Winter 2007

Meet the Director: Miguel Littín
When: Friday, March 16, 2007, 12-1:30 PM
Where: Weaver Conference Center, Institute of the Americas, UCSD Campus

Miguel Littín was born on August 9, 1942 in Palmilla, Colchagua Province, Chile. He was born to a Palestinian father and a Greek mother. Littín was exiled to Spain in 1973 after Augusto Pinochet rose to power in a violent military coup that ousted democratically elected president Salvador Allende. Littín became the subject of Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez’s book Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littín. One of Latin America’s most respected film directors and screen writers, Chile’s Miguel Littín was twice Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film with Letters from Marusia (1975) and Alsino and the Condor (1982). Miguel Littín has returned to Chile to continue making films. The 14th Annual San Diego Latino Film Festival will screen his latest film, La Ultima Luna, and his classic directorial debut, El Chacal de Nahueltoro.

Spiritual Capital: Foreign Patronage of the Santeria Religion in Post-Soviet Cuba
When: Thursday, March 1, 2007 3:30-5:00PM
Where: Deutz Room, IOA Complex

Santeria is a Cuban religion based upon West African beliefs. This lecture examines the ways in which the Santeria religion allows some Cubans (particularly those unconnected with either the tourism industry or the Florida-dominated remittance market) to access the coveted Cuban foreign currency/peso convertible economy by entering into relationships with foreigners seeking religious knowledge, products, or status. This lecture examines how Cuban Santeros interact with foreigners through the religion itself by providing them with knowledge, divination, consecrated drums, rituals, and initiations into Cuban houses of worship. Imbued with an aura of authenticity and a deep connection to an African past and efficacious present, Santeria is increasingly commodified for foreign cultural, religious, and academic consumers. This lecture focuses on this Cuban conversion of spiritual and subcultural capital into financial capital, as well as the impact of this financial exchange upon the practice of Santeria itself.

Kevin M. Delgado received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, where his dissertation focused on Afro-Cuban Iyesá music and culture. Delgado’s primary research focuses on issues of Santeria music, performance, and cultural representation. A bassist and percussionist, Delgado currently serves as Assistant Professor and Coordinator of World Music and Ethnomusicology at San Diego State University.

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Cuba Today | Diaspora and Literature
Who: Carlos A. Aguilera
What: A Conversation and Literary Reading
When: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 7:00PM
Where: Performance Space | UCSD Visual Arts Facility | Sixth College (on Russell Lane, next to Pepper Canyon Hall)

Poet, prose stylist, and cultural critic Carlos A. Aguilera (Havana, Cuba, 1970) will visit UCSD, engaging in conversation and offering a reading of his work, as sponsored by CILAS, Communication and Visual Arts.

The alternative magazine of culture and the arts that Carlos Alberto Aguilera co-edited in Havana from 1997 to 2002, Diáspora(s), was during its lifespan the premier space for critical debate and alternative culture until it was officially discontinued by the state cultural administrators. This led to Aguilera's departure from Cuba under the auspices of the international Pen Club. The writer lives his exile in Dresden, Germany, and has been denied re-entry into his native country. He has forged intensive dialogue and exchanges with writers from the former Soviet Bloc, particularly from the German Democratic Republic. Influenced by the works of philosopher Hannah Arendt, Aguilera's writings reflect on life under totalitarianism, not only in Cuba but in a re-created China (home to his maternal ancestors). Aguilera is also part of a growing intellectual public sphere outside of Cuba that has fashioned new critical forms of engagement and diasporic citizenship. Even as artists and writers envision a democratic process for the country, this generation of young Cuban intellectuals consider themselves to be on the left of the political spectrum, and they reject the totalitarian aims of any government, regardless of its ideology.

Carlos Alberto Aguilera Chang (Havana, Cuba, 1970) was the co-editor from 1997 to 2002 of the alternative magazine Diáspora(s), in Havana, Cuba. He has published several volumes of poetry, fiction, and essays, including Retrato de A. Hopper y su esposa (Cuba 1996), Das Kapital (Cuba 1997), and Teoría del alma china (Mexico 2006) –all of them translated into other languages such as German, French, English and Croatian. He is also the editor of several anthologies of Cuban poetry and prose. In addition, his texts and articles have appeared in Letras libres, Revista de Occidente, Diario de Poesía, Crítica, Manuskripte, Boundary 2, Tsé tsé, Mandorla, Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, La Habana Elegante, Cubista, Babylon, Quorum, etc., and in newspapers such as Frankfurter Rundschau, El País, and Die Presse. He regularly writes reviews for The Miami Herald, in Florida. He currently has a writing fellowship from Kulturstiftung in the city of Dresden and Dresdner Bank, in Germany.

This event is co-sponsored by the UCSD Departments of Communication and Visual Arts.

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Latin American Political Contrasts: Argentina vs. Chile and Brazil
When: Thursday, February 8, 2007 3:30-5PM
Where: Deutz Room, Copley International Conference Center, The Institute of the Americas Complex, UCSD campus

Torcuato Di Tella is Emeritus Professor at the University of Buenos Aires and is one of the leading social scientists in Latin America. Most of his work has dealt with politics and social structure in Argentina and Argentine Social History, but he has also worked on similar subjects in Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Haiti, and the Latin American region in general.

He has published 10 books in Spanish, half of which have been translated into English: Latin American Politics: A Theoretical Approach; Sustainable Democracy; National Popular Politics in Early Independent Mexico, 1820-1847; Political Culture, Social Movements, and Democratic Transitions in South America in the Twentieth Century; and History of Political Parties in Twentieth-Century Latin America. He has also published dozens of articles in Latin American, American, and European journals.

Di Tella was also the secretary of culture of Argentina in 2003-2004, and a trustee of universities and research institutes, and a member of editorial boards of scholarly journals.

For more information or directions, please call 858-534-6050.

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Wildlife and People: Indigenous Management Experiences in Latin America

Dr. Wendy R. Townsend holds a Ph.D. in Forest Resources and Conservation from the University of Florida, Gainesville, Dept. of Wildlife, 1995. Over the past 15 years, Wendy has published extensively, roughly over 40 titles in several venues. She has worked with indigenous groups in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia, facilitating their efforts to protect their lands and natural resources.

Lecture Schedule:

Working with Indigenous Peoples & Environmental Conservation
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Time: 12:00 -1:30 PM
Location: Anthropology Department, Social Science Building, Spiro Library (Rm. 269)
Please bring your lunch. This talk is especially designed for undergraduates.

Wildlife and People: Indigenous Management Experiences in Latin America
Date: Thursday, January 18, 2007
Time: 3:00-4:30 PM (Please note the time change to the usual CILAS Lecture Series)
Location: Deutz Room, IOA Complex

Seminar: Amazon River Turtle Population Recuperation Efforts in Ecuador
Date: Friday, January 19, 2007
Time: 12:00-1:30 PM
Location: Biology Department, Muir Biology Building Room 1103

Wendy R. Townsend’s Office Hours & Reception
Date: Friday, January 19, 2007
Time: 2:30-5:00 PM
Location: Gildred Building, IOA Complex, Room 4 (CILAS Seminar Room)

Cubans’ Memories of Political Life in the Revolution
When: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 3:30-5PM
Where: Deutz Room, IOA Complex

While Cuban leaders on both sides of the Florida Straits announce plans for the country’s future, the voices of those who matter most are rarely heard: Island Cubans who are ‘living the revolution.’ Frequently it is said that oral history presents the past, present and future in a single breath. Building on this insight, Dore’s paper analyzes Island Cubans’ memories of their engagement in and disengagement from political life. She explores experiences some people remember with a sense of accomplishment and others with disappointment. She argues that the notion of Island Cubans falling into two camps – revolutionary loyalists or traitors – is wide of the mark. Most Cubans remember the past and talk about the present with a mix of satisfaction and frustration. Cubans’ double vision needs to be at the heart of conversations about the country’s future.

Elizabeth Dore is Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Southampton, UK. From 2004 to 2006 she directed a large oral history project, “Memories of the Cuban Revolution,” that collected more than 100 life history interviews with men and women living on the island of different generations, walks of life, and racial identities. The presentation draws closely on those interviews. Elizabeth Dore’s most recent book is Myths of Modernity: Peonage and Patriarchy in Nicaragua (Duke University Press).