Innovative Teaching Methodologies for Quechua Language Revitalization - May 13 in UMC 247 (Hybrid event)
Hispanism, Transnational Identities, and US Academia - April 28 virtually on Zoom
This roundtable will discuss how to challenge epistemologies and practices of "Hispanism" in the US higher-education system, particularly in the fields of Spanish, Latin American, and Latinx studies. Even with the current promotion of interdisciplinarity and inclusivity, these three research areas are still isolated due to nation-state frameworks and imperialist perspectives that privilege the knowledge produced and disseminated from Europe. We are interested in placing transnational identities at the center of the discussion and highlighting the hemispheric intersections of Latinx, Indigeneity, and the African diaspora.
Critical Perspectives on Tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean - April 17 virtually on Zoom
This panel provides a critical perspective on the proliferation of tourism across Latin America and the Caribbean. Three anthropologists—Carla Guerrón Montero, Christopher Loperena, and Erica Williams—share ethnographic perspectives from their books to explore the structural inequalities of tourism economies and the destabilization of these forces among Black communities in the region. Short presentations and roundtable dialogue among panelists will be followed by audience Q&A. In this session, panelists will discuss the intersections of tourism, nation-building, and multiculturalism among Afro-Antillean workers in Panama; Black indigenous displacement and dispossession of Garifuna communities through extractive tourism along the Caribbean Coast of Honduras; and the eroticization of Blackness and commodification of Afro-Brazilian culture in Bahia’s sex tourism industry.
Contemporary Quechua Literature - March 8 virtually on Zoom
Olivia Reginaldo will talk about the evolution of contemporary Quechua literature, its characteristics, and its main exponents. She will also share her experience as a writer and editor of the Quechua magazine Atuqpa Chupan. At the end, Reginaldo will read some of her poems which you can read and listen to here: https://musuqilla.info/harawikuna-qulqakuna/qichqa/
Olivia Reginaldo is a Quechua poet and editor for the Atuqpa Chupan Quechua-language cultural and literary magazine. She has a degree in Literature from San Marcos National University (Peru) and a master degree in Plurilingualism and interculturality from University of Strasbourg (France). She has worked as a translator and as a literature and language instructor. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines such as OjoxOjo (Spain), World Literature Today (USA), Ínsula Barataria (Peru).
Ruchuq’a’ ri Ixoqi’: Gendered Maya Activism and Bilingual Education Initiatives in Iximulew (Guatemala) - February 23 virtually on Zoom
Challenging the distinctions between “old” and “new” media and narratives about the deprecation of orality in favor of inscribed forms, Tiffany Creegan Miller's presentation draws from Maya concepts of tz’ib’ (recorded knowledge) and tzij, choloj, and ch’owen (orality) to look at expressive work across media and languages. Her presentation is based on her recent monograph, The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age (University of Arizona Press, 2022), which draws from her fieldwork that occurred intermittently over a decade in the Guatemalan highlands (2010-2019). The examples of cultural products that Miller will discuss in this presentation are sonic, pictorial, gestural, and alphabetic, revealing various forms of creativity and agency that are woven through a rich media landscape in Indigenous Guatemala. These texts push back not just on linear and compartmentalized Western notions of media but also on the idea of the singular author, creator, scholar, or artist removed from their environment. The persistence of orality and the interweaving of media forms combine to offer a challenge to audiences to participate in decolonial actions through language preservation.
Tiffany D. Creegan Miller is an assistant professor of Spanish and the associate director of the Oak Institute for Human Rights at Colby College. Working across Hispanic and K’ichean (Kaqchikel, K’iche’, and Tz’utujil Maya) literary and cultural traditions, she focuses on contemporary Indigenous literature and decolonial critical theory, with an emphasis on orality, performance, and linguistic revitalization initiatives. She is the author of The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age (University of Arizona Press, 2022). Her other published work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Hispanic Studies Review, Label Me Latina/o, Studies in American Indian Literatures, Synapsis, and the MLA Teaching Series, among others. As a speaker of Kaqchikel Maya, she is also an advisor for Wuqu’ Kawoq: Maya Health Alliance, a medical NGO in Guatemala that provides health care and promotes Indigenous language rights.
Democracy, Race, and Protest in Peru - February 1 virtually on Zoom
Peru is facing a serious political and civil crisis since early December when former president Pedro Castillo was impeached and jailed. Weeks of protests have led to extensive unrest and dozens of deaths, with no solution in sight. Marco Avilés and Jermani Ojeda will update us on the fast-changing situation, and discuss some of the long-term causes, including economic inequality and systemic racism.
Marco Avilés is a Quechua-Peruvian writer and journalist. His recent work explores race and racism across the Americas. He is the author of three non-fiction books: Día de visita, a reportage about love in a women’s prison in Lima; De dónde venimos los cholos, an exploration on identity and migration in the Andes and Amazonia; and No soy tu cholo, a personal essay on being brown. He contributes with different media outlets such as The Washington Post, Radio Ambulante, NUSO and Ojo Público. He teaches a seminar on Covering Identity at the Bilingüal Master of Journalism Program at CUNY. He is a Phd Candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. Marco lives in Philadelphia along with his wife and two dogs.
Jermani Ojeda is an Indigenous Quechua scholar and a member of a Quechua community in the region of Apurimac, Peru. His community's name is Puca Puca, which in Quechua means Red Red. Currently he is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas, Austin. His research is in the field of Indigenous media, particularly the experience of Quechua people broadcasting through radio stations in the Peruvian Andes. He is part of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program at UT Austin. He received a BA degree in Journalism at the Public University of San Antonio Abad in Cusco City, Peru. He obtained two MA degrees, in Public Policy from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and in Iberian and Latin American Literatures, Languages and Cultures from the University of Texas at Austin.