CLAS Events > Spring Quarter 2006-07 Calendar

CLAS Working Group in Law and Policy in Latin America

ORAL TRIALS IN MEXICO

Featuring: El Tunel (The Tunnel) (Spanish with English subtitles)

A short documentary that portrays the reality of the Mexican courts and the justification for the implementation of oral trials.

Followed by a discussion with:
Prof. Roberto Hernandez, CIDE, JSD Candidate-Boalt Hall, and Director of El Tunel
Prof. Layda Negrete, CIDE, JSD candidate-Boalt Hall
Prof. George Fisher, Stanford Law School

A DELICIOUS DINNER WILL BE SERVED AFTER THE DISCUSSION

This event is brought to you by: The Mexican Studies Working Group and the Law and Policy in Latin America Working Group, Stanford Center for Latin American Studies – The Stanford Program in International Legal Studies – The Mexican Students Association at Stanford.

CLAS Andean Archaeology Working Group

"The Archaeology of El Niño in Ancient Peru"

DAN SANDWEISS, Professor of Anthropology and Quaternary & Climate Studies, University of Maine

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a global climatic perturbation that has affected natural and cultural systems for thousands of years. First identified on the coast of Peru, that area remains a core region of ENSO activity. Unfortunately, standard paleoclimatic archives such as lake sediments and corals do not exist or have not been identified in this region. Consequently, climate signals from archaeological sites remain the most useful tool available for studying ancient El Niños on the Peruvian coast. Using marine animal remains and other archaeological data, my colleagues and I have studied the last 13,000 years of ENSO activity in this region. We identified major shifts in El Niño frequency that correlate in time with major changes in ancient Andean cultures. In this illustrated lecture, I review the methods and results of our studies of ancient El Niños and cultural development in coastal Peru.

CLAS Andean Archaeology Working Group

"Explorations with Thor Heyerdahl: Peruvian Pyramids and a Cuban Connection"

DAN SANDWEISS, Professor of Anthropology and Quaternary & Climate Studies, University of Maine

The vast, barren ruins of the pyramids of Túcume rise out of the flat coastal plains of northern Peru. Though eroded over the centuries, these massive monuments still bear witness to their original grandeur. Covering over 220 ha (540 acres) and including 26 major pyramids as well as myriad smaller structures, the ancient city is truly impressive. Norwegian explorer and scientist Thor Heyerdahl first visited Túcume in 1987; though best known for his pioneering trans-Pacific voyage on the Kon-Tiki balsa raft in 1947, Heyerdahl began a major research project at Túcume in 1988. Over the following six years, we learned much about this ancient city. First built around AD 1100 by people of the Lambayeque culture, it survived and even grew under successive waves of conquest by the Chimú and later Inca armies, only to fall into ruins within a few years of the Spanish conquest. While the Túcume project was still on going, Heyerdahl was also instrumental in re-opening Cuba to American archaeologists in the early 1990s. In this illustrated lecture, I review Heyerdahl's contributions to New World prehistory through our joint work at Túcume and in Cuba.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Assessing the Natural Capital of Latin America: Mexico as a case study"

RODOLFO DIRZO, Bing Professor in Environmental Science

Rodolfo Dirzo has a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Wales. Formerly at UNAM, Dirzo also directed the Los Tuxtlas Tropical Research Station in Southeast Mexico. Dirzo's main field of expertise is tropical ecology and conservation biology and his primary area of research is ecological interactions. He focuses on the ecology, evolution, and conservation of ecological processes in tropical forests.

Bolívar House Film Series

DEREK JOHNSON has been producing Mexican travel documentaries since 2002 and has shown them in the US, Mexico and Spain.

El Arbolito de mis Suenos
87 mins
Filmed in DV in Mazunte, Oaxaca, Mexico
In Spanish , English and French
Filming was carried out over a three year period on three separate occasions: Fall 2002, Summer 2003, and Winter 2005/06.

Synopsis: The village of Mazunte is located on virgin coastline property and is very attractive to foreign travelers, and fixed in the eye of mega-investors. But it wasn't always as such. Before anyone had even heard of this small village, it was a land of turtle slaughter, where millions of giant marine turtles were killed over decades for the turtle industry, until the industry ban in 1990, which sent the village into depression. That was then... Now, it's a rustic post on the global highway, where the traveling world makes a stop. And the locals, instead of hunting and processing turtles, now make handmade cappuccinos and pescado al ajo for members of a world they'd really only seen on the screen. And they interact with them on all levels, business, friendship, sexual; influencing them and being influenced. But there are some who want to change this coastal village from a mere post to a major destination, and they are prepared to do this without the people's consent. And they can because they are the government officials who administer the property law. They can expropriate land at will and pay meager compensations for pieces of paradise. Meanwhile, the people, once again, are forced to await some life-changing government decision.

Conference on Migration and Human Development

Cosponsored by the Stanford Center for International Development, the Division of International Comparative and Area Studies, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the United Nations Development Programme

Preliminary ProgramUpdated

Bolívar House Lecture Series

KAREN SUE ROLPH, Ecological Anthropologist, and Lecturer, Department of Sociology

It is well-known that the diversity of species is being lost at an alarming rate. What has been less frequently understood is how language-loss may occur and be linked to other changes, such as shifts in ecological production, trends toward globalization, and increased access to markets. Ecological anthropologist Karen Sue Rolph will discuss one of the branches of the Quechua language spoken in the Peruvian Andes and the results of her fascinating study on the loss of traditional place name knowledge along with loss of indigenous ecological wisdom. Dr. Rolph earned her PhD in anthropological sciences from Stanford University.

CLAS Working Group on Law and Policy in Latin America and the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies (SPILS)

Current Challenges in Latin American Legal Systems: Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica

"Co-Adjudicating Human Rights Conflicts: The Supreme Court of Argentina and the Inter-American System of Human Rights," CECILIA CRISTINA NADDEO, SPILS Fellow, Stanford Law School

"Backlog and Delay in Santiago Civil Courts: Is a New Civil Procedure the Solution?," JOSE MIGUEL HUERTA MOLINA, SPILS Fellow, Stanford Law School

"Implementing DR-CAFTA in Costa Rica: The Case of Patents and Test Data Protection Provisions for Pharmaceutical Products," MARIA JOSE CORDERO SALAS, SPILS Fellow, Stanford Law School

Lunch will be served.

This event is co-sponsored by the CLAS Working Group on Law and Policy in Latin America and the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies (SPILS).

Open House for the New Consul General and Deputy Consul General of Brazil in San Francisco

The Center for Latin American Studies will be hosting an open house for the new Consul General of Brazil in San Francisco, Ambassador Mauricio Cortes Costa, and his wife, Counselor Márcia Loureiro, the Deputy Consul General. The new diplomatic couple is interested in meeting the Stanford Brazilian community, as well as other people interested in Brazilian matters. Please participate in this unique opportunity to meet the consul and vice consul and chat with them in an informal gathering.

In order to help with planning, please send a note to Megan Gorman at megorman@stanford.edu confirming that you plan to attend and the number of people in your party.

Conference on Citizenship in Latin America

"Citizenship, Revolutions and Political Violence in the Formation of the Latin American Republics"

Featuring:
Peter Guardino (Indiana University)
Tulio Halperin Donghi (University of California, Berkeley)
Tamar Herzog (Stanford University)
Nils Jacobsen (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Friedrich Katz (University of Chicago)
Cecilia Méndez (University of California, Santa Barbara)
José Murilo de Carvalho (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)
Jaime Rodríguez (University of California, Irvine)
Hilda Sabato (Universidad de Buenos Aires)
Clément Thibaud (Université de Nantes)
Guy Thomson (University of Warwick)

Conference Program

Conference Poster

Sponsored by the Tinker Foundation of New York

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Baile de Máscaras: Luchadoras, Spectacle, and Performance in the Photographs of Lourdes Grobet"

MARIA LUISA RUIZ, Assistant Professor of Spanish, St. Mary’s College

Lucha libre is a collective experience in which the audience participates in 'real time' as part of the performance. These public spaces are the venue in which new rituals and paradigms of meaning and innovative expressions of popular Mexican national culture manifest themselves. In this presentation, I discuss Lourdes Grobet photographs of luchadoras who grace the wrestling ring. In doing so, her project broadens perceptions of femininity within the highly stylized cultural context of a lucha libre match. I further argue that Lourdes Grobet’s photographs chronicling the public and private lives of female wrestlers shift viewer's ideas about 'women's' roles in public arenas. These themes are in dialogue with questions about urban space and the material reality of Mexico City, thus repositioning the private, domestic lives of public women as an integral part of mass culture.

Professor María Luisa Ruiz received her Ph.D. in Spanish and Humanities from Stanford University. Her research interests include Contemporary Mexican Literature, Mexican Popular Culture of the 1940's and present, Mexican Cinema of the 1940's, and feminist studies. She is also strongly interested in sociolinguistics with a focus on Heritage Language pedagogy.

CLAS Andean Archaeology Working Group

"Contextualizing Prehispanic Human Sacrifice on the North Coast of Peru"

JOHN VERANO, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Tulane University

Depictions of armed combat and the capture and sacrifice of prisoners are well-known in the iconography of the ancient Moche of northern coastal Peru. Since 1995, the iconographic record has been joined by archaeological evidence of the sacrificial practices themselves. The most dramatic discoveries have been made at the Huaca de la Luna in the Moche Valley, in small plazas located adjacent to the principal platform. Excavations of these plazas, conducted between 1995 and 2001, have demonstrated a sequence of sacrificial rituals that extended over multiple centuries. These sacrificial deposits show many common features, but also demonstrate substantial diversity in the treatment and deposition of the victims. Such diversity raises new questions about the function and significance of human sacrifice at Moche ceremonial centers and the identity of the victims.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"European and Brazilian Portuguese: Differences, Policies and Politics"

LYRIS WIEDEMANN, Director of the Portuguese Language Program and Senior Lecturer in Portuguese

Lyris Wiedemann was an Associate Professor of Linguistics and Language Teaching at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul until 1983. In the United States, she taught Portuguese for nearly a decade at the University of California-Berkeley, where she was the Assistant Director of Portuguese Lower Division Courses. She returned to Stanford as the Director of the Portuguese Language Program in 1996. Dr. Wiedemann's research interests include language and culture, sociolinguistic variation, bilingualism, and translation and language acquisition.

CLAS Andean Archaeology Working Group

"Ritual Sacrifice or Reprisal Killing? The Case of Punta Lobos, a Late Intermediate Period Mass Burial from the Huarmey Valley, Northern Peru"

JOHN VERANO, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Tulane University

Archaeological evidence of human sacrifice in northern coastal Peru continues to grow, as evidenced by recent discoveries in the Moche, Chicama, and Lambayeque River Valleys. Iconographic studies and ethnohistoric data from the late prehistoric period provide a general framework in which these discoveries can be interpreted. It is becoming clear, however, that there is greater diversity in sacrificial practices than has been recognized previously. This diversity includes features such as the demographic profile of sacrificial victims, the contexts in which they are found, the presence or absence of associated offerings, and the manner in which they were sacrificed. A recently discovered mass burial at Punta Lobos shows a number of unique features that distinguish it from other known examples of prisoner sacrifice, dedicatory or retainer burials. In the Punta Lobos case, a lack of association with any architecture or offerings, the demographic profile of the victims, and the way in which they were treated before and after death are more suggestive of a mass summary execution rather than a ritual sacrifice. Radiocarbon dates indicate that the event is contemporary with the southward expansion of the Chimú state into the Huarmey Valley. The Punta Lobos mass burial may represent a Chimú response to local resistance.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Migrant-driven local development? The 3x1 remittances program in Mexico"

LUIS F. LOPEZ-CALVA, Professor and Director, Master's Degree in Economics and Public Policy, Tec de Monterrey (ITESM), Mexico City

Luis F. Lopez-Calva is also the director of the National Human Development Report, UNDP-Mexico. He has been Professor of Economics at the Universidad de las Américas (UDLA) in Puebla, and El Colegio de México. He is a member of the Mexican Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, the Official Committee for Poverty Measurement and the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Ministry of Social Development in Mexico. Professor Lopez-Calva holds a MA in Economics from Boston University and a Master's and Ph. D. in Economics from Cornell University. His research interests include child labor, poverty and inequality, institutional economics and development.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"A paper conflict: paper mills and environmental movements in the Uruguay River"

CARLOS REBORATTI, geographer (U. of Buenos Aires, 1973), and Visiting Scholar, Center for Latin American Studies

Main fields of interest: rural geography, environmental conflicts. Last books published: La Quebrada (La Colmena, Buenos Aires, 2003), Ambiente y Sociedad (Ariel, Buenos Aires, 2002). Visiting professor at Wisconsin-Madison (2004), Cantabrica (Spain, 2002), Berkeley (1999) and Tubingen (Germany, 1996).

Visit of Venezuelan Ambassador Alvarez to Stanford

"Venezuela: Revolutionizing Energy Integration and Democracy"

BERNARDO ALVAREZ, Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United States

Introduction by TERRY KARL, Gildred Professor of Latin American Studies and Political Science, CDDRL

Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez, formerly Vice Minister of Hydrocarbons in the Ministry of Energy and Mines, is also Professor in the School of Political and Adminstrative Studies at the Universidad Central de Venezuela.In addition to his previous positions in the Ministry of Energy and Mines, he is currently the Venezuelan Representative to the Energy Council of the U.S. and has coordinated different international agreements with the U.S. Department of Energy, the French Energy Task Force, and the Conferences of Ministers of OPEC. He served as Deputy of the National Congress of Venezuela from 1994-1999.

Sponsors: Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, Woods Institute of the Environment (including the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development), and the Center for Latin American Studies

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Reading Lacan in Buenos Aires: The A(r)mour of Words in Lacanian Psychoanalysis During the Last Argentinean Dictatorship (1976-83)"

CECILIA TAIANA, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Carleton University, Canada, and CLAS Visiting Scholar

During the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976-83) there were as many as 50 study groups reading the texts of French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. They operated in the shadows, outside educational institutions and gave a place of refuge and safety to many intellectuals who did not leave Argentina during this period. This phenomenon appeared at a time shortly after the military coup-d'état, when the universities ceased to be places of intellectual freedom. Thus, an underground university of sorts began to develop in a social environment of increasing violence and censorship, an environment in which theocratic notions of "man" (including women and children), "fatherland" and the "purity" of a Western-Christian ancestry created an escalating hostility towards progressive, pluralistic and secular ideas.

Cecilia Taiana Ph.D. (Psychology) was trained in Buenos Aires, Paris, London and Ottawa. A region of central interest to Dr. Taiana is Latin America, and in particular, Argentina, a country marked by political trauma and dictatorships. In 1995, Dr. Taiana co-edited The Reordering of Culture: Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada in the Hood, an interdisciplinary book by sociologists, historians and cultural theorists that explores the vicissitudes of north–south cultural identities. In the area of trauma and memory, she is the author of Confession and its Twin, Torture: Re-thinking the Therapeutic Alliance, an article published in a refereed book published in 1995. More recently, she published an article in the History of Psychology (November 2005), entitled "Conceptual Resistance in the Disciplines of the Mind: The Buenos Aires-Leipzig Connection at the Turn of the Twentieth Century."

Based on her research on the transatlantic migration of psychoanalytical discourse, she contributed a chapter, Internationalizing the History of Psychology (Adrian Brock, Ed. 2006), entitled "Transatlantic Migration of the Disciplines of the Mind: An Examination of the Reception of Wundt's and Freud's Theories in Argentina" and an article "The Emergence of Freud's Theories in Argentina: Towards A Comparison with the US" to the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis (November 2006). Last winter, Cecilia wrote a biographical note on Jacques Lacan for the editors of the Dictionary of Medical Biography published by Greenwood Publishers in 2006. She will continue her work on Jacques Lacan during her next sabbatical (2007-2008), when she plans to document the role of Lacanian study groups in Argentina during the period of the last dictatorship (1976-83).

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Is Latin America Turning Left?"

TYLER BRIDGES, Miami Herald

The left elected nine out of 12 presidents during Latin America's busiest ever presidential election season. But the question is, which left? The elections show that the region is divided into two lefts.

Tyler Bridges is the Lima bureau chief for the Miami Herald. He has been at the paper since 1996. Tyler has been a member of two Pulitzer-prize winning teams at the Herald, in 1999 and 2001 (for investigative reporting and deadline reporting, respectively). In 1982, he graduated with a degree in political science from Stanford University, where he was a member of the Leland Stanford Junior University marching band. Tyler grew up in Palo Alto.

Art Exhibit

Featuring: Drawings, mixed media, acrylics, goaches by XIOMARA SALINAS

My art is a weapon in this war
It is my remedy for the sickness
It is my key to the universe
And my gift to the world.
-Xiomara Salinas

Xiomara Salinas was born and raised in Colombia, South America. She became involved in the arts at a very young age. She has studied dance, singing, writing, and painting. Initially self-taught, Xiomara began painting as a teenager. At this early age she demonstrated outstanding talents and a unique style, which enabled her to win several art competitions. After high school, she obtained a B.A. degree in Fine Arts in Colombia. After coming to the U.S., she worked as an art teacher, art business proprietor, muralist, interior designer, and tattoo designer. She also continued her education at the Silicon Valley School and obtained an A.A. degree in Computer Graphics and Animation. Xiomara continues to win art competitions, hold art exhibits, and work as a freelance artist. Her art is colorful, imaginative, unique, exquisite, and extremely passionate. (www.xiomara-salinas.com)

"The Emergence of Freud's Theories in Argentina: Towards a Comparison with the United States"

CECILIA TAIANA, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Carleton University, Canada, and CLAS Visiting Scholar

The intellectual relationships between Argentina and Germany, and between Argentina and France, are examined through the case of the arrival of Sigmund Freud's theories in Argentina during the first half of the twentieth century. Analysis of the struggle for the ascendancy and emergence of psychoanalytical discourse demonstrates that the pre-existing discourses in the disciplines of the mind (neurology, psychiatry, and psychology) provided the conditions of possibility for resistance to, and eventual acceptance of, Freud's theories during this period. The Argentinean reception of Freud's theories via France was imprinted with the long shadow of Pierre Janet. Later, during the 1930s and 1940s, a new discursive formation, resulting from the interlocking of psychoanalytical discourse and anti-fascist sentiment in Argentina, created a non-institutional niche where Freud's theories were allowed to prosper.

Cecilia Taiana Ph.D. (Psychology) was trained in Buenos Aires, Paris, London and Ottawa. A region of central interest to Dr. Taiana is Latin America, and in particular, Argentina, a country marked by political trauma and dictatorships. In 1995, Dr. Taiana co-edited The Reordering of Culture: Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada in the Hood, an interdisciplinary book by sociologists, historians and cultural theorists that explores the vicissitudes of north–south cultural identities. In the area of trauma and memory, she is the author of Confession and its Twin, Torture: Re-thinking the Therapeutic Alliance, an article published in a refereed book published in 1995. More recently, she published an article in the History of Psychology (November 2005), entitled "Conceptual Resistance in the Disciplines of the Mind: The Buenos Aires-Leipzig Connection at the Turn of the Twentieth Century."

Based on her research on the transatlantic migration of psychoanalytical discourse, she contributed a chapter, Internationalizing the History of Psychology (Adrian Brock, Ed. 2006), entitled "Transatlantic Migration of the Disciplines of the Mind: An Examination of the Reception of Wundt's and Freud's Theories in Argentina" and an article "The Emergence of Freud's Theories in Argentina: Towards A Comparison with the US" to the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis (November 2006). Last winter, Cecilia wrote a biographical note on Jacques Lacan for the editors of the Dictionary of Medical Biography published by Greenwood Publishers in 2006. She will continue her work on Jacques Lacan during her next sabbatical (2007-2008), when she plans to document the role of Lacanian study groups in Argentina during the period of the last dictatorship (1976-83).

"CHOQUEQUIRAO and the discovery of the Sun Llamas: The last Inca refuge"

ELIANE KARP TOLEDO, Visting Scholar, Anthropological Sciences

CHOQUEQUIRAO (en Quechua "Cuna de oro"), ubicado cerca de la ciudadela de Machu Picchu, a 3,104 msnm en el distrito de Santa Teresa, Cusco, aparece como uno de los mas importantes conjuntos urbanos del periodo prehispanico. Su estudio permitira en el futuro reconstruir las distintas facetas de la vida social de los pobladores originarios de esta region cusquena, as como poder evidenciar una importante presencia multietnica.Este complejo ha sido considerado como "el ultimo refugio de los Incas" en el eje de la resistencia que duro 40 anos hasta 1572 con la captura del ultimo Inca Tupac Amaru I. Choquequirao constituye ademas un importante recurso turistico aun no explotado que podra convertirse en una alternativa a Machu Picchu. Esta presentacion recorre los diferentes hallazgos de este sitio, desde la puesta en marcha de un proyecto de revalorizacion en 2002, enfatizando los componentes rituales de la cosmogonia Inca, con el ultimo descubrimiento de las "llamas del sol".

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Interdisciplinary Approach to Unveil Life in an Exceptional City: Teotihuacan in Central Mexico During the First Centuries A.D."

LINDA MANZANILLA, Tinker Visiting Professor and Member of the Colegio Nacional

This talk explores an anomaly of the Classic period in Mesoamerica: the urban society of Teotihuacan. Professor Manzanilla will discuss the many faces of Teotihuacan: as a pilgrimage center, a place of craft production, a multiethnic city, and a huge planned settlement. She will also delve into how people lived in their multifamily apartment compounds, what crafts they produced and for whom, how neighborhoods were organized, and the rule of law that governed the city.  

Dr. Manzanilla is a researcher at the Institute of Anthropological Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Professor of Archaeology at UNAM. She received a PhD from the University of Paris (Sorbonne). She is the author and editor of 14 books and 112 articles and chapters on subjects related to the emergence and change of early urban societies in Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Andean Region. She has excavated in Mexico, Bolivia, Egypt, and Eastern Anatolia. She is a foreign member of both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She is a member of El Colegio Nacional (Mexico). She was the co-editor of Latin American Antiquity with Gary Feinman. At Stanford, she will teach Early State Formation (in Winter Quarter) and Methodological Issues of Domestic Archaeology Research (in Spring Quarter).

Conference on Pedro Lemebel: Literature, Body Performance and Political Resistance in High Heels

Tuesday 5/22, 4:30 - 6:30 PM, Bolivar House

Wednesday 5/23, 4:30 - 6:30 PM, Building 370, Room 370

Cosponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Division of Literature, Culture and Languages, and the Center for Latin American Studies

Featuring:
Pedro Lemebel (Featured Speaker)
Jean Franco (Panelist)
Fernando Blanco (Panelist)
Francine Masielo (Panelist)
Juan Poblete (Panelist)
Jovana Skarmeta (Panelist)
Luis E. Carcamo-Huechante (Panelist)
Jorge Ruffinelli (Moderator)

Tuesday May 22
4:30 pm  Round Table: ¿Por qué leer a Lemebel?
6:00 pm  Lecture/performance by Pedro Lemebel
“De crónicas, yeguas, condones y otros azahares”
Screening: Imágenes de las Yeguas del Apocalipsis
Location: Bolivar House
Refreshments will be provided.
Outdoors event, bring a light coat

Wednesday May 23
4:30 pm Round Table: Corazón contesta: ¿dónde estás tú?
6:00 pm  Lecture/performance by Pedro Lemebel
“Invítame a Pecar”
Screening: Mi amiga Gladys
Location: Building 370, Room 370

"Lessons from the 2006 Federal Elections in Mexico"

JOSE WOLDENBERG, Former President, Federal Electoral Institute (IFE)

The talk will be in Spanish, followed by a Q&R session.

Dinner will be served after the talk.

Co-sponsors: Mexican Working Group (CLAS) and Mexicanos at Stanford.

Jose Woldenberg was president of the General Council of the Federal Electoral Institute of Mexico from 1996 to 2003, responsible of the 2000 Federal Elections. He has worked as a Political Science professor at the National Autonomous University and has authored several books, including Antecedentes del sindicalismo (1981), Historia documental del SPAUNAM (1989), Las ausencias presentes (1992), Revuelta y Congreso en la UNAM (1994), Violencia y política (1995), Francisco Zarco (1996), Memoria de la Izquierda (1998), La construcción de la democracia (2002). Currently he serves as the director of Nexos magazine.

More information: Luis Perez-Hurtado (luisph@stanford.edu).

SPRING FIESTA!

Stanford's Center for Latin American Studies would like to continue its annual Spring Fiesta tradition by inviting all students, faculty, and staff with an interest in or connection to Latin America to eat, drink, and dance at the Bolivar House garden party on Thursday, May 24, 2007.

A live band, Receita de Samba, will be playing Brazilian music from 5-7pm. Plus, there will be a demonstration by the Stanford Capoeira group. Meat lovers can enjoy the BBQ (or rodizio), but vegetarian options will also be provided. Alcoholic beverages will be available to those over 21, but non-alcoholic drinks will also be served. This event is open to the public.

Es hora de celebrar y festejar!

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Citizens in Arms: The Revolution of 1880 in Buenos Aires"

HILDA SABATO, Tinker Visiting Professor

During the nineteenth century, violence was a constant feature in the Latin American political landscape. Argentina was no exception. In the decades that followed the passing of the national constitution, in 1853, hundreds of revolutions and rebellions of various sorts took place throughout its territory. Mainstream interpretations of those uprisings have considered them as an archaic obstacle in the progressive road leading towards nation-building and State consolidation. My talk will question this reading. Rather than advancing an alternative overall interpretation of such events, however, I shall focus upon one of the main violent confrontations of the period to explore the role of revolution in the republican political culture of the times. 

Hilda Sabato is a history professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. She is primarily concerned with political history, emphasizing nation-building, the development of republican institutional frameworks, and the shaping of citizenship in Latin America. Her current research project looks at political violence in 19th-century Argentina. Her past research projects examined agrarian capitalism and the formation of labor markets in Buenos Aires, as well as the study of immigration to Argentina. She has been a fellow at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. She is presently a Tinker Visiting Professor at Stanford University. Her books include, among others, Agrarian Capitalism and the World Market: Buenos Aires in the Pastoral Age, 1850-1890 (Albuquerque, 1989); and The Many and the Few: Political Participation in Republican Buenos Aires (Stanford, 2001). She was also the editor for Ciudadanía Política y Formación de Naciones: Perspectivas Históricas de América Latina (Mexico, 1999).

FILM SCREENING: "La Segunda Conquista"

An independent documentary filmed in Patagonia, Argentina by Denali DeGraf '03 and Joao Dujon Pereira

Post-screening discussion with co-director Denali DeGraf '03

Synopsis: As land values in Patagonia, Argentinahave skyrocketed in recent years, large corporations and wealthy individuals (from within Argentina as well as from overseas, such as Ted Turner, Sylvester Stallone, the Benetton family, or Joe "Hard Rock Cafe" Lewis) have been appropriating enormous tracts of land at the expense of those who have lived there for decades or centuries. Through threatened or real violence, fraudulent paperwork, and loopholes in the legal system, territory is transferred from those who inhabit it and work it as an integral part of their lives to gigantic, profit-making, feudal kingdoms. From high-end tourism to extremely destructive mining and forestry practices, land is being plundered for the benefit of a few and at the cost of those who have always stewarded it. This film documents and analyzes the growing land conflicts in Patagonia (similar to so many other parts of Argentina and the rest of Latin America) through the voices of its original inhabitants and commentary by other locals involved in the issue. By presenting a few particular cases, the film discusses the methods, motives, and consequences of these massive appropriations of territory and chronicles the resistance of indigenous communities, local citizens' assemblies, and individual families, in the face of adversity. 68 min, Spanish, with English subtitles.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Livestock on the Border: Mexican-US Economic Relations During the 19th-Century"

MARIA APARECIDA S. LOPES, Professor of History of the Americas, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil, and CLAS Visiting Scholar

Maria Aparecida de S. Lopes graduated (BA) from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, (SP, Brazil, 1993), and obtained her PhD degree from El Colegio de México (Mexico City, 1999).  The results of her PhD dissertation have been published by El Colegio de México and El Colegio de Michoacán in 2005 under the title De costumbres y leyes. Abigeato y derechos de propiedad en Chihuahua durante el porfiriato. In 2001 she spent one semester at the University of California in San Diego as a Research Fellow in the Center for US-Mexican Studies, where she started her present research that deals with livestock trade relations between the United States and Mexico in the nineteenth century.  Apart from researching in Northern Mexico – most of her findings have been published in several journals in Brazil and Mexico – she has also done work comparing the Brazilian and the Mexican independence movements; on the creation and evolution of urban centers in South America, during the Colonial period, and on the Brazilian land laws in the nineteenth century.  Her most recent paper is entitled "Del taller a la fábrica: vida cotidiana de los trabajadores chihuahuenses en la primera mitad del siglo xx."  This piece is the product of a seminar organized by professors Pilar Gonzalbo (El Colegio de Mexico) and Aurelio de los Reyes (UNAM), between 2000 and 2001, which result in the publication of Historia de la vida cotidiana en México,in five volumes, by El Colegio de México & Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Special Talk by DR. ALEJANDRO TOLEDO, ex-President of Peru

"The 'War on Poverty' in Latin America: Profitable for Business and Good for Democracy"

Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Time: 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Place: 75 Alta Road (by the Stanford Golf Course)

Dr. Toledo is currently a distinguished visitor at CASBS (Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences) studying the interrelationship of poverty, inequality, and the future of democracy in Latin America. Based on this work, he will address the following questions:

• Should business invest in poverty reduction in the world?
• What are the ingredients for a successful poverty-inequality reduction strategy in developing countries?
• Can investment in health and education promote democracy?
• How would drastic poverty-inequality reduction in Latin America impact on the region's relationship with the USA?
• How can we construct the social agenda for democracy?
• What can we do together, at the micro level, to free people from poverty in democracy?

Reception to follow
Free and open to the public
Seating is limited -- please RSVP

To RSVP, please go online (www.acteva.com/go/casbs), phone (650-321-2052 ext. 220), or email (jstahl@casbs.org).

Sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and The Center for Latin American Studies, Stanford University