22nd Graduate Colloquium, March 24-26, 2016, Graduate Student Organization of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Texas -Austin

Announcement:

The Graduate Student Organization of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese is please to announce its 22nd Graduate Colloquium to take place March 24-26, 2016. This event is open to the public. We hope you can join us.Read our full program here. Please join us:

Thursday, March 24

6:00PM – Opening Keynote – Glenn Martinez - GWB 2.206

Keynote Address

“Negotiating Border Health: Language and Literacy Practices of Promotoras”

Glenn Martinez, Ohio State University

Colonias are disproportionately Latino settlements close to the U.S.-Mexico border characterized by extreme poverty, inadequate utility services, poor housing and lack of access to social services. Hundreds of colonias exist along the border. Within colonias, community health workers or promotoras have been shown to work effectively in creating a bridge between these marginalized communities and social service, public health and government agencies. Promotoras have been the focus of much of the colonia research; however, little is known about the linguistic and literacy practices in which they engage in order to effectively bridge these two culturally and linguistically encapsulated spaces. Focus groups with promotoras in the Cameron Park colonia of Cameron County, Texas were conducted. A discursive analysis of the focus group data revealed that promotoras engage in multiple language and literacy practices as they seek improvements on behalf of their communities. These practices are characterized by a trans-competence in which promotoras seamlessly weave their way through complex spaces and discourses in order to address problems identified by the community. This research has important implications for cultural and linguistic training of health professionals who interact with coloniaresidents. An understanding of the language and literacy practices in which promotoras engage and the underlying competencies that animate these practices can inform the development of more appropriate language and culture pedagogies for health professionals.

Glenn Martinez is chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, professor of Hispanic Linguistics, adjunct professor of Nursing, and member of the Cancer Control research group of the James Comprehensive Cancer Center at The Ohio State University. He is author of a dozen articles and book chapters on language access in health care, author of two books on Spanish in the United States, co-principal investigator for the Juntos: Integrated Second Language Learning for Chronic Care project funded by the National Institute for Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disorders, and project director for the Addressing Emerging Needs in Spanish and Portuguese funded by the U.S. Department of Education. He served as Chief Subject Matter Expert for the development of the Rosetta Stone/Kaiser Permanente Advanced Spanish for Healthcare Professionals project and has led other projects funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Humanities Without Walls Consortium funded by the Andrew F. Mellon Foundation.

OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS:

Friday, March 25, 3:00pm - Special Artist Talk - Celeste De Luna, CLA 1.302B

Mapping Geo-Political Space through Art

This talk is about how art can help map geo-political spaces and personal experiences.  Celeste De Luna is an artist influenced by Gloria Anzaldúa’s work on auto-historia as a tool to understand and deconstruct oppressive paradigms in my physical/spiritual/psychic environment. “By processing and making images, I have been able to create change in myself and help decolonize space from within in it.”

Friday, March 25, 4:30pm - Special Talk - Sandra Lorenzano, CLA 1.302B

“Fragmentos de memoria: fronteras, contrabando, cenizas”

Sandra Lorenzano is an “argen-mex” writer and a literary critic. She was born in Buenos Aires, in 1960, and lives in Mexico since 1976. She holds a PhD in Literature and specializes in contemporary Latin American literature, a subject in which she has published extensively. Furthermore, she combines academic and research work with creative writing. As Vice Provost of Research and Special Projects at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Dr. Lorenzano founded the Creative Writing Program, which is currently under her helm.

Saturday, March 26, 5pm - Keynote: Fernando Arenas, CLA 1.302 B

“Time-Space of Portuguese (Post)coloniality: Migrations and the Rise of African Lisbon”

Portugal is arguably the European nation with the longest experience with "colonialism" in a variety of configurations, historical moments, and geographical contexts. Yet, given its perennially peripheral status from a geopolitical and economic standpoint, the Portuguese (post-)colonial experience has not been an object of attention outside of the field of Lusophone Studies. This essay provides a brief historical overview to understand the breadth and depth of the Portuguese (post)colonial experience; offers a conceptual map of Portuguese postcoloniality where ideologies of affect and exceptionalism such as Lusotropicalism play a key role; highlights the centrality of immigration for an understanding of Portuguese society — particularly African immigration and its nexus with thehistory of colonialism and racism that reverberates in national debates around race, ethnicity, and interculturality; provides a brief account of the rise of an Afro-Portuguese culture; and presents short readings of Portuguese cinematic texts that exemplify ethical and aesthetic praxes bringing marginalized black subjects to the center of representation in the quest for social and cultural citizenship.

Fernando Arenas is a Professor of Lusophone Cultural Studies (including Brazil, Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking Africa) at the University of Michigan with a dual appointment in the departments of Afro-American and African Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures.