about Ch'iyara Misa (Misa Negra) on which she focused her case study. Misa negra, is basically something bad you wish on someone else, or someone else has wished upon you. In this case, Dona Estefa, the Yatiri ,was contacted by a young couple who had a spiritual illness that was affecting their lives. Since someone had put a Misa Negra on their lives(souls, aura,etc) their lives were unbalanced. The way in which Dona Estefa determined whether or not they had been cursed, is by breathing in coca leaves, where she knew and felt they were having problems with their neighbors in their community. Ceball mentioned how it was very risky for her to attend the ritual because strangers were not normally allowed. The ritual is not just the Yatiri performing, it's a very participatory process, which is why even Ceball had to particpate. In doing so, she had to become part of the ritual and get personal with the deities by chewing coca leaves and smoking cigarettes. Coming away from this presentation, I learned the importance in the Aymara culture of having a balanced organic and spiritual body.

The final presenter was William Fisher who went over the Regional Integration without power centers: trade in pre-Columbian and Contemporary Amazonia. This presentation focused on the social complexity through pottery which was found in some "black earth." This is rich soil which is great for planting that was filled with tiny remains, sediments in a way, of possibly a past civilization. He established an association of social inequality and specialization in the exchange in Amazonia. This association compliments the resources available in the different economic zones where relationships were developed and maintained. The observations that he made on trade theory were that there were unstable rates of exchange with very few exceptions; by maintaining equality accumulation is not a problem. An interesting point he made was that people trade to maintain relationships/ partnerships to receive news or in a way, establish themselves with a broader network. They may not need the goods, but in times of troubles, these relationships are the kind you want to have at your disposal.

Panel 16- New Formations and the Politcs of Engagement

2009-03-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

This panel displayed a series of papers analyzing social and political representation in literary works. Topics explored included exile, state violence, and political and social repression. Pablo Neruda's Residencia en la Tierra was used to explore issues of otherness and isolation. The subject of geographical exile, internal exile, feelings of displacement and fragmentation, and the violence of the Argentine dictatorship were explored through the novel 259 Saltos, Uno inmortal. This novel follows a young women in exile after being tortured as a political prisoner in Argentina in the 70's and 80's and displays what academic Diana Taylor terms as "Percepticide," or the coping mechanism of denying what one sees.
Representation of state oppression was discussed in the work of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas expression of Cuba's "hidden history" in themes such as patriarchy, gender issues, marginalization, and memory and annihilation. Representation of another dictatorship, that of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, as well as the United States involvement there, was discussed in an analysis of Dominican literary works. This discussion brought up the second parallel I have heard this weekend between Latin America and the Middle East, as US relations with Santo Domingo were compared to those in modern-day Iraq. This paper also addressed the idea of memory, in questioning the absence of cultural and historical memory in the US of American involvement in the Dominican Republic. The novel represents the history of the Dominican Republic through the tragic history of a single family whose loyalties are divided between a mother's Haitian heritage and a father's support for the US, and eventually ends in an Oedipal event, with the son killing the father for his political position.

Panel 12- Latin American Politics, Past, Present, and Future

2009-03-07T07:18:00.001-08:00

In between my blogging and film duty I got the chance to catch the last of one of the undergrad panels this morning. I was thoroughly impressed by the engagement between the students and the MACLAS members as lively discussions took place on NGO and government interaction, and environmental concerns in the Amazon.

PANEL 12

This panel explored the mechanisms that drive politics in Latin America, starting with a historical view on the Sandinista movement and the role of borderlands in national conflicts, moving to a discussion of Brazilian foreign policy as driven by the external image the nation, and lastly media lobbying and enacting of interests in Uruguay.
Michael Schroeder discussed the use of cross-border plundering to finance Sandinista offensives versus the marines in Nicaragua, which allowed for an ideological argument to denounce Sandino as a bandit and centralize the national government under the Samoza regime. Discussions later linked this case to the current cross-border issues between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ivani Vassoler's presentation elicited a discussion on Brazil's present "pragmatic" foreign policy, focusing on Brazil's attempts to make a place for itself as both a leader in the region and a partner of the US. We discussed the necessity entailed in this goal to balance connections with both the US, and the anti-US block of Chavez, Morales, and others within South America, walking a tight-rope to form economic partnerships with the two sides. In the question and answer session, participants discussed the concept of "national development" as Brazil's foreign policy goal, concluding that this signifies facilitation of capital accumulation within Brazil, and foreign policy decisions that serve to protect oil interests and international aspirations.
Diane Johnson's presentation focused on how mass media articulates its interests to the government, defining these interests as both free expression and access to information, as well as business practicalities such as licencing laws and taxes on print material. Media lobbies, according to Johnson's research in Uruguay, is a powerful tool used by media companies to push forward their interests, but leads to business relations between the government and the media that are not necessarily transparent. So who is watching the watch dog? Public dealings of media outlets are highly visible to society, but business dealings are not. Thus perhaps it is the responsibility of media sources to watch each other. Our discussion brought up the difficulty of insulating journalists from the business concerns of a newspaper or other media outlet, and this the possible political and economic influence on reporting.

Panel 5- Crisis, Security, and State Stability

2009-03-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

My second panel at my first MACLAS conference impressed upon me the diversity of interests and subject matters addressed by this group of academics and intellectuals. This panel felt familiar to me and my International Relations background with its focus on economic and political issues and security. The discussion on the impacts of the US economic crisis in Latin America fit well with the issues of drug trade, military rule, and the power of non-state groups against the state. All seem to break down, as one audience member pointed out, to issues of supply and demand.
Carolyn Bell pointed to the impending problems for oil producing countries which spent their windfalls, when prices were high, on programs and projects and will be left without savings as prices have contracted. She also adressed the delayed contraction of the commodities market in Latin America, the influence of the shrinking credit market on heavy borrowers in Latin America, and the new situations that are expected to arise from this crisis. States may turn inward as a process of de-globalization is seen- an interesting counter-balance to the issues of globalization presented in my last panel. Both traditional and non-traditional security issues were brought up by Jorge Ortiz Sotelo, who addressed martime border issues, drug trafficking, and poverty. Lezlie Shackell explored how social benefits provided by a military contrasted against an ineffective and corrupt government could lead to a popular supported military coup in the year 2000.
In this panel I had the pleasure of experiencing, for the first time in my four years here, the antics of Prof. Grayson. These included a large statue of the saint of the drug lords and stories about his tenure as a lawyer. Couched within all the name-dropping, was the idea that Mexico is not yet a failed state, but experiencing a period of dual-sovereignity between the state and the drug cartels. If the PRI comes out on top in the next election, there could be a re-alignment toward the side of the cartels, but in this case, perhaps atleast the situation of bribes and violence would be easier to navigate and would be governed by some level of rules.
The current involvement of Peru's Shining Path in drug trafficking was addressed by Daniel Masterson, along with the movement's history. Included in this history was Shining Path's self-identification as a peasant movement and subsequent defeat by armed peasant brigades, and self-identification as a Maoist movement and subsequent break with Maoist tactics. Both Prof. Grayson and Prof. Bell's presentations hold foreboding connections in regards to this topic, as Prof. Masterson posited that an economic decline could lead to the re-emegence of Shining Path and strengthen its drug-connected activities.

Panel 1- Indigenous Peoples of Latin America

2009-03-07T05:11:00.000-08:00

I kicked off my MACLAS experience with this panel that addressed current issues for both indigenous and migrant communities in Latin America. The first presenter, Jeff Puch from Johns Hopkins, spoke about conflict between migrants and host communities and the manner in which institutions can affect this relationship. I was especially interested in the disconnect he addressed between legal structure and practice in treatment of Colombian refugees in Ecuador. Although Ecuador is party to the 1951 Geneva Conventions which outline rights of refugees, only 31% of asylum seekers in this country receive status as a refugee. Prof. Puch outlined the importance of institutions, such as the UNHCR, in encouraging inclusiveness, equal support of both citizens and refugees, reduction of the power imbalance, and promotion of interaction between and within communities.
John Stolle-McAllister spoke on the "moment of crisis" that the indigenous movement is currently experiencing within the context of a globalized world and the intertwining of class and ethnicity in Kichwa populations of Ecuador. I found his description of the dichotomy produced by the indigenous struggle for inclusion and economic opportunity intriguing; he pointed out that with greater participation in society, indigenous communities become decommunalized, stratified by class, and urbanized. Ehtnic markers come to be challenged by increased exposure to society, and indigenous communities must find new ways to maintain their identity while living in the context of a globalized world.
The next presentation by Brian Turner offered an interesting comparison by addressing a more heterogeneous indigenous community- that of Paraguay. He spoke of the challenges of collective action faced by the Paraguayan indigenous peoples as they are separated by conflicts over land and their unique identities. Guarani, he pointed out, is not an indigenous language as it is commonly viewed from the outside, but a language of assimilation. Moreover, although 40% of Paraguay is monolingual in Guarani, most Guarani speakers do not identify as indigenous at all.
The session closed with a presentation by Ben Boone and Holley Nichols on Indigenous higher education. I found this discussion especially interesting, as I have visited one of the Universities they studied, UPEA in Bolivia. These two grad students offered interesting interpretation of University websites and found that the three universities they observed were very different. They found UPEA to be a university with a political mission, the Mexican university located far from the majority of the indigenous population, and wondered if the university in Guatemala existed only to pay lip service to the indigenous movement.
In the Q&A period, interesting discussions arose as to the connection between the refugee and indigenous presentations and the growing separation between the use of language and ethnicity as identity markers for the Kichwa.

Panel 4

2009-03-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

Panel 4 was "The Hispanic Community of Hampton Roads." This especially interested me because I am from Newport News and there was a lot of useful data that I learned during the presentations. Two of the presenters focused on higher education and latinos in Hampton Roads and Virginia, one talked about immigration in general, and there was also a presentation leadership and cultural differences. Here are some things that I learned:

60% of latinos in Hampton Roads are naturalized citizens or native-born while 40% are more recent non-citizen immigrants
There are 460,000 latinos in Virginia
Hampton Roads has a relatively small but extremely fast-growing latino community
Latinos in Virginia have higher incomes and levels of education that the general population on average

Obviously I really enjoyed this panel and I can't wait to see what I will learn tomorrow!

Panel 3

2009-03-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

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.

The Finish Line is Near

2009-03-02T14:42:00.000-08:00

As Prof. Root commented on having some logistic problems, they weren't anything we couldn't handle. At first we had nicely organized the films to be presented thematically, but as already noted, time conflicts didn't allow us to do that in every time slot available. So what we tried to do was set up movies that correspond with the panel discussions going on in the time section before or after. For example, if the panel sessions focused on Environmental Justice during one time slot, then we tried to accommodate films following the Environmental Justice theme before or after the panel discussion, so those who were interested in this subject would have the opportunity to attend both the panel and the film. Hopefully, others will agree with our technique and take advantage of being a part of this Conference all day long. After distributing the films to their corresponding times, we chose which ones were of our personal interests in order to be able to attend all of these events to continue blogging throughout the conference. Now the only thing left to do is promote the events around campus so we can bring in a large student audience :D

Recent Meetings

2009-03-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

We have been very busy! Maritza, Lydia, and I met on Friday to figure out the final movie schedule. The meeting took us over two hours because it was a lot more difficult logistically then we thought it would be. Originally we had arranged the films into themes that we thought we would show together, but we had to mix the films up in order to fit the times. We decided that was fine though because the themes helped us select the films in the first place. On Tuesday night we met again to make a few changes to the film schedule and to work on some last minute items. We decided who would go to which panels so that we can blog about most of them. It seems like the only things we are concerned about now is getting the fliers printed and put up and making sure that we can work the media equipment on Friday and Saturday. Lydia created the facebook group for publicity, and Maritza's uncle should be sending the flier soon, so things are coming along.

Films and Perspective

2009-02-21T19:33:00.000-08:00

I think that the questions that Lydia has raised about interpretive power are really interesting and important. I think that we have done a pretty good job balancing the films geographically, but maybe we should have an in-depth discussion about their political positions on Tuesday. Also, I completely share Maritza's feelings of being overwhelmed by film options. It's more comfortable now that we have narrowed down our choices, but I can't help wondering if we might have missed an important film. Undoubtedly we have, but I guess that's just the way film festivals work, we can't include them all. So far I have viewed "Transnational Fiesta," "Mojados," "Patio 29," and "Miss Universe in Peru." Of the four, I think that "Mojados" was the most powerful for me because it follows three Mexican men as they attempt to cross the U.S. border. It makes the situation a lot more personal when you see their struggles as individual people with families on film. If that's not an example of challenges and opportunities, then I don't know what is! "Pation 29" is a more traditional documentary about the dictatorship in Chile, but it fits in well with our memory and justice theme because it shows how there is still so much "unfinished business" involved with the period of dictatorship for the Chilean people. I thought that it was really valuable to hear the people's testimonies because, once again, it put a human face on the tragedies. I hate to say it, but I really did not like "Miss Universe in Peru." The event itself raises some important questions about women and the effects of global business on developing countries. However, I felt like the film could have presented these issues more effectively and directly. But I really want you all to watch at least some of it and let me know what you think, I may have just been having an off night. "Transnational Fiesta" was really interesting and may show some different perspectives than the ones that Lydia viewed as far as capitalism and globalization.
Questions:
*Do all the films that you have watched fit into our themes?
*Are there any that you have seen that you think another one of us should view right now?

Quien representa a quien?

2009-02-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

The issue of representation across the discipline of Cultural Studies is one that is continually brought up through many different angles. The same question of interpretive power constantly runs hand in hand with who is representing whom and why...
An article we were assigned to read by Randal P. Garza and Lucia Florida titled "Film" treats the area of the latin american film industry and how it is difficult to study because of the lack of proper and organized documentation. Another point it makes, which we all are familiar with, is the competition the foregin film industry undergoes against Hollywood. So many great films are produced under the radar that do not have the funds or "sophistication" as Garza and Florida say, to release the film against Hollywood movies that engulf the film industry. Consequently, the films I reviewed this past week, I found all to be victims to Hollywood. The first one I think is unknown to many since it isn't in English or produced by Hollywood, and it doesn't make the top lists because it isn't a commercial movie. The movie basically runs with the theme of "screw or get screwed" where the Mexican fictional village's mayor gets murdered, and a janitor is assigned to take his place. While he takes his job seriously, he soon realizes anything goes in politics, and begins to invent his own laws and taxas.
The obvious corruption displayed in this movie, prepares the background for the next movie I reviewed which dealt with the same issue, but how Mexican immigrants are obligated to search in the U.S. for incomes to send back to their families because of the corruption in their homeland. Sending back significant amounts of money, enough even to open a new hospital, is their goal and only way to help their families move forward. Transnationalism, another keyword in this discipline, is the theme of this second movie, explaining the identity, culture, and social structures of immigrants leaving one culture to adapt to the next.

Film Selection: An abuse of interpretive power?

2009-02-20T08:34:00.001-08:00

At first the task seemed simple enough; choose engaging films that fit with the theme of the conference- Latin America and the World: Challenges and Opportunities. But as I started to watch perspective films, I began to realize that we three student organizers are performing an act that we often discuss in Hispanic Studies. In choosing and eliminating films, we are exercising interpretive power.
The last three films that I have previewed have all had very strong anti-capitalism, anti-neo-liberal messages. In including these sort of films, are we assigning to our film festival, or even to the conference, a particular message or bias? In my experience in Latin America, I have found these issues salient and this point of view common, but what about the opposing perspective that supports globalization and capitalism, perhaps the view of those who commonly hold power. The obvious answer would be to include films from the opposite perspective: pro-neo-liberal, pro-capitalist, pro-globalization films. As you can probably imagine, few (if any) of this type of film appeared on our initial list. I would personally feel morally opposed to this type of film, and even if I were to overcome my personal bias, there seem to exist fewer films that treat important Latin American interests from this outlook.
So my question is: Is an anti-global, anti-capitalist perspective inherent in an academic gathering that focuses on challenges and opportunities in Latin Ameirca?
To my fellow organizers: Have any of the movies you have screened taken the opposite tone?
To conference participants: Would you recommend showing films with the opposite message? If so what would they be? And more importantly, would you come see them?

Moving Forward with the Festival

2009-02-13T10:32:00.000-08:00

While dining on heart-shaped cupcakes in the spirit of Valentine's Day, we reviewed the list of films we compiled over the last week as possibilities for the festival. Looking over about twenty films, we realized that the best next move would be to organize themes which the films would correspond to. Memory and dictatorship, migration, globalization and social justice, representation-who is representing whom?, and environmental justice were only a few of the ideas that were tossed around today. Making sure that the subtopics repond to the question of challenges and opportunities was the hardest part of organizing these themes. For example, how does memory respond to challenges and opportunities in Latin America? At the end of our meeting we decided to split up the films so we could all watch them and make sure the films were of good quality and presentable for the festival. The big question to look forward to next week will be how exactly we are going to schedule these viewings with the amount of time that we are allotted. :D (Challenges and Opportunities..)

Progress So Far

2009-02-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

So far we've met twice to talk about the film festival. At the most recent meeting we worked on categories for the program and selected some articles to read about cultural studies that might help us with the conference. We've sent out surveys to Hispanic Studies and Latin American Studies professors asking them to tell us which films they think should be included in the film festival, but so far not many have replied. I'm not sure if it's because our topic is so broad or just because they are very busy, but maybe they will come up with something soon. We have to start viewing an selecting film pretty soon because the conference is not that far away!

2009-02-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

The College of William and Mary will host the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies annual meeting on March 6 and 7, 2009. Maritza Alcoreza, Jacqueline Stabnow, and Lydia Sinkus, all Hispanic Studies students at the College, are working with Regina A. Root to organize a film festival that responds to the conference theme, "Latin America and the World: Challenges and Opportunities". As we consider the significance of representation and cultural agency in our own scholarly work, we shall describe here the process of putting together this special program. During the conference, we will also blog live from the conference sessions in order to help disseminate the diverse range of scholarship that MACLAS represents. We hope you will join us!