CLAS Events > Spring Quarter 2005-06 Calendar

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Moving Women: Making Connections Between Argentina and the US, 1860-1875"

JULYANA PEARD, Associate Professor of History, San Francisco State University

Peard received her doctoral degree in Latin American history from Columbia University. Her areas of expertise are the history and culture of Latin America (especially Brazil) and the history of women in Latin America.

CLAS Working Group on Education Policy in Latin America

"Educational Research and Its Interactions with the Education System in Mexico"

MARGARITA ZORRILLA, Professor, Autonomous University of Aguascalientes

In her talk, Professor Zorrilla will describe the status of educational research in México; the links between research, educational policies, and decision makers; and the innovations conducted in the Mexican Education System. Professor Zorrilla has been an academic and a practitioner. Her research interests are teacher education, education policy, supervising policies, lower secondary and educational assessment. She has published books and articles at the national and international level. Her newest publications focus on the evaluation of basic education in Mexico from 1990 to 2000: "Good Practices: As the Pedagogical Debate Catches Us" and "An Exploration of Explanatory Models of Learning Outcomes and Student Characteristics Taking into Account Family and Schooling Background."

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Where the Official Meets the Unofficial: Racial Categories and Affirmative Action in a Brazilian University"

LUISA SCHWARTZMAN, Visiting Scholar, Latin American Studies, Stanford University

Schwartzman is a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is currently writing her dissertation on the relationship between race and class in Brazil. Before starting her Ph.D., Luisa received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and completed a master’s degree in Latin American studies at Stanford.

Copies of Luisa's paper are available at Bolívar House in Omar Ochoa's office.

Bolívar House Film Series

State of Fear

New York Times Critic's Pick

Directed by Pamela Yates, Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy
(USA/Peru 2005) 94 min.
In English and Spanish with English subtitles

Moving from the breathtaking beauty of the Peruvian Andes to the graceful sweep of coastal Lima, Pamela Yates's harrowing documentary State of Fear chronicles 20 years of terror, brutality and repression. Based on the testimony of more than 16,000 people to the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the film begins with the rise of the Maoist leader Abimael Guzmán and his Shining Path guerrillas and culminates in the collapse of President Alberto K. Fujimori's government in November 2000, when Mr. Fujimori resigned during a corruption scandal. Between those events lie an estimated 70,000 dead and untold numbers scarred for life. "State of Fear" is a timely lesson on the hazards of choosing security over democracy. ~ Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Filmar en la Argentina del siglo XXI"

FERNANDO SOLANAS, Argentine filmmaker

Since his impressive debut La Hora de los Hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces) (1968), Solanas has continued to make subjective, provocative and political documentaries and feature films. Solanas was a member of the Argentinean parliament from 1993 to 1997. Solanas has made several award-winning films, including Tangos, el exilio de Gardel (Tangos, The Exile of Gardel) (1985), El Sur (The South) (1988), and El Viaje (The Journey) (1992). His latest films are Memoria del saqueo (A Social Genocide) (2003) and Dignidad de los nadies (The Dignity of the Nobodies) (2005).

This talk will be given in Spanish.

CLAS Working Group on Law and Policy in Latin America

"Remittances, Philanthropic Giving, and Equitable Development"

A Conversation with BARBARA J. MERZ, Director, Philanthropy Program at the Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University

Barbara will present the findings of a project conducted by Harvard’s Global Equity Initiative and recently published as a book (New Patterns for Mexico - Harvard University Press, 2005) about the emerging patterns of United States giving to Mexico and its impact on equitable development.

Prior to joining Harvard, Ms. Merz worked with the Hewlett Foundation, promoting strategic philanthropy and international initiatives. She has also worked in the private sector for McKinsey & Company in the U.S., Europe, and South Africa. Ms. Merz was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to New Zealand and wrote her master’s thesis on indigenous rights and international law. In addition, she has published research on peace negotiations through the Stanford Center for Conflict Resolution and Negotiation. Prior to law school, she volunteered as a backcountry ranger at Denali National Park, Alaska. Ms. Merz holds a law degree from Stanford Law School (2002); an M.A. from Victoria University, New Zealand; and an A.B. from Princeton University.

This event is co-sponsored by the CLAS Working Group of Law and Policy in Latin America, the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies, and Mexicanos at Stanford.

Taste of Latin America Cooking Demonstration

Moqueca, a Brazilian seafood dish

ANJOLINA DE QUEIROZ, Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University
RUY DE QUEIROZ, Tinker Visiting Professor, Math and Philosophy, Stanford University

*Please email megorman@stanford.edu by Wednesday, April 26 if you wish to attend the class. We encourage participants to chip in two or three dollars to offset the cost of ingredients.*

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Rethinking Bilingual Education Under the Government of Evo Morales"

DENISE ARNOLD, Director, Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara, La Paz, Bolivia, and Visiting Professor, Birkbeck College London

Arnold has worked for many years on native forms of knowledge in Bolivia and has a particular interest in the need to understand weaving and other cultural practices, especially those undertaken by women, as Andean types of text. She will speak about bilingual education programmes, including those of the new government of Evo Morales, in the context of the need to make native knowledge an active component of them. She earned her doctoral degree in anthropology from University College London. Arnold's most recent book is The Metamorphosis of Heads (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006).

This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and the School of Education.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Latin America and Human Rights "

CARLOS CASTRESANA, Visiting Professor at the University of San Francisco

Castresana received his law degree in 1979 from Complutense University, Madrid, Spain. He served as a District and Examine Judge, and Court Magistrate for a number of years, before becoming a member of the Public Prosecutors of Spain, where he worked in the Anti-drug and Anti-corruption Special Offices. In 2005, he was appointed Prosecutor of the Supreme Court. He was also a professor of criminal law at the University Carlos III, Madrid. Professor Castresana authored the formal complaint and subsequent reports in the Pinochet Case before the Audiencia Nacional in Spain. He has served as an expert in international legal cooperation and other issues in Europe and Latin America, under appointment of the United Nations, European Union and Council of Europe. He received the Human Rights National Award in Spain in 1997, was awarded the Doctorate Honoris causa from the Guadalajara University, Mexico in 2003, and the Certificate of Honor from the City and County of San Francisco in 2004. Professor Castresana teaches courses on human rights in Latin America and international criminal law.

CLAS Working Group on Education Policy in Latin America.

"Intergenerational Education Mobility: A Cross Country Analysis"

MIGUEL SOCIAS, Research Scientist, American Institutes for Research, Washington, D.C.

Brief Synopsis: Intergenerational education mobility is important because of its welfare implications and potential consequences for economic growth. Unfortunately, the literature that studies intergenerational trends focuses mainly on the question of intergenerational income mobility. Our knowledge about intergenerational education mobility is extremely limited, particularly when comparing across countries. The objective of Mr. Socia's paper is to fill this gap in the literature.

Miguel Socias graduated from Stanford in 2004 with a Ph.D. in education and an M.A. in economics.

Lunch will be served.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"When Was Peru Modern? On Declarations of Modernity in Peru"

WILLIAM ROWE, Visiting Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Rowe is Anniversary Professor of Poetics in the Department of Spanish and the School of English and Humanities of Birkbeck College London. He has published six books and over eighty articles on Latin American literature and culture. Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America was published by Verso in 1991. Poets of Contemporary Latin America: History and the Inner Life was published by Oxford University Press in 2000. He has worked in anthropology and cultural studies, and is now exploring issues of twentieth-century poetics (interpreted in a broad sense, as including cultural forms), especially in relation to the avant-gardes. He is particularly interested in modern poetry and poetics of both the USA and Latin America. He has also published translations of a wide range of Latin American poetry and his research interests include the theory and practice of literary translation.

New Art Exhibit at Bolívar House
Conversation and Reception

How can the beauty and joy we feel about a river be translated into public policy? Can stories be used to bring diverse stakeholders to the table? Come discuss these questions and learn about the story of one Latin American town that is trying to do just that.

Las Caras del Río: Photos from Volcán, Costa Rica

By Mollie Chapman

On display May 5 - June 23, 2006

Mollie Chapman is a senior at Stanford University, majoring in Anthropology with an emphasis on Population and the Environment. She focuses her studies on finding creative solutions to meet the goals of sustainable development. She has worked on sustainable development projects in Indonesia and Costa Rica, and also done research with the Center for Ecotourism and Sustainable Development in Washington, DC.

Her paper, on the role of narratives in conflict mediation, was published in the Review of Policy Research, in December 2005.

She originates from Pullman, Washington, home of the National Pea and Lentil Festival.

Questions? Email mchapman@stanford.edu

Light refreshments provided

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Education and Industrial Bias in Brazilian Social Policy"

EDUARDO RIOS-NETO, TInker Visiting Professor, UT-Austin

Rios-Neto received his Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley where he worked with Ron Lee. His main interests are in economic demography, labor force economics, fertility, education, and project evaluation. He is now leading a large project to evaluate the impact of Brazil's major poverty program, Bolsa Familia. He is a professor at CEDEPLAR at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and is currently the President of the Brazilian Council on Population and Development, the organ of the Brazilian government charged with developing the national policies related to population. He is a past President of the Brazilian Population Studies Association (ABEP).

SPECIAL EVENT
Science Policy in Latin America Symposium

Introduction by HERB KLEIN, CLAS Director and Professor of History, Stanford University

Speakers:

RUY DE QUEIROZ, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil
GUSTAVO BUSCAGLIA, Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Cuyo National University, Mendoza, Argentina
MARCOS CUETO, Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, School of Public Health , Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru
RODOLFO DIRZO, Bing Professor in Environmental Science, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, and formerly at UNAM, Mexico

Commentators:
ALFREDO CARO, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California
SIMON SCHWARTZMAN, Ph.D., President, Instituto de Estudos do Trabalho e Sociedade, Rio de Janeiro

Symposium Schedule

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Marxist Historiography and Narrative Form in ¡Que viva México!"

PAUL ALEXANDER SCHROEDER, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Schroeder received his doctorate in Spanish from Stanford University in 2000. He is the author of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea: The Dialectics of a Filmmaker (New York: Routledge Press, 2002). Schroeder teaches Latin American film and literature at the University of Hawaii.

Bolívar House Cooking Demonstration

Arepas Venezuelan-style

DAVID RONCAYOLO, Graduate Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Ayacucho Fellow, Latin American Studies, Stanford University

*Please email megorman@stanford.edu by Wednesday, May 24 if you wish to attend the class. We encourage participants to chip in two or three dollars to offset the cost of ingredients.*

Latin American Politics Lecture Series

"International Linkage and the Democratization: The Rise and Fall of Competitive Authoritarianism in Post-Cold War Latin America"

STEVE LEVITSKY, Associate Professor of Government and Social Studies, Harvard University

Levitsky received his doctoral degree from UC-Berkeley. His areas of research include political parties and party change, informal institutions and organizations, and political regimes and regime change. His primary regional interest is Latin America, with a particular focus on Argentina and Peru. He is author of Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2003). He is currently writing a book on the rise of competitive authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Africa, Asia, East-Central Europe, and the former Soviet Union during the post-Cold War era. He is also co-editing a book (with Gretchen Helmke) on informal institutions in Latin America.

Bolívar House Film Series

The Dignity of the Nobodies (La dignidad de los nadies)

Directed by Fernando E. Solanas
(Argentina 2005) 116 minutes
In Spanish with English subtitles

The Dignity of the Nobodies is currently making its U.S. premiere at film festivals around the country, including recent screenings this spring at the San Francisco Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.  This film is the second in a series of four documentaries by Solanas exposing the condition of Argentina today.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

Join us for a talk by Mexican screenwriter and book author

GUILLERMO ARRIAGA

Arriaga is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed writer already familiar to fans of his films, the Academy Award-nominated 21 Grams, Amores perros, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which won a Palme d'Or for Best Screenplay at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, and his latest film Babel. Though more famous in the United States for his films, Arriaga is first and foremost a brilliant novelist. Now he is poised to make his mark on the literary landscape with The Night Buffalo, a new novel and the first of three to be published in the United States. Arriaga will discuss The Night Buffalo, as well as his work as a screenwriter.