1. education
2. graduate school
3. college

New England Council of Latin American Studies
NECLAS
2014 Annual Meeting
S A TU R D A Y , N O V EM B E R 8 TH , 2 0 1 4
C O N N E C TI C U T C O L LE G E
N EW L ONDON, CT
Registration:
8:30 AM
Olin Lounge
Continental Breakfast will be served in
Olin Lounge
Book Exhibit is also located in Olin
Lounge
Session 1: 9:00 AM—10:30 AM
The University and Social Change
Blaustein 210
Mark Healey (University of Connecticut, Storrs), Chair
David Espinosa (Rhode Island College)
Winds of Change: The Church Reform Movement, the Mexican
1968 Student Movement, and the Iberoamerican University
James J. Harrington (Eastern Nazarene College)
Jesuit Higher Education and National Development: The Central
American Case
Diaspora Politics
New London 101
Jennifer Rudolph (Connecticut College), Chair
Ginetta E.B. Candelario (Smith College)
'Voices Echoing Beyond the Seas': Dominican Feminists'
Transnational Activism, 1882-1942
Charles R. Venator-Santiago (University of Connecticut)
The Puerto Rican Immigrant?
Rocío Sánchez-Ares (Lynch School of Education at Boston College)
Performing Latina Action: Building Consciousness about Domestic Violence through Participatory Theater
GIS and Remote Sensing for Study of Extractive Industries in
Latin America
Olin 107
Nicholas Cuba (Clark University), Organizer and Chair
Juan Luis Dammert (Clark University), Commentator/Discussant
Nicholas Cuba (Clark University)
Overview, Potential, and Limitations of GIS and Remote Sensing Methodologies for Study of Extractive Industries
Arthur Elmes (Clark University)
Spectral Characterization of Licit and Illicit Mining Activity in
the Madre de Dios Region of Peru
Zoe Ritter (Clark University)
Mapping Livelihood Vulnerability to Mineral Extraction in
Madre de Dios, Peru
Vigencias y diversidad en el cuento latinoamericano
Olin 113
Claudia Marcela Páez Lotero (UMass Amherst), Organizer
Santiago Vidales (UMass Amherst), Chair
Susana Antunes (UMass Amherst)
Erotismo y fantasía en ‘La sueñera’ de Ana María Shua
Odalis Patricia Hidalgo (UMass Amherst)
Evolución y construcción del imaginario en los cuentos de Julio Ramón Ribeyro
Claudia Marcela Páez Lotero (UMass Amherst)
¿Qué hay detrás de la felicidad?: Entre la violencia y la agresividad, la justicia y la venganza en ‘Las fotografías’ y ‘El árbol
grabado’ de Silvina Ocampo
Santiago Vidales (UMass Amherst)
Intersecciones erráticas: Interseccionalidad y performatividad
en los cuentos de Anabelle Aguilar Brealey
Regional Responses to International Norms
Blaustein 203
Gabriela Torres (Wheaton College), Chair
Ñusta Carranza Ko (Purdue University)
Transitional Justice and the Internalization of International
Norms in Peru
Tamara Stenn (SIT Graduate Institute)
Exploring the Justice of Living Well
Pedro M. Cameselle (Fordham University)
Conferences, Scientists, and Uruguayan Cigar Makers: Transnational Dilemmas and U.S. Cultural Diplomacy, 1929-1945
Musical Icons of the Americas
Blaustein 205
Eric Galm (Trinity College), Chair and Discussant
Rosa Carrasquillo (College of the Holy Cross)
The People’s Poet: Life and Myth of Ismael Rivera, an AfroCaribbean Icon
Eric Galm (Trinity College)
Carmen Miranda and Donald Duck Were Iconic Good
Neighbors
Session 2: 10:45 AM—12:15 PM
Objects in Colonial Contexts I
Olin 014
Karen Melvin (Bates College), Organizer and Chair
William B. Taylor (University of California, Berkeley)
Prayers for Peasant Farmers: A Visit to the Flea Market of
Puebla in 1793
Karen Melvin (Bates College)
Devotional Objects and the Immoderate Alms Collector, 17781802
Sylvia Sellers-García (Boston College)
Bodies and Water Lilies: A Criminal Case from Guatemala City
in 1800
Youth and Aging Among Hispanics: Three Case Studies
New London 101
Mónika López Anuarbe (Connecticut College), Chair
Luis Gonzalez (Connecticut College), Discussant
Ana Campos-Holland, PhD (Connecticut College)
Brooke Dinsmore ‘2014 and Gina Pol ‘ 2016
’Done with This!’ Youth in Search of Adult-Free Spaces within
Social Media
María Amparo Cruz-Saco (Connecticut College)
The Peruvian Pension System: Diagnosis and Reform Proposal
Mónika López Anuarbe (Connecticut College)
Aging, Planning, and Familism among Hispanics: A Case Study
in New London, Connecticut
Discursive Manifestations of Genders, Genres and Sexualities
in Latin American (Text)ualities I
Olin 107
Lori Hopkins (University of New Hampshire), Organizer and
Chair
Lori Hopkins (University of New Hampshire)
Mauricio Rosencof’s ‘Las cartas que no llegaron’: Genre Gaps,
Gender Identities and Filial Desires
Gina Canepa (Providence College)
Agedness and Sexuality Between Individual Desire and Social
Construction: The Chilean film ‘Gloria’ (2013) by Sebastián
Lelio
Rachel Payne (University of St. Joseph)
Gender and the Contemporary Latin American Historical Novel:
Narrative Strategies of Female Authors
Ruptures and Continuities in Space and Time: Historical
Studies of Science in Latin America
Olin 113
Rick A. López (Amherst College), Organizer and Chair
Jordana Dym (Skidmore College), Commentator/Discussant
Rick A. López (Amherst College)
Depicting Mexican Nature: Science, Visuality, and the Natural
World in the Construction of Indigeneity
Heidi V. Scott (UMass Amherst)
The Enlightenment Below Ground: Mapping Mining Spaces in
the Late Colonial Andes
John Soluri (Carnegie Mellon University)
Representing Threats: Scientists, Chulengueadores, and the
Politics of Conservation in Patagonia (1850-1970)
Memory and Literature
Blaustein 203
Ignacio Lopez-Vicuña (University of Vermont), Chair
Jayne Reino (UMass Amherst)
From the Margins of History to the Center of the Text: Rewrit
ing the War of Canudos in Mario Vargas Llosa's ‘La guerra del
fin del mundo’
Luisa-Maria Rojas-Rimachi (University of Rochester)
Cartografías de la periferia o la urbe indiferenciada en la narrativa de Roberto Bolaño
Elizabeth Rivero (U.S. Coast Guard Academy)
Memoria y creación literaria: ‘La claraboya y los
relojes’ (2001)
Inequality and Rights
Blaustein 205
Anthony Bebbington (Clark University), Chair
Gabriela Tafoya (University of Connecticut)
The Political Economy of Poverty and Inequality: The Different
Effects of National and Sub-national Policies
Paul W. Posner (Clark University)
Social Welfare, Citizenship and the New Left in Latin America
Grant Burrier (Curry College)
Evasion or Accommodation? The Developmental State, Civil
Society, and Hydroelectric Dam Construction in Brazil
Marc W. Herold (University of New Hampshire)
Value Distribution in the Modern Cocaine Commodity Chain
(Colombia – U.S.)
Latin American Film in the New Millenium
Blaustein 210
Cynthia Stone (College of the Holy Cross), Chair and Discussant
Bridget V. Franco (College of the Holy Cross)
Lucía Puenzo's ‘Wakolda’: Fresh or Familiar Frontiers in Argentine Cinema?
Taylor Doherty (UMass Boston)
Where Did Joseph Go? The Portrayal of the Absentee Patriarch
in Three Latin American Films
Robert Hernandez (College of the Holy Cross)
La Bestia’: Mexico's Vertical Border on Film
Lunch :
12:30— 2:15 PM
Lunch will be served in Crozier 1941
Welcome remarks by Abby Van Slyck,
Dean of the Faculty, Connecticut College
Tickets available for purchase at the NECLAS reception table. Please join us for lunch to congratulate our
prize winners and welcome the new NECLAS Executive Committee.
Session 3: 2:30 PM—4:00 PM
Objects in Colonial Contexts II
Olin 014
Karen Melvin (Bates College), Organizer
Sylvia Sellers-García (Boston College), Chair
Luis Millones Figueroa (Colby College)
The Bezoar Stone: A Natural Wonder in the New World
Ken Ward (John Carter Brown Library)
Anomalies and Arguments: Antonio de Figueroa's ‘Memorial
de las casas reales’ and New Spain's Conflicted 1640's
Antonia Carcelén-Estrada (College of the Holy Cross)
Art and Revolution in Sixteenth-Century Quito
“Latin” America in the 19th Century
New London 101
Christina Mehrtens (UMass Dartmouth), Chair
Paulo Moreira (Yale University)
When One of the Americas Became Latin
Luciana Brito (University of São Paulo)
Mirrors of Degeneracy: American Observers of Latin American
Populations in the Nineteenth Century
Yesenia Barragan (Columbia University)
In the Name of Liberty, Security, and Equality: The Racial and
Gender Politics of the Law of the Free Womb in New Granada,
1821
Discursive Manifestations of Genders, Genres and Sexualities in Latin American (Text)ualities II
Olin 107
Lori Hopkins (University of New Hampshire), Chair
Marco Dorfsman (University of New Hampshire)
Gramática de la gesticulación: Cuerpo, boca, pie, nalga, mano o culo
Ignacio López-Vicuña (University of Vermont)
The Queer Latin American City: Vernacular Discourse and
Urban Performance
Brett Levinson (Binghamton University)
AIDS and Biopolitics in the Work of Pedro Lemebel
Environmental Justice in Latin America
Olin 113
Julia A. Kushigian (Connecticut College), Organizer and Chair
María Amparo Cruz-Saco (Connecticut College), Discussant
Julia A. Kushigian (Connecticut College)
Environmental Justice in Latin American Literature and Film
Joseph Schroeder (Connecticut College)
Social Justice Issues of Lead Contamination in Peru
Leo Garofalo (Connecticut College)
Designing a Course on Environmental History and Social Justice in Latin America
Manuel Lizarralde (Connecticut College)
Amerindians, Virtual Environmental Injustice and Climate
Change
Provocative Fictions
Blaustein 203
Pedro Lasarte (Boston University), Chair
Pedro Lasarte (Boston University)
Sobre la sátira colonial: la preceptiva poética y la realidad
histórica
Angela N. DeLutis-Eichenberger (Dickinson College)
The Ambitions of the Generation of 1842 as Portrayed in ‘El
mendigo’ and ‘Rosa’ by José Victorino Lastarria
Andres X. Echarri Mendoza (UMass Dartmouth)
La corrupción como mecanismo (des)estructurador en ‘Las
batallas en el desierto’ de José Emilio Pacheco
Isabel Alvarez-Borland (College of the Holy Cross)
Costumbrismo e identidades rotas en la última novela de Roberto G. Fernández
Political Fragility and Stability
Blaustein 205
Katrina Burgess (Tufts University), Chair
Laura Blume (Boston University) and Benjamin Cole (Simmons
College)
Accounting for Latin American Homicide Rates in State Fragility Metrics
Patricia Olney (Southern Connecticut State University)
The New Mexican Nationalism: Cultural and Institutional
Transformation From Zedillo to Calderón
Marco Cupolo (University of Hartford)
Berlusconism and Chavism: Logic and Instruments of Rises to
Personal Power
Mestizaje and Afro-Latin American Identities in Literature and
Culture
Blaustein 210
Dorothy E. Mosby (Mount Holyoke College), Organizer, Chair
and Discussant
Lesley Zapata (Mount Holyoke College)
‘The Black Grandma in the Closet’: La falta de representación de
afrodescendientes en Latinoamérica
Jessica Ramirez (Mount Holyoke College)
Las peligrosas implicaciones detrás la conceptualización del
mestizaje en promover una nueva casta racial entre latinos
Gina Macino (Mount Holyoke College)
Los cuadros de las castas: Su producción y significación desde la
época colonial hasta hoy
Closing reception
Crozier Cro’s Nest
4:00—5:15PM
And, the Samba hour comes next...
Samba Hour: Toca Brasil (Play Brazil)!
4:30—5:15 PM
Crozier Martha Myers Studio
Eric G. Galm (Trinity College)
This workshop enables participants to explore the music and
culture of Brazil through a kinesthetic process. Beginning
with a brief introduction to the fundamental fabric of the
rhythmic structure, followed by an introduction to some of the
prominent instruments and how they engage in conversation,
the group will then help to perform a samba song in Portuguese and English and learn how one song can simultaneously
function in multiple contexts. Participants will engage in basic
rhythmic call-and-response training, working towards establishing a collaborative samba rhythm.
This conference is sponsored by:
NECLAS Secretariat
Connecticut College, Dean of the Faculty, “Research Matters”
The Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity
The Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the
Liberal Arts
Connecticut College Departments of:
Anthropology
Economics
Hispanic Studies
History
Psychology
Sociology
The NECLAS Executive Committee welcomes you to the
2014 Annual Meeting
Officers
President
Cynthia Stone
Spanish
College of the Holy Cross
Vice President—Succeeds to Presidency
David Carey Jr.
History
Loyola University Maryland
Secretary-Treasurer
Mark Overmyer-Velázquez
Director, El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean &
Latin American Studies
Associate Professor of History
University of Connecticut
Past President
Javier Corrales
Political Science
Amherst College
Assistant Secretary Treasurer
David Scott Palmer
International Relations
Boston University
Executive Committee
Anthony Bebbington
Geography
Clark University
Ann Helwege
International Relations
Boston University
Katrina Burgess
Political Science
Tufts University
Lori Hopkins
Spanish
University of New Hampshire
Mary Coffey
Art History
Dartmouth College
Ignacio Lopez-Vicuña
Spanish
University of Vermont
Maria Amparo Cruz-Saco
Economics
Connecticut College
Christina Mehrtens
History
University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth
Eric Galm
Music
Trinity College
Gabriela Torres
Anthropology
Wheaton College
Ex Officio
Gina Canepa
Literature & Film
Providence College
Kenneth P. Erickson
Political Science
Hunter College, CUNY
Joy Renjilian—Burgy
Literature
Wellesley College
Thank you to the NECLAS 2014 Prize Committees
for their work this past year.
JOSEPH T. CRISCENTI BEST ARTICLE PRIZE
Prize Committee: James Green, Chair (Brown University), Luis
Millones Figueroa (Colby College), Abigail Adams (Central Connecticut State University)
Winner: Michele Greet, “César Moro's Transnational Surrealism,”
Journal of Surrealism and the Americas 7:1 (2013), 19-51.
Michele Greet's “César Moro's Transnational Surrealism” is a
pleasing read and meticulous article that studies twenty-century
Peruvian poet César Moro's engagement with Surrealism. Going
beyond Moro's poetry and attending to both Moro's visual arts production and his role in the surrealist movement, Greet offers new
insights on the artist and Latin American Surrealism. Readers of the
article will follow Moro from his early participation in Breton's
group in Paris, to the exhibition he co-organized in Perú in 1935,
and finally to the "International Surrealist Exhibition" in Mexico
City in 1940. Through this journey, Greet presents close readings
on a few of Moro's paintings and collages as well as an in-depth
analysis of how he positioned himself in the surrealist movement in
Latin America. The article would be very much appreciated for
anyone who wants a nuanced understanding of Latin American Surrealism, in particular with respect to its transatlantic relation to the
movement in Europe, its counterpoint to cultural nationalism in
Latin American art, and the controversies among leading Latin
American artists who were involved in one way or another.
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): Nancy Appelbaum,
"Reading the Past on the Mountainsides of Colombia: MidNineteenth-Century Patriotic Geology, Archaeology, and Historiography," Hispanic American Historical Review 93:3 (2013); Elizabeth Terese Newman, “From Prison to Home: Labor Relations and
Social Control in Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” Ethnohistory 60:4
(Fall 2013).
MARYSA NAVARRO BEST BOOK PRIZE
Prize Committee: Walter E. Little, Chair (SUNY Albany), Amy
Chazkel (City University of New York, Queens College and Graduate Center), Katherine Hite (Vassar College)
Winner: Deborah Levenson, Adiós Niño, The Gangs of Guatemala
City and the Politics of Death (Duke University Press, 2013)
Levenson's deep understanding of Guatemala's history, especially
of Guatemala City and of labor organizations, comes through many
years of experience in the very problem-filled neighborhoods she
writes about. Adiós Niño goes beyond an historical analysis of the
causes of gang violence and avoids falling into reductionist and
sensationalistic tropes of gang members' identities and behaviors to
generate fear or pass moralistic opinions. Instead, Levenson humanizes the gang members and families described in the book. Without
shirking from addressing the truly horrible crimes committed by the
gangs, she shows the economic, political, and social conditions that
fomented them and continue to incubate future gang members. Using interviews, conversations, and oral histories, she provides an
empathic portrait of gang members, their families, and friends to
present a nuanced understanding of Guatemala City inside and outside of gang life. She illustrates how gang members have complex
multifaceted identities that straddle the legal and illegal, as they
participate in informal, formal, and underworld economies and politics. What makes Levenson's book so convincing and her so successful at describing gang members and their lives is the way she
sews them together with her own personal experiences. This information is then interpreted using a diverse set of analytical tools to
explain what is happening. Adiós, Niño does not fall easily within
one academic genre but bridges several—history, politics, ethnographic, sociology—while remaining elegantly and clearly written.
Honorable Mention: David Carey's book, I Ask for Justice: Maya
Women, Dictators, and Crime in Guatemala, 1898–1944
(University of Texas Press, 2013) is deeply researched and convincingly argued. This rich historical study of crime, gender and the
state sheds more than insights into legal processes under dictatorships; it provides intimate portraits of Maya lives—conflict within
and between families, and how they make due under the crushing
conditions of poverty and an economic and political system stacked
against them.
BEST MULTIMEDIA PRIZE
Prize Committee: Lori Hopkins, Chair (University of New Hampshire), Bridget Franco (College of the Holy Cross), Eric Galm
(Trinity College)
Winner: Domingo Ledezma, “Flipboard Magazine on Colonial
Mexico.”
https://flipboard.com/section/m%C3%A9xico-colonial-btBmby#
The NECLAS Multimedia prize committee was happy to receive
several excellent entries this year, and we are happy to award the
first-place prize to Professor Domingo Ledezma of Wheaton College for his entry, a Flipboard magazine entitled “Colonial Mexico.” The Flipboard was designed for Prof. Ledezma’s seminar on
Mexico at Wheaton College, and can be accessed on a web
browser, a tablet or a smartphone. The resource itself takes advantage of multiple audiovisual components from the web, and displays rich visuals from various historical documents. There are
multiple ways to view and access the information in the Flipboard,
making it quite exciting, even fun, to navigate. It incorporates images that can be magnified, side-by-side images of present-day
Mexican cities alongside representative images of their historical
equivalents, as well as links to lectures and videos on YouTube.
Included, for example, are multiple links that explain the indigenous manuscripts (codices), how they were made, how they can be
read, and what images are represented. One of the slides presents
graphic images and their Nahuatl names. The resource allows for
interactivity, encouraging lively participation on the part of the
user. Overall this is an excellent resource to enhance a lecture/class
on colonial Mexico, or to connect with multiple internet resources
of Mexico’s rich historical documents.
BEST DISSERTATION PRIZE
Prize Committee: Jill Syverson—Stork, Chair (Wellesley College), Jennifer Josten (University of Pittsburgh), Karen Melvin
(Bates College)
Winner: Jennifer Adair, “In Search of the ‘Lost Decade:’ The
Politics of Rights and Welfare During the ArgentineTransition to
Democracy, 1982-1990.”
Adair’s dissertation was presented to the Department of History
at New York University in January of 2013. This thoughtfully
argued study not only explains how its topic fits into grand narratives, but offers an original argument as to how we might rethink
those narratives. By re-framing political history through an analysis of the social life of the nation, Adair helps us to see the 1980’s
as a new phase of conflicts between the military dictatorships of
the 1970’s and the neo-liberal reforms of the 1990’s. The dissertation uses an innovative methodology—examining emancipatory
movements and economic programs rather than military trials—to
gauge the changes. From authoritarianism through Alfonsinismo
to the period of the “Argentine miracle” and its collapse, Adair
demonstrates how social factors led to constitutional return despite economic and political climates that, in her words,
“mortgaged the social life of the nation.” The well-researched
individual chapters take us into the nitty-gritty of local networks,
neighborhood political organizing, and the food delivery programs, showing leaders—and the everyday people who wrote to
them—struggling to define what democracy and citizenship
meant.
NECLAS Contact Information:
On the web at: www.neclas.org
NECLAS Secretariat:
El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean and
Latin American Studies
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
University of Connecticut
Ryan Building, 2nd floor
2006 Hillside Road, Unit 1161
Storrs, CT USA 06269-1161
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 860-486-5508