Events

Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS)
Calendar of Events: Fall 2024

Wednesday, September 11, 4:20-5:45 p.m.
Great Hispanic Writers Series
Renowned Spanish poet, Juan Carlos Abril, will present a bilingual poetry reading and lead a dialogue about contemporary Hispanic poetry with Hofstra professor Miguel Ángel Zapata.
Abril is a professor of Spanish literature at the University of Granada, Spain. His poetry books include Poesía reunida (1997-2023) (Pre-Textos, 2024), En busca de una pausa (Pre-Textos, 2018), Crisis (Pre-Textos, 2007), and the book of essays, La tercera vía. La poesía española: entre la tradición y la vanguardia (Pre-Textos, 2024). He has also edited anthologies of poetry by authors such as Francisco Brines, José Caballero Bonald, Luis García Montero, and María Auxiliadora Álvarez. 

Presented by the dean of the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, and the Hofstra Cultural Center.

The Great Hispanic Writers Series is a program jointly sponsored by the dean of the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, and the Hofstra Cultural Center.

246 East Library Wing
Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, Second Floor, South Campus

For information, email Miguel Ángel Zapata at miguel-angel.zapata@hofstra.edu.

Wednesday, September 18, 4:20-5:45 p.m.  
The Whites Must Go: Anti-Colonial Sentiments in Equatorial Africa 
By Enrique Okenve (VIRTUAL)

Just when the colonial masters decided their African subjects would be recognized as Spaniards, Africans in Equatorial Guinea realized this was not enough and they had to expel the colonizers to be free.

Enrique Okenve teaches African history and research methods in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus (Jamaica). A child of the Nzomo clan and Africa’s post-independence exile, he was born in Spain. There, he grew up aware of his belonging to Equatorial Guinea, while learning about his family’s opposition to colonialism and the successive dictators that have plagued the country since its independence from Spain. His cross-disciplinary research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century West Central Africa and relies heavily on oral history. His publications include articles and book chapters in English and in Spanish. He has recently completed a book manuscript that explores the development of tradition as an ideological tool to resist the Spanish colonial state in Equatorial Guinea and is currently working on a new book project that examines transcontinental ties and the human factor behind the involvement of colonized Africans in the anti-colonial nationalist movement. His work also includes media outreach, having recently hosted a weekly history radio show on one of Jamaica’s radio stations.

This programming is made possible thanks to a collaboration with New York University’s King Juan Carlos I Center and the Center’s director, Jordana Mendelson. Enrique Okenve will deliver the following lecture at NYU on Thursday, September 19 at 6 p.m.: “Behind the Gaze: Spanish Power and Fang Humiliation in Equatorial Guinea.” First their culture and bodies were vilified, then came the conquest and subjugation of Fang men and women who never accepted the many forms of Spanish colonial power.

Organized by Benita Sampedro Vizcaya.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice, the Africana Studies Program, and the Hofstra University Cultural Center.

Watch Event Video

Wednesday, September 18, 7-10 p.m.

The Erection of Toribio Bardelli

Directed by Hofstra Film Alumnus Adrian Saba (2023)
Toribio Bardelli is an older man, who together with his three children, now adults, form a dysfunctional and failed family. About to turn 70, Toribio will pursue his only goal in life: to have an erection again.

Monday, September 30, 6-9 p.m.

Farmingville

Directed by Catherine Tambine and Carlos Sandoval (2004)
Join us for a screening and discussion of the documentary Farmingville about immigration and its effects 20 years after its premiere. The documentary tells the story of a community in suburban Long Island in the late 1990s with an expanding population of “undocumented” immigrants and the attempted hate-based killing of two Mexican day laborers that catapulted this quiet suburb into national headlines. Discussion to follow screening moderated by Lauren Burigat-Kozol, Rabinowitz Honors College.

Panelists: Hofstra Professors Carlos Sandoval, Catherine Tambini, Mario Murillo, Alan Singer

Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, Axinn Library, First Floor, South Campus

Tuesday, October 1, 2:40-4:05 p.m.  
Memoria, tradición oral y pandereta. Folklore popular y sociedad rural en Galicia, España con perspectiva de género (Memory, Oral Tradition, and Pandereta: Popular Folklore and Rural Society in Galicia, Spain, with a Gender Perpective)
(Memory, Oral Tradition, and Pandereta: Popular Folklore and Rural Society in Galicia (Spain) with a Gender Perspective).

A talk (in Spanish) by Ana Cabana Iglesias, professor of contemporary Spanish and gender history at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Historical research utilizes various sources, including the oral memory of recent generations. This talk examines the role of women in Galician oral traditions, characterized by rural life and the use of the Galician language. The focus is on analyzing songs sung by women during work, celebrations, as forms of social critique, and as political resistance during times of dictatorship. These songs, documented since the 1980s in the Galician Popular Songbook, will be explored from a historical and gender perspective. Additionally, the talk will investigate contemporary efforts to highlight and honor these melodies and recognize women as central figures in their preservation, supported by prominent folk music institutions and groups.

Organized by Pepa Anastasio. 
Co-sponsored by the European Studies Program and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, with the support of the Hofstra Cultural Center.

Monday, October 14, 1-2:15 p.m.
Book presentation and Poetry Reading of Reflejo escaparate
(Sudaquia Editores, 2023) by Hofstra Professor Natalia Chamorro
The book approaches the migrant’s daily epic with two great tools: intimate and intense contemplation as a form of rebellion against an alien reality, and the fear that the known world will disappear with the language. In this fear between what is perceived as foreign and the inability to name it in one’s own language, a glimpse of light appears, a voice capable of naming everything again, emotionally bilingual, fluid in a literature without genre, whose findings are offered in a showcase of which we know from the reflections that these poems emit.

Natalia Chamorro, originally from Peru, lives in New York City, and she identifies herself as a poet, immigrant, and academic passionate about the intersections of art and activism. She holds a PhD in Hispanic Literatures and Languages from Stony Brook University and teaches Spanish at Hofstra University. Before this book, her work was published in several poetry collections, and she is currently working on a book of essays tentatively titled “Escaleras de incendio.”

Organized and co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, with the support of the Hofstra Cultural Center.

Hofstra Hall Parlor, Hofstra Hall, South Campus

RSVP

Tuesday, October 15, 7-10 p.m.

Colibri

Directed by David and Francisco Salazar
When a young Colombian couple is faced with a major change in their lives, each one will go on a personal journey to right the wrongs of the past in order to build a stronger future. COLIBRÍ made its world premiere this summer at the Festival Cine de las Montañas in Salento, Colombia, followed by a screening at the Long Island International Film Expo in July. The film opened in Colombian theaters nationally in August.

Room 211 Breslin Hall, South Campus

Tuesday, October 22, 2024
1:00-2:25p.m. | Berliner Hall 117 (in English)
2:40-4:05p.m. | Breslin Hall 202 (in Spanish)
Queer/Tango/Theory: Gendered Semiosis, Dancing the Binary, and Dancing on Out, an informal talk by Luna Beller-Tadia

Luna Beller-Tadiar (she/they) is a multi-media artist, and a doctoral student interested in kinesthetic cultures, semiotic processes, and queer and decolonial communal practices. She has recently done work on queer Argentine tango semiosis and on the circulation of gesture on TikTok and is also interested in Filipino postcolonial bodily mimetic labor. Luna makes and performs choreographic work, draws comics, and (sometimes) translates. She holds a BA in Literature from Yale University (2018) and is currently pursuing a PhD in Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU Steinhardt. 

Luna's work combines their practice as a dancer and their interest in thinking through movement. They will be talking to and with students about their more recent work, based on their experience dancing tango in different international contexts. This work conceives tango as a body-to-body communicative practice that can be analyzed politically. They point to a normative (gendered, colonial) “binary” model of tango that trains relational gender roles, and claim that queer tango, at its best, intervenes in these formations not necessarily by “removing” gender but rather by reconfiguring and repurposing forms of gendered bodily address through a less more dialogic mode of communication. They interpret queer tango as a collaborative “gender laboratory” that opens possible ways of being and moving together.

Organized by Pepa Anastasio and co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program.

Thursday, October 24, 2024
2:40-4:05p.m. |Monroe Hall 216
Musical performance and conversation with salsa pianist Nóriko Méndez

We are happy to welcome Nóriko Méndez, a talented Japanese salsa pianist whose journey has taken her throughout the world. Born and raised in Japan, Nóriko discovered her passion for Latin music early in life. Determined to deepen her understanding of the genre, she moved to Cuba, where she studied under renowned musicians and absorbed the rich musical traditions of the island. Now based in New York, the global hub of salsa, Nóriko Méndez dazzles audiences with her vibrant performances, blending the technical precision of her classical training with the soulful energy of Cuban music. Her unique fusion of cultures and sounds makes her a rising star in the salsa scene.

Organized by Alfonso García-Osuna and co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program.

Monday, November 4, 2024
4:20p.m. - 5:45p.m. | Hofstra Parlor Room, Hofstra Hall
Great Hispanic Writers Series

Poetry reading by Silvia Guerra, an award-winning Uruguayan poet and editor. She has published notable books of poetry, including A Sea at Down (Pittsburgh, 2023), Un mar en madrugada (Buenos Aires, 2017), Pulso (Madrid, 2011), Estampas de un tapiz (New York, 2006), Nada de nadie (Buenos Aires, 2001), and La sombra de la azucena (New York, 2000), among others. She is co-author, with Verónica Zondek, of the epistolary books El ojo atravesado I. Correspondence between Gabriela Mistral and Uruguayan Writers (Santiago de Chile, 2005). She is a board member of both the Mario Benedetti Foundation and the Nancy Bacelo Foundation. In 2012, she was awarded the Morosoli Prize in Poetry for her career. 

The Great Hispanic Writers Series is a program jointly sponsored by the Dean of the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, and the Hofstra University Cultural Center. For information, please contact Miguel Ángel Zapata at miguel-angel.zapata@hofstra.edu

Monday, November 11, 2024
2:40p.m. - 4:05p.m. | Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, Axinn Library
Great Hispanic Writers Series

Poetry reading by Giannina Braschi, a Puerto Rican fundamental poet, writer, dramatist and scholar. She has published numerous works in Spanish, Spanglish, and English, including Putinoika (Brown Ink, 2024); United States of Banana (Amazon Crossing, 2011), Yo-Yo Boing! (Latin American Literary Review Press, 1998), and El imperio de los sueños (Anthropos, 1988). Her scholarly publications include a book on Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, and essays on Miguel de Cervantes, Garcilaso de la Vega, Antonio Machado, and Federico García Lorca. Her collected poems were translated into English by Tess O’Dwyer in a volume entitled Empire of Dreams (Yale University Press, 1994). The Library of Congress describes Giannina Braschi as “cutting-edge, influential, and even revolutionary”. 

The Great Hispanic Writers Series is a program jointly sponsored by the Dean of the Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, and the Hofstra University Cultural Center. For information, please contact Miguel Ángel Zapata at miguel-angel.zapata@hofstra.edu

Tuesday, November 19
BOOK PRESENTATION CELEBRATING DANCE AS A FORM OF EMBODIED ACTIVISM

Mi culo es mío. Mujeres que bailan como se les canta, Mercedes Liska, U. of Buenos Aires, Gourmet Musical, 2024 ("My Butt is Mine: Women Who Dance as They Please").

The buttocks, a focal point in popular dance, have become a contested cultural and political symbol. Erotized dance styles like perreo and twerking, and genres like cumbia or reggaeton, are often seen as sexist and degrading. However, artists and audiences reclaim these practices as expressions of bodily autonomy, and feminist discourses have embraced dance as a tool for asserting sexual sovereignty. Mi culo es mío explores Pan-Latin music's rise and its connection to the #NiUnaMenos movement and the fight against gender violence and in support of gender rights.

Dr. Mercedes Liska is an ethnomusicologist, professor, and researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) in the field of sociology of music and culture at University of Buenos Aires.

1-2:25 p.m. Scholarly Panel: Dance as a Form of Embodied Activism
Dr. Mercedes Liska, University of Buenos Aires
Dr. Cloe Gentile Reyes, New York University
Dr. Pepa Anastasio, Hofstra University

2:40-4:05 p.m. La música y el baile como forma de activismo feminista: taller de investigación In this talk/workshop (in Spanish), Dr. Liska will talk about her scholarly work around popular music and dance and will introduce students to research methods in the field of ethnomusicology and cultural studies.

7-8 p.m. -BEGINNERS FEMME/HEELS MASTERCLASS with HOFSTRA ALUMNA ALICIA GAVZY
This is a space free from judgment or external expectations, encouraging everyone to find confidence, sensuality, and freedom through movement! Open to all, but space is limited, please sign up below if interested. Heels are optional and everything can be done barefoot or in sneakers if preferred).

Calkins 139 Dance Studio

Advance registration is required

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Co-sponsored by Women’s Studies Program and Rabinowitz Honors College

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Mercedes Liska