Carmen Jarrín on the joys and hazards of trans art and activism in Brazil
Release Date: 04/24/2024
Joe Aguilar and John Galante on the making of Crossing Fronteras
Crossing Fronteras
This podcast series surveys the unique ecosystem of contemporary scholarship and art being generated by scholars and creatives in New England who are working in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Episodes in the series address topics such as knowledge production and technological adaptation in the Global South; trans activism and feminism in transnational perspective; indigenous perspectives on the cosmos and the capitalist state; and processes of cultural hybridization though migration and South-South relations. Join us for a fascinating set of conversations from thinkers and innovators...
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Eden Medina on the role of science and technology in Chile’s political history
Crossing Fronteras
Eden Medina (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), an historian of science and technology, addresses relationships between technology and politics in her work on Project Cybersyn, a radical computational experiment by the 1970s government of Salvador Allende, and her upcoming project on the use of forensics in the search for truth and reconciliation. She also reflects on approaches to AI in teaching and learning at a STEM university. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies...
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Javier Puente on Peru’s central highlands, identity politics, and dynamite
Crossing Fronteras
Javier Puente (Smith College) discusses historical relations between indigenous communities and the state during Peru’s internal armed conflict, theories of underdevelopment, and future projects on dynamite and El Niño. He also considers the pitfalls of identity-based epistemologies in academic research and the dangerous appeal of authoritarianism in the Americas. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit...
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Macarena Gómez-Barris on extractivism’s threats to humans and the more-than-human
Crossing Fronteras
Macarena Gómez-Barris (Brown University), an interdisciplinary scholar, speaks on decolonial advocacy and creative expression in indigenous activism, and alliances formed among peoples and between human and more-than-human subjects in opposing extractive capitalism. She also discusses how greater attention given to perspectives from the Global South might further reshape considerations of knowledge production, learning, community, and activism in higher education. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin...
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Aarti Smith Madan on Argentinian intellectuals and Afro-Brazilian street art
Crossing Fronteras
Aarti Smith Madan (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), a scholar of Latin American literature and spatial humanities, maps the trajectory of her interests in nineteenth-century Argentine nation-builders, gauchos as literary subjects, and histories of South-South interactions through connections between Argentina and India. She also outlines her research on the manifestations of Afro-Brazilian consciousness in street art, artistic identity, and social media. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American and...
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Carmen Jarrín on the joys and hazards of trans art and activism in Brazil
Crossing Fronteras
Carmen Jarrín (College of the Holy Cross) engages in a conversation about ethnographic research on trans and travesti creators and activists in Brazil’s artivismo movement as they contend with violence and right-wing nationalism. Carmen connects this work to earlier investigations of plastic surgery, biopolitics, and relationships between gender, beauty, and national identity in Brazil. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit...
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Ginetta Candelario on feminist histories of the Dominican Republic in transnational perspective
Crossing Fronteras
Ginetta Candelario (Smith College) addresses historical feminist advocacy and resilience in the Dominican Republic, transnational solidarities forged by shared feminist and Black experiences around the Americas, and distinctions between knowledge production in advocacy and scholarship. She also discusses her editorship of the leading intersectional feminist journal Meridians and the use of terms like “Latinx.” To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit...
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Carlos Odria on improvisation and notions of fluidity that influence his music
Crossing Fronteras
Musician and scholar Carlos Odria (Worcester State University) talks about heavy metal, Brazilian jazz, Daoism, the picado technique, migration from Peru, and other influences on his improvisational, hybridized, and fluid guitar-playing style. He also reviews the ethnomusicology research he conducted on urban tambores groups that transformed his perceptions of cultural production in metropolitan Lima. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit...
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Ramón Rivera-Moret on comparative cosmologies and using multiplicities in storytelling through film
Crossing Fronteras
Filmmaker Ramón Rivera-Moret (Rhode Island School of Design) discusses turning his fascination with astronomy into a film project that has taken him from scientific observatories to Lakota spiritual ceremonies to visits with a shaman and fisherman using the stars in northern Peru. He also reflects on ways film school in Paris, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and his grandmother’s letter writing have influenced current and planned projects about his native Puerto Rico. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American...
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Koichi Hagimoto on Transpacific modernity and ethnic Japanese writers in Latin America
Crossing Fronteras
Koichi Hagimoto (Wellesley College), a literary scholar of Transpacific studies and comparative anti-colonial resistance movements, discusses his conception of Transpacific modernity. He also outlines his recent work on cultural and political relationships between Japan and Argentina, and his considerations of the literature and racial identities of people of Japanese descent in Latin America. To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/ To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit...
info_outlineCarmen Jarrín (College of the Holy Cross) engages in a conversation about ethnographic research on trans and travesti creators and activists in Brazil’s artivismo movement as they contend with violence and right-wing nationalism. Carmen connects this work to earlier investigations of plastic surgery, biopolitics, and relationships between gender, beauty, and national identity in Brazil.
To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/
To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies