CLAS Events > Winter Quarter 2005-06 Calendar

CLAS and Mexican Studies Working Group

"The China I Knew: Covarrubias and Adriana Williams"

ADRIANA WILLIAMS, a world authority on Covarrubias, was a friend of Rosa and Miguel Covarrubias. Her book, Covarrubias, published in 1994 by the University of Texas Press, gives a fascinating view of Covarrubias' life and the artistic and intellectual culture of Mexico in the '30s and '40s.

The China I Knew is a journal written by Rosa Covarrubias in the early 1930s and recounts the trip she and Miguel took to China. Adriana edited the book and will talk about it and about her relationship with Rosa.

The China I Knew was printed letterpress by TERRY HORRIGAN at her Protean Press. Terry will speak about collaborating with Adriana Williams on this and on a previous book, Luis Barragan, an Inner Life. Recollections.

CLAS Mexican Studies Working Group and Mexicanos at Stanford

Fiesta de Rosca de Reyes

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Crude Reflections: ChevronTexaco’s Rainforest Legacy"

Join photographers Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak, and writer Joan Kruckewitt, for an introduction to their photo exhibit "Crude Reflections."  The exhibit chronicles the human and environmental impact of ChevronTexaco's oil pollution in the Ecuadoran Amazon and efforts by local communities to seek justice.  It's on display at Bolívar House through the end of February.

Award-winning photographer LOU DEMATTEIS has spent more than two decades documenting social and political conflict and their consequences in the United States and around the world.

KAYANA SZYMCZAK is a documentary photographer and independent photojournalist whose work focuses on issues relating to human rights and environmental justice.  Based in San Francisco, CA, her work has taken her from India to Alaska to South America.

JOAN KRUCKEWITT received a master's in Latin American studies from Stanford.  She is the author of The Death of Ben Linder; The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua (Seven Stories Press 1999).

"International Health, Cold War, and Malaria and Mexico"

MARCOS CUETO, Tinker Visiting Professor, Latin American Studies, Stanford University

During the 1950s, malaria, a rural disease extended in Mexico and Latin America, became the quintessential international health intervention for agencies working in developing countries (as yellow fever and hookworm were for tropical health during the early 20th century). The Pan American Sanitary Bureau, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the U.S. Department of State supported malaria eradication by indoor spraying of DDT and use of antimalarial drugs. This presentation will examine the Cold War motivations of the campaign and examine the responses in Mexico (the first developing country to embrace eradication). Malaria eradication was portrayed as an instrument for improving agricultural productivity, tourism, and rural progress. There was also an official belief that the campaign would advance Western medicine and overcome the "apathy" and "fatalism" of peasants. Eradication was carried out through a military-style campaign with overconfidence on technological solutions.

For more information about this event, please contact Rosemary Rogers at rrogers@stanford.edu with the Program in History & Philosophy of Science and Technology.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Afro-Peruvian Music and Dance"

LALO IZQUIERDO is a master in Afro-Peruvian music and dance.

GABRIELA SHIROMA is dance coordinator of De Rompe y Raja, a Peruvian folk dance ensemble in the Bay Area.

Zamacueca - Diaspora of Latin American Dance
Performance of Peruvian, Mexican, Bolivian, Argentine and Chilean music and dance

Five cultures are joining forces to tell the story of the Zamacueca: the Grandmother of Afro-Peruvian Dance. Fifteen musicians and forty dancers will represent Mexico (Los Lupeños de San Jose), Peru (De Rompe y la Raja), Argentina (Marcelo & Romina), Chile (Araucaria), and Bolivia (Efron and Ivon Escobar) to weave this magical tale.

Tickets may be purchased in person at the Stanford Ticket Office at Tresidder Memorial Union on the Stanford campus, or ordered by phone: (650) 725-2787. Tickets will also be available at the door: $18 general/$12 students.

This event is funded by the Consulate of Peru, Stanford University Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, School of Humanities and Sciences, and the Center for Latin American Studies.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Environmental and Social Impact Assessment of the Lapa Rios Ecotourism Project, Costa Rica"

ANGELICA ALMEYDA, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University
EBEN BROADBENT, Carnegie Institution of Washington at Stanford University
BILL DURHAM, Chair, Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University, and Stanford Director, Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development

The speakers will share their findings on the first environmental impact assessment of Lapa Rios, one of the top ecotourism lodges in Latin America.

Latin American Politics Lecture Series

"Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge"

DEBORAH YASHAR, Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Department of Politics, Princeton University

Yashar's research focuses on the comparative study of democracy – with publications on democracy and authoritarianism; civil society and violence; party systems; indigenous movements; citizenship; and globalization. Her books include Demanding Democracy: Reform and Reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala (Stanford UP, 1997) and Contesting Citizenship: Indigenous Movements and the State in Latin America (Cambridge UP, forthcoming). She has articles and chapters in World Politics, Comparative Politics, and several edited volumes. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

"Rule of Law and Judicial Reform in the New Mexican Democracy"

JOSE RAMON COSSIO, Mexican Supreme Court Justice

6:00 Talk by Justice José Ramón Cossío
6:30 Discussion with Professors Helen Stacy and Alan Weiner, Stanford Law School, and Beatriz Magaloni, Department of Political Science
7:15 Q&A Session
This event is co-organized by Mexicanos at Stanford and Stanford Latino Law Students Association, and co-sponsored by Stanford Law School, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, the Mexican Studies Group of the Center of Latin American Studies, and the Mexican Consulate in San Jose.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Energy Crunch at the Southern Cone of Latin America and its Geopolitical Implications"

CARLOS MIRANDA PACHECO, Academic Director, Master's Program in Gas Management, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, La Paz, Bolivia

Pacheco is an engineer with a bachelor's in chemical engineering and a master's in petroleum engineering from Stanford. Pacheco studied petrochemicals in graduate school at Oxford University. He is the author of "El Anillo Energético: Oportunidades Perdidas o por Perderse" (Fundación Milenio, Boletín Económico de Coyuntura, No. 3, Octubre, 2005) and "Gas and Geopolitics in the Southern Cone of Latin America" (Geopolitics of Energy (Canada), Volume 27, Number 6, June, 2005).

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Latin America: A Biodiversity Treasure"

RODOLFO DIRZO, Bing Professor in Environmental Science, Department of Biological Sciences

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

Film Series

"The Perfect Crime"/"El Crimen Perfecto"

Directed by Alex de la Iglesia
(Spain 2005) 105 min.
In Spanish with English Subtitles

In this antic and outrageous black comedy, Rafael Gonzalez (Guillermo Toledo) is a salesman in the ladies' department of a Madrid department store. His fondest dream is to be made floor manager; when his archrival, Don Antonio (Luis Varela), is named to the position instead, Rafael's world begins to unravel. During a scuffle in the women's dressing rooms, Don Antonio is accidentally killed, and Rafael makes the fatal decision to dispose of the body in secret. But as it turns out, the incident has been witnessed by Lourdes (Mónica Cervera), the homeliest sales assistant on the floor, who is secretly in love with Rafael. Soon she is blackmailing Rafael into giving up his freewheeling bachelor's life. Before he knows it, he's trapped in a cloying, claustrophobic marriage from which murder may be the only escape. Like the Ferris wheel that serves as the setting for one of its climactic scenes, "El Crimen Perfecto" is a bright, gaudy and tremendously satisfying ride. — Dana Stevens, The New York Times

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Understanding Ecuador's Political and Economic Crisis"

PABLO ANDRADE, Director of Latin American Studies Master's Program, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar ­ Sede Ecuador (UASB)

Andrade received his doctorate in Social and Political Thought from York University in Canada. He is currently at the University of California Los Angeles on a Fulbright scholarship. At UCLA Andrade is working on a research project titled "(Re)creating Liberal Democracy in the Periphery: Neoliberalism and Institutional Change."

Monica Miller Walsh Undergraduate Summer Internship Grant Program
Information Session

KATHERINE ROUBOS, Summer 2005 Intern, International Relations Class of 2007
MOLLY VITORTE, CLAS Associate Director
MEGAN GORMAN, CLAS Program Coordinator

Awards of up to $3,000 are available to Stanford students wishing to undertake an independent internship in Latin America. Please join Katherine, Molly, and Megan for an overview of the program. Katherine will talk about her internship with the non-profit organization Grupo Randi Randi in Ecuador and answer questions about the application process. Information on potential places to intern will also be available.

"Judicial Uncertainty, Markets and Rule of Law"

LUIS FERNANDO SCHUARTZ, Professor of Law, Getulio Vargas Foundation Law School (Brazil)

Luis Fernando Schuartz is a senior professor at FGV Law School where he teaches in the law and economics area. He holds a master's as well as a doctorate from Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany. He is a member of the board of the Competition Authority for the Ministry of Justice in Brazil.

Refreshments will be served. This event is sponsored by the CLAS Working Group on Law and Policy and the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies.

Film Series

"Kidnapping Express"/"Secuestro Express"

Directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz
(Venezuela 2004) 86 min.
In Spanish with English Subtitles

Literally translated as "Kidnapping Express," the title refers to a thriving but deadly abduction business to which many poverty-stricken Latin Americans have turned as a means to secure quick cash.  A trio of hoodlums set their sights on an attractive young couple, Carla (Mia Maestro) and Martin (Jean Paul Leroux), who are just about to head home after a wild night of partying.  Once they've been snatched and the ransom demands have been phoned in to Carla's father (Rubén Blades), the victims face a hellish endurance test while awaiting the money's arrival.  The film, written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz and shot on digital video, is more than just a dizzying thrill ride laced with small doses of pitch-black comic relief.  It manages to raise awareness of frightening real-life class wars and deep-rooted corruption in a world where the cops are more treacherous than the crooks, and no one can be trusted. -- Laura Kern, The New York Times

This event is brought to you by the CLAS Law and Policy Working Group.

Latin American Politics Lecture Series

"Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Latin America"

KURT WEYLAND, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin

Professor Weyland's research interests focus on democratization, market reform, social policy, and populism in Latin America. He has drawn on a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, including insights from cognitive psychology, and has done extensive field research in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela. He is the author of Democracy without Equity: Failures of Reform in Brazil (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), The Politics of Market Reform in Fragile Democracies: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela (Princeton University Press, 2002), several book chapters, and numerous articles in journals such as Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Latin American Research Review, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs and Political Research Quarterly. He received his PhD from Stanford University.

This event is co-sponsored by the Latin American politics series and the Stanford political science comparative politics seminar.

"Poverty, Policy and Schooling in Rural Guatemala"

JEFFERY MARSHALL, Consultant with Sapere Development Solutions and Technical Advisor for the World Bank

Marshall's work focuses on the economics and sociology of education in developing countries. Recent research activities include an evaluation of an alternative schooling program in rural Honduras and a review of social exclusion in education for the Inter-American Development Bank. Dr. Marshall also works in program implementation, most recently in Cambodia where he is currently the technical advisor for a new national assessment project sponsored by the World Bank.

This event is brought to you by the CLAS Working Group on Education Policy in Latin America.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Peru and Guatemala and Racial Discrimination"

JEAN FRANCO, Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Jean Franco (BA, MA Manchester; BA, PhD London) is the winner of the PEN 1996 award for lifetime contribution to the dissemination of Latin American literature in English and has been recognized by the Chilean and Venezuelan governments for advanced scholarship on Latin American literature in the United States. Her work includes: The Modern Culture of Latin America (1967), An Introduction to Spanish American Literature (1969), Spanish American Literature since Independence (1973), César Vallejo: The Dialectics of Poetry and Silence (1976), Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico (1989), Marcar diferencias, cruzar fronteras (1996), Critical Passions: Selected Essays (ed. by M.L. Pratt and K. Newman (1999), and The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America in the Cold War (2002).

Film Series

"Blossoms of Fire/Ramo de Fuego"

Winner of "Best Foreign Documentary about Latin America," Havana International Film Festival

Directed by Maureen Gosling
(US 2000) 72 min.
In Spanish and Zapotec dialogue with English subtitles

Bay Area filmmaker MAUREEN GOSLING will present a special screening of her documentary "Blossoms of Fire."

The town of Juchitan in Oaxaca, Mexico, was part of a matriarchal society centuries ago, but unlike most of the cities that surround it, Juchitan hasn't lost touch with this side of its past -- it's a city where women enjoy a degree of political, economic, and social equality unknown in most of the world. The city's dominant businesses are run by women, women take a leading role in city government and activist actions, and in most of the city's households, it's the women who handle the family's financial affairs. The documentary "Blossoms of Fire" takes a look at Juchitan's history and present-day notoriety, as well as the problems that have come with the city's increasingly high media profile. "Blossoms of Fire" was shown at the 2000 San Francisco Film Festival. — Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

"Very cool movie!" — John Sayles

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"Investigative Journalism in Latin America"

CAROLA FUENTES, Reporter, Canal 13, Santiago, Chile, and Hearst Foundation Fellow, Stanford University
GUILLERMO LOPEZ PORTILLO, Investigative Reporter, Televisa Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, and Knight Foundation Fellow, Stanford University
DANIEL CORONELL, News Director, Noticias Uno, Bogotá, Colombia, and Senior Research Fellow, Knight Fellowship Program, Stanford University

Introduced by DAWN GARCIA, Deputy Director, John S. Knight Fellowship Program, Stanford University

The three speakers will talk about the similarities and the differences in doing investigative journalism in their three countries, including relative press freedoms and restrictions. They will each show a short TV clip of an investigative story they produced, and talk about the stories.

"Litigation and Settlement: New Evidence from Labor Courts in Mexico"

JOYCE SADKA, Professor of Economy, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)

Professor Sadka received her Ph.D. in economics from Rice University and her J.D. from George Mason University.  Her fields of interest are applied microeconomic theory, law and economics, industrial organization and regulation, and international commercial law.

This event is cosponsored with the CLAS Working Group on Law and Policy in Latin America, the CLAS Working Group on Mexican Studies, Mexicanos at Stanford (MAS), and the Stanford Latino Law Association.

"Radio Stations Operated by Mexican Universities: A Cultural or a Commercial Focus?"

TOMÁS SAUCEDO, Radio UAS (Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa)

Radio UAS was founded in 1972 at the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, the first of its kind in northwestern Mexico. Since its beginning, it has offered cultural and educative programming to this region. Now Radio UAS, like many other similar radio stations in Mexican universities, competes with commercial stations to increase its audience. Should these radio stations keep their initial purpose or should they change? For eight years Tomás Saucedo has been the director and producer of "En Corto," a radio program in Radio UAS. He studied economics at the UNAM and has master's degrees in economics from Colegio de México and in business development from the UAS.

This event is co-organized by Mexicanos at Stanford, the Mexican Studies Working Group and the Education in Latin America Working Group of the Center for Latin American Studies.

Lunch will be served
Event in Spanish

Bolívar House Lecture Series

Bolivian Politics

Bolivian activist and Senator Leonida Zurita to speak on MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo), coca eradication, nationalization, and the Asamblea Constituyente.

LEONIDA ZURITA is a senatorial candidate and major leader of cocaleras in Bolivia. She is widely considered to be the #1 peasant woman leader in the country.

Anthropologist Dr. GEORGEANN POTTER has been working with social movements for many years in Bolivia and Peru and has published books on globalization and debt.

Film Series

"Who the Hell is Juliette?"/"¿Quién diablos es Juliette?"

Directed by Carlos Marcovich
(Mexico 1997) 92 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles

Shot in Cuba, Mexico, and the US over a period of three years, "Who the Hell is Juliette?" features remarkable cinematography, a wonderful sense of humor and most of all, the hugely charismatic performance of sixteen-year-old Yuliet Ortega as herself -- spirited, street-smart and very sexy. Made with a crew of two -- first-time director Carlos Marcovich and a soundman -- "Juliette" won over audiences at festivals including Telluride, Toronto and Sundance, where it was awarded the Latin American Cinema Prize. It has subsequently been acclaimed by theatre audiences and critics.

Yuliet is a sixteen-year-old who lives in Havana. Her father, whom she has never seen, left Cuba when she was a baby and now lives in New Jersey. One year after her father left, her mother commited suicide, leaving Yuliet to be brought up by her grandmother into a life of prostitution on the streets. A fateful meeting with Fabiola Quiroz, a melancholy Mexican model, changes Yuliette's life. Marcovich weaves a fascinating story with a sweeping and totally innovative nonlinear style exploring the coincidences and parallels that brought these two women together. With verve and skill he lends his vision to their searches for unknown fathers and better futures. The result is a film bursting with music, ribald humor and emotional poignancy that mark "its young director as a brash, original filmmaking talent." - The New York Times

"Wildly original! An ebullient burst of cinematic energy." - The New York Times
"(Four Stars). Only a poet could dare so much and succeed so completely." - San Francisco Chronicle

"Discovering the Unexpected: Stories from Initial Period Investigations on the Central Coast of Peru"

RICHARD BURGER, Professor of Anthropology, Yale University

Professor Burger will describe interesting and surprising finds made during excavations over the last two decades in the Lurin Valley at Cardal, Mina Perdida, and Manchay Bajo.

After receiving his undergraduate degree in archaeology from Yale College and completing his doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley, Burger became a member of the Yale faculty in 1981.

An archaeologist specializing in the Central Andes, Burger has carried out research in Peru for over two decades. He has directed excavations at Chavin de Huantar and Huaricoto in Peru's northern highlands and at Cardal, Mina Perdida and Manchay Bajo on Peru's central coast. In Peru, Burger has taught on the archaeology faculties of Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica. Burger also served as Chair of the Senior Fellows of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. Burger has written numerous books and articles on South American prehistory.

This event is cosponsored with the Archaeology Center, the Department of Anthropological Sciences, and the CLAS Working Group on Andean Archaeology.

"Electoral Accountability and the Variety of Democratic Regimes"

DAVID SAMUELS, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota 

David Samuels (Ph.D. 1998 the University of California at San Diego) specializes in Latin American politics and the comparative study of political institutions, with particular emphasis on Brazilian politics, electoral systems, political parties, legislatures, and federalism.  He is the author of Ambition, Federalism, and Legislative Politics in Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and articles that have appeared in American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, The Journal of Politics, The British Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Democracy, Latin American Politics and Society, and Legislative Studies Quarterly.

This event is part of the CLAS Latin American Politics series.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"A History of Primary Health Care and Latin America"

MARCOS CUETO, Tinker Visiting Professor, Latin American Studies, Stanford University

This presentation will examine the origins of an important health policy of the second half of the 20th century: Primary Health Care and its role and impact in some Latin American countries. This policy was considered as an alternative to traditional "vertical" disease-oriented programs that emphasized technology and paid little attention to community participation. Cueto will also analyze the role played by the Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization and UNICEF in the emergence and diffusion of the concept of Primary Health Care during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Special attention will be given to the political context in which PHC emerged, the methodologies and technologies associated with the primary health care perspective, and the debates on the meaning of primary health care.

Bolívar House Lecture Series

"La performance urbana y poética en el contexto de la dictadura brasileña: el encuentro de Hélio Oiticica y Haroldo de Campos"

GONZALO AGUILAR, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Stanford University

Aguilar has been a visiting professor in the Departamento de Letras Modernas at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP).  He has been a visiting lecturer in the Department of Romance Languages at Harvard University.  He received a liberal arts degree in 1992 and a Ph.D. in literature in 2001, both from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. In 2003, he obtained a scholarship from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (Harvard University) and in 2005 he was a Guggenheim Fellow. His book Poesia concreta: las vanguardias en la encrucijada modernista has been translated into Portuguese, and there are plans for a French edition.

This lecture will be given in Spanish.

Film Series

"Oriana" (aka "Oriane")

Winner of the 1985 Cannes Camera d'Or Award

Directed by Fina Torres
(France/Venezuela 1985) 88 min.
In Spanish and French with English subtitles

In this interesting cinematic tour of a woman's memory, Marie (Daniela Silverio) is a young Venezuelan who has been living in France and returns back home to liquidate her late aunt Oriana's hacienda. As Marie moves at a slow pace through the rooms of the hacienda, closed doors to chambers of memory in her mind begin to open. She recalls her adolescence spent in this house with her reclusive aunt, a woman who never left the premises. As Marie begins to remember events from that era from the perspective of an adult, she realizes why her aunt shut herself away. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This event is brought to you by the CLAS Working Group on Law and Policy in Latin America.

2006 Mexican Elections: A Challenge for Democracy

Welcome by LARRY DIAMOND, Professor and Coordinator of the Democracy Program at the CDDRL
Keynote address by ENRIQUE KRAUZE, Political Analyst, Historian, and Writer
Roundtables: "The Media in the 2006 Electoral Process" and "The Electoral Agenda of the Political Parties"
Event in Spanish with simultaneous English translation
For more information, please visit Mexicanos at Stanford

"Freedom of Speech and its Protection under the Inter-American System of Human Rights"

EDUARDO BERTONI, Former Special Reporter for Freedom of Expression, Inter-American Commission of Human Rights at the Organization of American States

Mr. Bertoni is an Argentine lawyer and a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires. He has done graduate studies at Columbia University School of Law and is a former fellow of the Human Rights Institute there. He has also been appointed Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the School of Law of Universidad de Buenos Aires, where he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on freedom of expression and criminal law. Before taking office at the OAS, he was a legal advisor for several nongovernmental organizations in his country, among them Asociación Periodistas, and he was a member of the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), Instituto de Estudios Comparado en Ciencias Penales y Sociales (INECIP) and Foro para la Reconstrucción Institucional. He has also worked as an advisor to the Department of Justice and Human Rights in Argentina. Mr. Bertoni has written several publications on the right to freedom of expression and has given lectures and conferences in several countries.

Dinner will be served. This event is co-sponsored with the CLAS Working Group on Law and Policy in Latin America and the Stanford International Human Rights Law Association (SIHRLA).

Second Symposium on Portuguese for Spanish Speakers: Acquisition and Teaching

Portuguese for Spanish Speakers is the fastest growing field in the teaching of Portuguese, both in the United States and abroad, and has been the subject of an increasing number of publications and conference presentations.  The goal of this second symposium is to give scholars in the field an opportunity to come together to further discuss the development of an organized body of knowledge on the acquisition of Portuguese by speakers of Spanish and to generate a coherent and successful approach to the teaching of Portuguese to this population.

Keynote speakers: MILTON AZEVEDO, University of California, Berkeley, and ELIZABETH BERNHARDT, Stanford University

See the complete program at Portuguese for Spanish Speakers.

Film Series

"Me You Them"/"Eu Tu Eles"

Directed by Andrucha Waddington
(Brazil 2000) 107 min.
In Portuguese with English subtitles

The legendary Brazilian songsmith Gilberto Gil supplies the score for this reality-based comedy, in which an independent-minded woman decides that if one live-in husband doesn't fulfill her needs, she can always add more. The film begins when Darlene (Regina Case) returns to her small, dusty hometown in northern Brazil to receive her mother's blessing for her young son Dimas. When she arrives, she finds that her mother has died; her funeral occurs the day Darlene arrives. Despondent over her new predicament, she accepts an extemporaneous marriage proposal from her neighbor Osias (Lima Duarte) and moves in with him. It becomes clear to Darlene, however, that Osias wants little more than a live-in maid. Darlene becomes pregnant and bears a child -- who bears no resemblance to the light-skinned Osias. When Osias' cousin Zezinho (Stenio Garcia) comes to town and takes an immediate liking to Darlene, she doesn't turn him away -- before long, she's bearing his son as well. As the eager-to-please Zezinho takes over her housekeeping duties, Darlene decides that the one thing she's lacking in her life is true passion, and fills that void with a sugar cane worker named Ciro (Luis Vasconcelos), who moves in as well. "Eu Tu Eles" was purportedly inspired by a Brazilian news story about a woman in a similar alternative-living situation; the film screened at the 2000 Cannes, Tokyo, and Toronto Film Festivals before making its stateside premiere. — Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

"Me You Them" is an unexpected delight, a film that weds the humor and magic of a folk tale with a very modern feel for the psychological dynamics between men and women and for the subtle politics of male rivalry in a macho culture. It has been made and acted with intelligence and evident love, which deserves to be requited. — A. O. Scott, The New York Times