PLAS 2011–2012 Newsletter

Transcripción

PROGRAM IN LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
Dear Colleagues and Friends of PLAS:
I hope you had a relaxing summer
and that you are now ready for the
new academic year. I’m very happy
to share the latest news from our
Program:
This past spring, PLAS introduced a
new undergraduate track on Brazilian Studies. Starting this fall, undergraduate students will have the
option of choosing three tracks of
study: a focus on Spanish-speaking
Latin America; a focus on Brazil; or
a combined course of study that
combines Brazilian and Latin American Studies.
This year the Program will host two eminent Brazilian scholars (Lena Lavinas, an expert
on policy; and Ronaldo Lemos, a legal scholar on music copyright) as visiting fellows.
Another new initiative: last semester PLAS launched a new graduate certificate program
that was approved by the Graduate School in January. Within one month, we had over
twenty graduate students signed up. The new certificate will allow students to pursue
interdisciplinary work by taking courses outside their home department and working
with the Program’s visiting fellows in a more focused manner (some fellows can serve,
for instance, as informal dissertation advisers).
2011–2012
I NSIDE
THIS
ISSUE
3
HIGHLIGHTS
6
FA C U LT Y
7
F E L L OW S
9
STUDENTS
15
In the coming years, we plan to create new spaces so that graduate students can interact with undergraduates. We have thought, for instance, of asking graduate students
to run thesis workshops for undergrads.
ALUMNI
We are very happy to welcome the following new faculty members to the Program:
Jessica Delgado (Religion), Thomas Fujiwara (Economics), John Londregan (Woodrow
Wilson School, Politics), and Tom Vogl (Economics, Woodrow Wilson School).
SP OT L I G H T
I look forward to seeing you at our events.
All my best wishes,
Rubén Gallo
Director, PLAS
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19
COURSES
PLAS FALL 2012 EVENTS
SAVE THE DATE:
September 18, 2012 | 12 p.m. | 216 Burr Hall
From Indifference to Passion: Elections, Violence, and the Dignity of
Truth in Guatemala
A lecture by Timothy Smith (PLAS Visiting Fellow &
Appalachian State University)
PROGRAM IN LATIN
AMERICAN STUDIES
September 25, 2012 | 12 p.m | 216 Burr Hall
A Conversation Between Alma Guillermoprieto (The New Yorker &
Princeton University) & John Loomis (San José University)
[email protected]
WWW.PRINCETON.EDU/PLAS
TEL: (609) 258-4148
FAX: (609) 258-0113
October 2, 2012 | 12 p.m. | 216 Burr Hall
Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs
A lecture by Isaac Campos (University of Cincinnati)
Introduction by Robert Karl (History)
Comments and news or information from our readers on
recent activities are welcome, as are inquiries regarding
the program. Please write to [email protected] or contact our staff members directly.
**Featured Event**
October 3, 2012 | 4:30 p.m. | 50 McCosh | Event in Spanish
Mexico and Violence
A dialogue between PLAS Distinguished Speaker Javier Sicilia (Mexican Poet & Peace Activist) & Juan Villoro (Mexican Writer & Journalist)
RUBÉN GALLO
DIRECTOR
[email protected]
ROSALIA RIVERA
Pistoleros as Authors: Some Reflections on History and
Violence in Twentieth Century Mexico
A lecture by Pablo Piccato (Columbia University)
PROGRAM MANAGER
311 Burr Hall
[email protected]
JILLIAN HALBE
October 10, 2012 | 4:30 p.m. | 219 Burr Hall
Latin America Today: Integration or Fragmentation?
A lecture by Cassio Luiselli (Ambassador of Mexico in Uruguay)
COMMUNICATIONS AND PROGRAMMING ASSISTANT
315 Burr Hall
[email protected]
A lecture by Álvaro Enrigue (PLAS Visiting Fellow & Mexican Writer)
The Criminalization of Mexican Political Society During the Porfiriato
A lecture by Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University)
Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology
October 23, 2012 | 12 p.m. | 216 Burr Hall | Lecture will be in Spanish
Las particularidades del liberalismo económico argentino.
Circulación, adaptación y formación de un canon de pensamiento
de economía política entre dos crisis, 1870-1899
A lecture by Mariano Plotkin (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y
Social, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero & Argentine Writer)
A lecture by Enrique Krauze (Historian, Essayist & Publisher)
Respondent: Roberto González Echevarría (Yale University)
November 6, 2012 | 12 p.m. | 216 Burr Hall
A lecture by Giancarlo Mazzanti (PLAS Visiting Fellow & Architect)
November 15, 2012 | 4:30 p.m. | 219 Burr Hall
A lecture by Marjorie Perloff (University of Southern
California) on Austro-modernism
Co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature
November 20, 2012 | 12 p.m. | 216 Burr Hall | Lecture in Spanish
Caudillos culturales de la transición mexicana: intelectuales y poder
en México, 1999-2012
A lecture by Jorge Volpi (PLAS Visiting Fellow & Mexican Writer)
ENEIDA TONER
PROGRAM ASSISTANT
316 Burr Hall
[email protected]
JEREMIAH LAMONTAGNE
TECHNICAL SUPPORT SPECIALIST
310 Burr Hall
[email protected]
NONDISCRIMINATION STATEMENT
In compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and other federal, state,
and local laws, Princeton University does not discriminate on the basis
of age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion,
national or ethnic origin, disability, or status as a disabled or Vietnamera veteran in any phase of its employment process, in any phase of its
admission or financial aid programs, or other aspects of its educational
programs or activities. The vice provost for institutional equity and diversity is the individual designated by the University to coordinate its
efforts to comply with Title IX, Section 504 and other equal opportunity
and affirmative action regulations and laws. Questions or concerns regarding Title IX, Section 504 or other aspects of Princeton’s equal opportunity or affirmative action programs should be directed to the Office
of the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, Princeton University, 205 Nassau Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 or (609) 258-6110.
Produced by the Program in Latin American Studies
Editors: Jillian Halbe and Rosalia Rivera
Cover Photo by Eneida Toner
Copyright © 2012 by The Trustees of Princeton University
In the Nation’s Service and in the Service of All Nations
December 4, 2012 | 12 p.m. | 216 Burr Hall
A lecture by Javier Guerrero (Spanish & Portuguese
Languages & Cultures)
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HIGHLIGHTS
STUDENTS VISIT GUATEMALA
Undergraduate students of the course, ART 394/LAS 394 Pre-Columbian Maya Art: Elite and Popular Discourses, spent their fall recess in Guatemala
climbing pyramids and looking up-close at Maya monuments and small-scale artifacts. The trip was jointly sponsored by the Department of Art and
Archaeology and the Program in Latin American Studies and led by course professor Dr. Christina Halperin.
The trip was a tour through time. Beginning
with the Late Preclassic period (300 BC-300 AD)
at the lowland archaeological site of Uaxactun,
students stood on the steps of a radial pyramid
whose spatial configuration marks the passing of the solstices. A visit was then taken to
Tikal, the capital center that later overthrew
Uaxactun in the Classic period (300-900 AD).
In this ancient city, the class walked along
roads and through buildings to get a sense
of the social contexts of the artifacts they
had examined in the classroom. Ending the
trip, they flew to the cooler volcanic highland
region of Guatemala, visiting museums and
traveling to an archaeological site of Iximche,
where Maya peoples and Spanish conquistadors clashed in the 16th century. In both the
tropical lowlands and highlands, ART 394/LAS
394 students also experienced the everyday
of Guatemalan life, swerving through colorful markets, taking-in the barrage of posters
for Guatemalan presidential re-elections, and
savoring the taste of tamales.
–Christina Halperin
View of Tikal Temple I from the top of Temple II: (top row, left to right) Madison Bush, Oren SametMarram, Emma Scully, Gray Halubur, Nick Piacente, Dr. Zachary Hruby; (bottom row, left to right)
Christopher Green, Holly Peck, Eleanor Elbert, Elliot Lopez-Finn, Aseneth Garza, Luciana Chamorro,
Dr. Christina Halperin
“The Maya world came alive for me in a sense; now
when I see painted vessels or murals I see them as
pieces produced by actual people, in a specific context, and not some abstract thing from the past.”
- Luciana Chamorro ‘12
The class trip to Guatemala changed my perspective on Maya culture. We were able to experience being in the spaces they lived in and gained more of a sense of what daily life was like,
what was meaningful to them. The Maya world came alive for me in a sense; now when I see
painted vessels or murals I see them as pieces produced by actual people, in a specific context,
and not some abstract thing from the past. Plus, traveling together as a class for a week made
us much more of a learning community. It completely changed the way we interact in class and
has enriched our discussions.
–Luciana Chamorro '12, Anthropology & Latin American Studies
(CONTINUED ON FOLLOWING PAGE )
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Photos courtesy of Christina Halperin
Tikal Temple IV: (left to right) Holly Peck, Oren
Samet-Marram, Eleanor Elbert, Luciana Chamorro
GUATEMALA
(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE)
Over fall break, I had the privilege of traveling to Guatemala with Professor Halperin’s Maya
art class. Never have I experienced a field trip or out-of-class activity in which everyone was
as consistently engaged and excited as I was during this week. We saw several Maya sites, and
each one left us with a different impression and more nuanced understanding of Maya life and
culture. This is the third class I have taken at Princeton on Pre-Columbian art, and I learned
more in this one week than in all three combined. I am writing my thesis on a Maya vessel in
the Princeton Art Museum, so this was an incredible opportunity for me to contextualize what I
know about Pre-Columbian Maya art by visiting where the Maya live, seeing the buildings they
created, eating some of the same foods they ate, etc. Other students had different academic
backgrounds and reasons for wanting to learn more about the Maya, but our several-hour-long
meals spent asking questions about Maya life and discussing possible artistic techniques or
social structures showed that everyone loved the opportunity to see Maya sites as much as I did.
There is not enough space here to write about everything we got to see, or how much fun we
had just traveling around with such a wonderful group of people, but I hope this helps describe
the week. Many thanks to Professor Halperin, Dr. Zach Hruby, an accompanying chaperone,
the Princeton Program in Latin American Studies, and the Department of Art and Archaeology
for making this trip happen—it was one of the best weeks of my life, and I will never forget it!
–Eleanor Elbert ‘12, Art and Archaeology
Photo of Madison Bush courtesy
of Christina Halperin
TELLES BROADENS STUDY OF RACE AND INEQUALITY
Edward Telles, a professor of sociology at Princeton University since 2008, studies immigration, race relations and social demography, focusing on
race and inequality across Latin America and on Mexican Americans’ assimilation in the United States. Before coming to Princeton, he worked on
these issues for nearly 20 years in academia and in the field in Latin America, primarily in Brazil.
Latin American society and Latinos in the
United States,” said Massey, the Henry
G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and
Public Affairs.
Examining issues of identity with a focus
on Latin America
Telles’ teaching and research currently center on comparative studies
of race across Latin America, a broad
topic requiring wide-ranging expertise.
One afternoon during the fall semester, Telles taught a session of his
undergraduate class “Race, Ethnicity
and Nationalism in Latin America,” in
which the discussion concentrated on
notions of racial identity in Bolivia and
the Dominican Republic, often using the
United States as a reference point. In the
Dominican Republic, where European
features are favored, Telles said, very
few people identify as black despite many
having a dark skin color and apparent
African features, instead saying they
are Indio, or copper colored. To appear
less black, some people straighten their
hair or bleach their skin, as evidenced
by the many beauty shops offering these
services in the Dominican Republic and
in Dominican communities in the United
States, he said.
“Do you remember Sammy Sosa?” Telles
Photo by John Jameson
By spanning the social sciences and the
Americas in his research, Professor Edward
Telles has helped increase understanding of
how race and inequality interact.
Telles said he combines demography and
other quantitative methods with “the sensibility and understanding” that comes from
anthropology, his undergraduate major.
“Anthropology has always been more
worldly and more open, while most American sociology is still focused on the United
States,” Telles said. “The comparative part
is important to me.”
In addition to his primary duties in sociology, Telles is a faculty affiliate of the
University’s Center for African American
Studies, Center for Migration and Development, Office of Population Research, Program
in Latin American Studies, and Program in
Latino Studies.
Princeton immigration scholar Douglas
Massey has known Telles for more than 20
years. Telles’ strengths, he said, are “his
mastery of both quantitative and qualitative methods, his wide experience in Latin
America, his fluency in both Spanish and
Portuguese, and his openness to discussion
and new ideas.”
“With the arrival of Edward Telles, Princeton
clearly became the best sociology department
in the country for the study of immigration,
(CONTINUED ON FOLLOWING PAGE)
4
asked his students, referring to the former
Major League Baseball player from the Dominican Republic. “Sammy Sosa bleached his
face. This is a typical thing people do in the
Dominican Republic … but it was shocking
to many Americans.”
Freshman Isaac Lederman described
Telles’ lectures and precepts as interactive
and exciting.
“His questions always lead to interesting
conversations,” Lederman said. “His experience
has made the class very unique, because we
are learning from someone who is very much
an insider. He has shown us intriguing new
data and has been able to share funny and
fascinating stories from the field with us.”
Graduate students in the sociology department, such as Liza Steele, also appreciate
Telles’ ability to make connections between
disparate cultures.
“In my dissertation, I analyze public opinion
about income inequality and the welfare state
throughout the world, with case studies of
Brazil, the U.S., China and France, so Eddie’s
expertise on inequality in varied global contexts has been a wonderful resource for me,”
she said. “The field of sociology traditionally
focused on the study of the U.S., so we are very
fortunate to have among our faculty such a
distinguished member of our discipline who
can advise us about cross-national research.”
Miguel Centeno, a Princeton
professor of sociology and public
affairs, said that Telles’ expertise in race
and identity issues, especially his sensitivity to the importance of context, is evident
through the work of graduate students in
the department.
“We share several students who can combine
my interests in institutional forms of power
with Eddie’s concern
with perceptions of
identity and difference,” Centeno said.
“I know that he has
made the students I
work with smarter and
has expanded the set
of questions that they
ask of the material.”
With his current
research endeavor,
Telles is applying his
comparative approach
to the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin
America (PERLA), which
he leads and which is
funded in part by the Ford Foundation. Made
up of researchers across the United States
and Latin America, PERLA involves two sets
of surveys meant to address a lack of demographic data and comparative analysis about
Latin America.
“There’s really been no comparative work,”
Telles said. “People talk about Latin
American race relations, but I know it’s
not the same in all of these countries.”
In the first stage, Telles’ group added
a set of questions about ethnicity to
the Americas Barometer, a Vanderbilt
University-led survey in 24 countries in
Latin America and the Caribbean. In the
second stage, PERLA conducted in-depth
surveys of more than 100 questions on
topics such as racial attitudes, inequality
and health in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico
and Peru. Telles and his collaborators
are writing up their results and plan to
publish them in late 2012 or early 2013
in conjunction with a major conference
at the University.
One of the striking findings Telles
noted is that skin color is a better indicator than ethnoracial identity (what
people call themselves — black, mulatto, white, mestizo or indigenous) in
understanding income and educational
inequality in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
and Mexico. In those countries, survey
data based on ethnoracial identity suggested that blacks and mulattos may
no longer suffer discrimination. However,
interviewers also recorded respondents’ skin
color, and Telles found a strong correlation
between skin color and income, occupation
and education levels, with those with darker
skin tones faring worse on measures of equality than those with fair skin.
“It’s not just a matter of what people call
themselves, because these things are so fluid
anyway. … The more objective indicator is
color,” Telles said. “They’re both aspects of
race. They work in different ways.”
Exploring careers and countries
Telles’ path to the social sciences began
in college. He entered Stanford University
interested in physics and math but majored
in anthropology due to his growing awareness of social issues through campus debates.
Telles, who came from a working-class Mexican American background, became a student
activist, protesting against issues such as
South African apartheid.
After college, Telles taught English as a
second language to immigrants in his hometown, Los Angeles, and then joined the city
government’s community development division, administering grants for housing and
job training. While working for the city, he
pursued a master’s degree in urban planning
at UCLA. Telles then earned his doctorate in
sociology at the University of Texas-Austin.
“I liked this whole idea of studying social
structures and trying to understand societies and how they work,” he said. “I also had
hands-on experience with real public policy
issues that I wouldn’t have had going straight
through graduate school.”
When Telles returned to UCLA as a professor in 1988, his early academic work focused
on two areas: income and equality of Mexican
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 )
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Photos by John Jameson
RACE AND INEQUALITY
FACULTY NEWS
NEW 2012–2013 ASSOCIATED FACULTY MEMBER
TOM VOGL (Assistant Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School) is a returnee to PLAS,
having graduated from Princeton in 2005 with an AB in Economics and a certificate in Latin American Studies. He has interests in the economics of health and population, particularly among the socially and economically disadvantaged. Vogl’s
recent research has examined the relationship between socioeconomic status and health over the lifecycle and the effects of
childhood family structure on adult outcomes, primarily in South Asia and Latin America. He has held fellowships from the
National Science Foundation, the Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University, and the
National Bureau of Economic Research, and completed his Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard University.
Other newly added PLAS Associated Faculty members for the 2012–2013 academic year include Jessica Delgado (Religion), Thomas Fujiwara (Economics), Javier Guerrero (Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures), John B. Londregan
(Woodrow Wilson School, Politics), and Irene V. Small (Art and Archaeology).
MIGUEL CENTENO RECEIVES MLK DAY JOURNEY AWARD
Princeton University professor Miguel Ángel Centeno was honored on January 16, 2012 with an MLK Day Journey Award which recognizes efforts
to continue the effort to achieve Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision. Centeno, a professor of sociology and international affairs and member of PLAS’s
Associated Faculty came to the University in 1990. He received the Journey Award for Lifetime Service for his role in helping provide disadvantaged
students with the skills they need to apply and succeed at selective colleges and universities.
Photo Credits: Vogl by Larry Levanti; Centeno by Denise Applewhite
Centeno co-founded the Princeton University Preparatory Program
(PUPP) with former Program in Teacher Preparation director John Webb
in 2000. Centeno has been instrumental in building the program, which
prepares high school students who come from traditionally underrepresented socioeconomic backgrounds to become more competitive in
their bid for admission to selective colleges and universities. Since the
first PUPP class graduated in 2004, about 160 students have enrolled
at more than 50 institutions, with 12 graduates attending Princeton
— one of the largest groups among all schools where PUPP alumni
have enrolled. PUPP graduates have a college retention rate — either
completing a degree or holding good standing at their institutions —
of more than 90 percent, several times the national average for their
socioeconomic group.
“None of this would have happened without Miguel’s initial leadership, rooted in his personal experience as a 10-year-old Cuban refugee
who was raised by a single parent in a neighborhood where college
was the last thing on people’s minds,” Tilghman said in presenting
Centeno with the award. “With a relative’s encouragement, he applied
to Yale University, where he ultimately earned his doctorate. Having
made this challenging journey, he is profoundly committed to helping
others make it, too.”
Beyond his work with PUPP, Centeno works tirelessly to be a friend
and mentor to those who may feel out of place at Princeton. He has
served as master at Wilson College and has taught in the Freshman
Scholars Institute, a summer preparatory program for incoming Princeton students.
Christina Paxson, former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International Affairs, sought perspectives from Centeno’s
peers and students in nominating him for the Journey Award. “I was
particularly struck by the comments of the students whose lives he
changed,” Paxson said. “I have always known Miguel as someone with
a great deal of compassion. I have to confess that, until now, I did not
appreciate just how outstanding a person he is.”
Adapted from http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S32/67/29K07/index.xml?section=topstories
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FELLOWS
PLAS VISITING SCHOLARS
2012–2013 ACADEMIC YEAR
ÁLVARO ENRIGUE
Writer
Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Program in Latin American Studies and Lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures and the Program in Latin American Studies (2012–2013)
Research project: New Latin American Journalism and its Fictions
Fall 2012 Course: LAS 322 Gossip: Autobiographical Fiction from Vargas Llosa to Bolaño
Álvaro Enrigue is an award winning author of four novels and two books of short stories. He was awarded a
Rockefeller Foundation Residence Fellowship (2009), was the Whitney J. Oates Fellow in the Humanities Council at
Princeton University (Spring 2011) and a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers
at the New York Public Library (2011–2012).
JORGE VOL PI
Writer
Visiting Research Scholar in the Program in Latin American Studies and Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Spanish
and Portuguese Languages and Cultures and the Program in Latin American Studies (2012–2013)
Fall 2012 Courses: SPA 331/LAS 331 Modern Latin American Fiction
SPA 342/LAS 342 Topics in Latin American Modernity - Autobiographies of the 20th Century
Juan Volpi is best known for his novels and essays. As a former lawyer and a successful scholar, Volpi’s academic
interests are abundant in his work. For his book, En busca de Klingsor (1999), he was awarded the Spanish literary prize Premio Biblioteca
Breve and the French Deux-Océans-Grinzane-Cavour-Prize. In January 2007 he was appointed the director of Canal 22, a State sponsored
cultural TV channel.
2012–2013 FALL SEMESTER
ALBERT ESTE VE
Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Visiting Research Scholar in the Program in Latin American Studies (September 2012)
Research project: Towards a Unified Analysis of World Population: Family Patterns in Multilevel Perspective (WorldFam)
Albert Esteve is Senior Researcher at the Center for Demographic Studies, Barcelona, Spain. His research focuses
on household and family dynamics and union formation, with emphasis on Latin America. Currently he is Principal
Investigator for, among others, the European Research Council Starting Grant project “Towards a Unified Analysis of World Population: Family
Patterns in Multilevel Perspective (WorldFam).”
Architect
Visiting Lecturer in the School of Architecture and the Program in Latin American Studies (Fall 2012)
Fall 2012 Courses: LAS 402/SPA 407 Latin American Studies Seminar - Architecture as a Mechanism of Social Inclusion
ARC 505C/LAS 506 Architecture Design Studio
Giancarlo Mazzanti is the founder of the studio El Equipo de Mazzanti in Bogotá, Colombia and has instructed at various Colombian universities. He is the winner of several Colombian competitions for the construction of buildings, including
the Urban Design and Landscape category of the 10th Venice Biennale of Architecture awards (2006) and the award for the
Best Work at the 6th Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urban Planning (2008). Some of his award winning public
buildings include the España Library, Nazca restaurant, and La Ladera Library. Most of his architecture work involves
social values at its main core and Mazzanti searches for projects that empower transformations and builds community.
TIMOTHY J. SMITH
Appalachian State University
Visiting Research Scholar in the Program in Latin American Studies and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of
Anthropology and the Program in Latin American Studies (Fall 2012)
Research project: Critical examination of indigenous governance and autonomy, human rights and violence, citizenship and the state, development and grassroots indigenous politics in Latin America (Guatemala and Ecuador)
Fall 2012 Course: LAS 401/ANT 434 Latin American Studies Seminar - The Politics of Ethnicity in Latin America
Timothy J. Smith is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Appalachian State University, member institution of the University of North
Carolina. He has taught at the University of Illinois and University of South Florida as well as having had visiting appointments at Harvard
University and Columbia University. He is completing a monograph on the history of indigenous praxis, electoral politics, and communitystate relations in Guatemala and will spend the semester working on a new comparative ethnography examining indigenous mobilization and
the formation of environmental subjectivities in the wake of resource extraction in Highland Guatemala and Amazonian Ecuador.
(CONTINUED ON FOLLOWING PAGE)
7
Photos courtesy of the named individuals
GIANCARLO MA Z Z ANTI
VISITING SCHOLARS
2012–2013 SPRING SEMESTER
JAMES GREEN
Brown University
Visiting Research Scholar in the Program in Latin American Studies and Visiting Professor in the Department of Spanish
and Portuguese Languages and Cultures and the Program in Latin American Studies (Spring 2013)
Research project: Exiles within Exiles: Herbert Daniel, Brazilian Gay Revolutionary
In Spring 2013 Professor Green will teach a course for PLAS on Brazil.
MARIA HELENA L AVINAS DE MOR AIS
Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Research project: Comparative Analysis of the Recent Evolution of Social Protection Systems in Latin America:
institutional breakdown, incremental dynamics, counter-reform?
In Spring 2013 Professor Lavinas de Morais will teach a course for PLAS on development strategies in Latin America
from the 1940s to the present.
RONALDO LEMOS DA SILVA
Fundação Getulio Vargas
Research project: Determining the cultural and economic impact of the appropriation of technology on the part of
the so-called “global peripheries”
In Spring 2013 Professor Lemos da Silva will teach a course for PLAS on culture and technology in Latin America.
RICARDO LUNA
Kluge Center of the Library of Congress
Visiting Lecturer in the Program in Latin American Studies and the Woodrow Wilson School (Spring 2013)
In Spring 2013 Professor Luna will teach “Passive-Aggresive Diplomacy: US-Latin American Relations” for the Woodrow Wilson School and PLAS.
LILIA K ATRI MORIT Z SCHWARCZ
University of São Paulo, Brazil
Visiting Research Scholar, History and the Program in Latin American Studies. Global Scholar (Spring 2013)
During her time at Princeton, Professor Schwarcz will co-teach a course on Brazil with Pedro Meira Monteiro (SPO).
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STUDENT NEWS
PLAS 2012 SENIOR THESIS PRIZES AWARDED
On June 4, 2012 PLAS held its annual Class Day Ceremony during which the winners of the Stanley J. Stein Senior Thesis Prize in Latin American Studies and the Kenneth Maxwell Senior Thesis Prize in Brazilian and Portuguese Studies were announced by Pedro Meira Monteiro, Associate Professor
of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures
STANLEY J. STEIN THESIS PRIZE WINNER:
Luciana Femanda Chamorro Elizondo ’12, a major in Anthropology with a certificate in Latin American Studies, for her thesis Narrating the Nicaraguan
Civil War: An Ethnographic Account of Re-membering in San Juan del Norte.
Of Chamorro’s thesis, Professors Carol Greenhouse and João Biehl found that in her project she proved herself “to be a superb
ethnographer” and her “personal portraits of [her] principal interlocutors are individual and altogether memorable; they come through as
distinct personalities whom [she] present[s] with great respect.”
Luciana Chamorro, a native of Nicaragua, also received a $10,000 grant from the Davis Projects for Peace to help members of the
community of Matagalpa tell their stories of the 1980s civil war through the project “Stories of the Civil War: Empowering a Generation
Through Community Filmmaking.” High school and college students, video artists, scholars and the broader population will collaborate
in a workshop to produce a video documentary, Chamorro said.
“The personal narratives of the war will collectively provide a view of the recent local history of Matagalpa, with the premise
that understanding the past is empowering and gives a community the tools to think about their present and reimagine their future,”
Chamorro said. She hopes that such a project will help “recognize in the past the seeds of our current political and social issues, and use
this understanding to build a more just and peaceful future for Nicaragua.”
Information on the Davis Project for Peace adapted from http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/91/85M76/index.xml?section=topstories.
KENNETH MAXWELL THESIS PRIZE WINNER:
Sojung Yi ’12, a major in Anthropology, for her thesis Uncharted: Territorialization of Health Care and the Travails of the Urban Poor in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Luciana Chamorro (right) and Sojung Yi (left)
Yi with Professor Pedro Meira Monteiro
Photos by Eneida Toner
Professors João Biehl and Alan Mann write that “Uncharted is an outstanding senior thesis based on original and rich field
research in Brazil. Sojung Yi’s sensitive and creative work explores how the social topography of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas shapes the ways
residents access, or fail to access, the municipal health services near their homes...For the intensity and scope of her field engagement,
for the ways she learns and cares, and for the originality and relevance of the scholarship she produced on public health care access and
violence in Brazil, Sojung deserves our highest praise.”
Chamorro with Professor Meira Monteiro
9
CONGRATULATIONS
TO THE CLASS OF 2012!
Front Row (left to right): Stephanie Morales, Laura Elizabeth Hamm,
Sophia Marie D’Angelo, Leo Daniel Mena, Luciana Femanda Chamorro
Elizondo, María Julia Gutiérrez
Back Row (left to right): Tiffania Lissette Willetts, Erica Meyer Zendell,
Hannah Rose Sanzetenea, Brianna Nicole Eastridge, Aparajita Das,
Andréa Gabriella Schiller, Lindsay Marie von Clemm, J. David Peña.
Come visit us at the Freshman Academic Expo on
Monday, September 10 from 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
at the Frick Chemistry Lab. The Program in Latin
American Studies will be on hand to answer student
questions about the Certificate Program, funding
opportunities, thesis prizes, courses, and more.
We hope to see you there!!
10
Photo by Eneida Toner
Freshman Academic Expo
PLAS CERTIFICATES, CLASS OF 2012
NAME
DEPARTMENT
SENIOR THESIS TITLE
Katherine Alvarez
Sociology
Constructing Social Change: A Study of Medellin’s Social Urbanism
Stephanie Marie Alvarez
Politics
Innovation and Success: Medellin System for the Provision of Services to the Displaced Population
Kathleen Brennan
Anthropology
Museums of Memory and the Politics of Genocide Representation in Post-Dictatorship Argentina
Luciana Femanda Chamorro
Elizondo
Anthropology
Narrating the Nicaraguan Civil War: An Ethnographic Account of Re-membering in San Juan del Norte
Mayanne Gael Chess
English
Like So Many Views Seen Through Bright Glass: The Train as a Modernist Symbol in Texts by Ford,
Lawrence, and Cortázar
Sophia Marie D’Angelo
Spanish and
Portuguese Languages
and Cultures
Inter-Caribbean Relations and the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora: Race and Nationalism in Haitian,
Dominican, and Puerto Rican Popular Culture
Addie Marie Darling
Comparative Literature
Veritas in Nihilum: An Investigation of the Poetry of Roy Campbell, Octavio Paz, and Juan de la Cruz
Aparajita Das
Economics
Tudo Monitorado: The Impacts of Military Pacification on Crime Rates in Rio de Janeiro
María José Dobles Madrigal
Woodrow Wilson
School
Violence and Drug Trafficking in Central America: “The Ghosts of Institutions Past, Present, and Future”
Brianna Nicole Eastridge
Anthropology
Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres: The Development of Mexican-Americans as a New
Social Class in the United States
Adriana Maria Estor
Politics
The Question of Project Lending: A Comparative Analysis of the Effectiveness of the World Bank in
Latin America
María Julia Gutiérrez
Woodrow Wilson
School
Devising Regional Solutions: An Analysis of Violence Trends in Northern Mexico, 1997-2010
Laura Elizabeth Hamm
Anthropology
Mapuche Resurging: The Reappropriation of Indigenous Struggle in the Chilean Nation
Ricardo López
Spanish and
and Cultures
Narcotraducción: Reacciones y lecciones del lenguaje ante la “Mexican Drug War”
Leo Daniel Mena
Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology
Creating Connection: Live Fence Structure and its Role in Sustaining Avifauna Diversity in Panama
Martha Melissa Montoya
Sociology
Escondido Transformed: How the Highly Visible Latino Population Becomes Invisible
Stephanie Morales
Spanish and
and Cultures
Projeto Orla 2005: The Barraqueiros’ Lack of an Agenda and the Imbalance of Power Which Led to
The Demolishment of the Barracas
J. David Peña
Politics
Racist Violence and Immigration in Spain: Impact on the Latin American, North African, and
Eastern European Immigrant Groups
Niurka Grissel Peralta Malena Sociology
The Color of Money: Trade, Gender, and Nationality in a Dominican Market
Hannah Rose Sanzetenea
Spanish and
and Cultures
‘El tiempo vuela’: La vida, la muerte, y el tiempo en un libro infantil ilustrado original
Andréa Gabriella Schiller
Politics
Somebody Save Us: The Role of the Federal Government in Bailouts
Natalie Helen Shoup
Operations Research
and Financial
Engineering
Sustainable Energy Economics: Optimizing the Integration of Renewables in Guatemala
Lindsay Marie von Clemm
Economics
A Macro Stress Testing Framework of Liquidity Risk in the Latin American Banking Sector
Tiffania Lissette Willetts
Economics
The True Cost of an Education: Income’s Effect on Educational Attainment in Buenos Aires,
1980-2006
Erica Meyer Zendell
Comparative Literature
Bread, Circuses, and Steel: Mega-Sporting Events, National Image, and Modernization in China and
Brazil (Beijing 2008, Brazil 2014, and Rio 2016)
11
Brazilian Studies Track for Undergraduate Students
Beginning in Fall 2012, the Program in Latin American Studies will offer two tracks of study: Latin American Studies and the newly created
Brazilian Studies. For satisfactory completion of the Brazilian Studies track, students must meet the following requirements:
(1) Completion of the normal departmental program in the major department.
(2) Satisfactory completion of the language requirement in Portuguese.. This requirement also applies to certificate candidates who are pursuing degrees in the sciences and engineering.
(3) Satisfactory completion of three courses in Latin American subjects sponsored or cross-listed by the Program in Latin American Studies.
At least one of these courses must be in Brazilian literature and culture; the two remaining courses may be selected from any field, and must
have a strong Brazil-related content. Courses that are not focused entirely on Brazil must be preapproved by the Program Director, and the final
written work must be Brazil related. (With the Program Director’s permission, one of the three courses may be taken abroad, being designated as
a “cognate,” and will then count toward satisfaction of the course requirement. No course may be taken pass/D/fail or audit for program credit.)
(4) Completion of a senior thesis on a Brazilian subject. Normally, it should be written under the supervision of a faculty member associated
with the Program. If this is not the case, a faculty member associated with the Program should be consulted early in the senior year concerning
available sources. The thesis should also demonstrate an ability to use primary source materials in Portuguese. If the senior thesis is not devoted
exclusively to a Brazilian topic, the Director and relevant Program faculty will determine its acceptability. Ordinarily, at least half of the thesis
content will deal with Brazil, and a substantial portion of the research for the thesis should be conducted in Portuguese. Note: Students majoring
in science or engineering but whose thesis cannot be devoted to a Latin American or Brazilian topic may complete the Program requirements by
writing a research paper of sufficient complexity and length to substitute for the thesis requirement. The topic should be determined in consultation with the Director and relevant Program faculty.
For more information on PLAS certificates please visit
our website (www.princeton.edu/plas) or contact the
PLAS office (609-258-4148; [email protected]).
Report from the Field:
Brett Diehl ’15, 2012 Sigmund Scholar, writes from Brazil
My Sigmund Scholars project in Rio de Janeiro went great. Through my internship and individual research at the Arquivo Público do Estado do Rio de Janeiro I discovered a few areas
of modern Brazilian history that I am interested in further investigating in the future.
The majority of my internship work dealt with documents (mainly photographs) related to
the secret military police that existed in Rio and the rest of Brazil during much of the twentieth
century. The in-depth history of the secret police is just beginning to be unveiled and it seems
to be a very exciting topic to possibly pursue for a JP or my senior thesis. More specifically, I
would like to learn more about the Brazilian secret police's relationship with other countries
in South America (commonly known as Operation Condor) and with the United States.
Thank you much for this wonderful experience which I know will pay dividends over my
next three years at Princeton. See you in September.
Best,
Brett Diehl ’15 (back row) pictured with
his co-workers at the Arquivo Público do
Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Brett Diehl ’15
12
Photo courtesy of Brett Diehl ’15
Dear Program in Latin American Studies:
LASSEN FELLOWSHIPS IN LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
The Program in Latin American Studies Lassen Fellowships in Latin American Studies provide outstanding first-year graduate students with full
tuition, a 12–month graduate stipend, and research funds to support fieldwork in the region during their first year at Princeton. Each spring, PLAS
asks departments to nominate the most promising entering graduate students for this fellowship. Nominations are evaluated for evidence of strong
commitment to the study of Latin America, guided by a departmental assessment of each candidate’s overall potential for success. Lassen Fellows
are appointed by the Program in Latin American Studies and the fellowships are administered by the Graduate School.
2011–2012 Lassen Fellows
Diana C. Andrade (History)
Andrade earned the B.A. in History from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She
has done research on peace processes, amnesties, and reconstruction policies in Colombia,
and during her Ph.D. she wants to further explore those issues in a broader Latin American
context. Before beginning graduate school she was a consultant for the “Aulas en Paz” program,
a school-based intervention aimed at promoting peaceful interactions among children.
Elizabeth L. Hochberg
(Spanish and Portuguese
Languages and Cultures)
Hochberg earned her B.A. degree in Romance
Languages and Literatures from Harvard
University and her M.A. degree in Mexican
Literature from the Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México. She is interested
in Latin American avant-garde literature,
intermedia theory, and the relationship
between politics and popular culture.
Amanda I. Mazur ‘08
(Comparative Literature)
Mazur earned the B.A. in Comparative
Literature from Princeton University and
the M.A. in French literature from New
York University in Paris. Her research plans
include examining the way in which personal
and collective renderings of historical crises
utilize metafictional discourse to explore
the relationships between justice, literary
testimony, history, and imagination.
Park earned the B.S.F.S. in Regional and
Comparative Studies (Latin America) and
a certificate in International Development
at Georgetown University’s Walsh School
of Foreign Service. She also studied at the
Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.
Her research interests include interactions
between formal and informal institutions as
well as the effects of the illegal drug trade on
political processes.
Diana C. Andrade, Adam F. Pellegrini, Amanda I. Mazur '08, Bethany A. Park and
Elizabeth L. Hochberg (left to right)
Adam F. Pellegrini
(Ecology and Evolutionary Biology)
Pellegrini earned the B.A. in Biology from Colgate University. During his time there he did
research on fish behavior, remote sensing models, paleoecology, plant physiology, and ecosystem
ecology. His field of special interest is in resource pool dynamics, looking specifically at biotic
and abiotic interactions that are important in nutrient cycles. He is currently working towards
understanding the nitrogen cycle in tropical ecosystems, particularly in Latin America.
Photo by PLAS
Bethany A. Park (Politics)
13
2012–2013 Lassen Fellows
Benjamin Fogarty (Anthropology)
Benjamin Fogarty earned the B.A. with Honors in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University in New York.
During his Ph.D., he plans to explore how new forms of education in Guatemala sit at the intersection of citizenship
movements and transnational capital. A citizen of Guatemala and the US, a variety of experiences inform his plan of
research: teaching health education in a majority Latino high school in New York; completing research on drug violence,
security and gangs in Guatemala City; conducting human rights research in Lahore, Pakistan; and working on a drug
violence awareness campaign in New York. Central to all this is a commitment to visual work.
Gerardo Muñoz (Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures)
Born in Cuba, Muñoz majored in political theory and philosophy, and received the M.A. in
Hispanic Literature from the University of Florida. His recent investigations take up questions
related to the debates around cinema and Marxism, which were explored in a symposium he organized in 2011 “Early
Revolutionary Cuban Film 1961-1968: Ideology, Aesthetics, and Censorship.” At Princeton, Muñoz is eager to extend his
research on the debates and reception of Marxism in a broader Latin America context (1950-1970s), with particular focus
on the work of philosopher León Rozitchner, relations between intellectuals and the State, and the cultural legacies of
revolutionary ideologies as represented and imagined in cultural production.
Jean Nava (Sociology)
Jean Nava earned the B.A. in Sociology, Economics, and Mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin. His Honors
thesis explored the impact emigration has had on population structure in Mexico on a state and regional level by
examining census data and providing a brief historical analysis of Mexico-to-U.S. migration. His research interests
include economic sociology, neoliberalism and globalization, the international flow of labor, and macroeconomic
processes in general.
Paula Elena Vedoveli Francisco (History)
Paula E. Vedoveli is a historian working on the relations between Latin America and the Third World during the Cold War.
She is trying to understand the rise and fall of the idea of Third World solidarism, focusing specifically on the 1950s and
1960s. This project addresses the broader question of how Latin America influenced the dynamics of the Cold War and the
development of the Global South. She has conducted multi-archival research in the United Kingdom, the United States,
France, Brazil, and Argentina. Before coming to Princeton, Paula worked as a research fellow at the Catholic University of
Rio de Janeiro. She graduated summa cum laude in History from the University of Rio de Janeiro. She later earned the M.A.
in International Relations at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.
The Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies, introduced in 2012, is open to all Princeton University graduate students currently enrolled in any Ph.D. program in the humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences. Students enrolled in the Masters in Public Administration at
the Woodrow Wilson School may also enroll in the certificate if they write a research paper on a Latin American topic in consultation with the
Program Director.
The Graduate Certificate, overseen by the Program Director, is designed to allow students who are taking seminars in the Program, working closely with our faculty, and writing dissertations on a Latin American topic to receive a formal credential in the field. Many such students
prepare a generals field in Latin America, but that is not a requirement for the certificate. Upon fulfilling all of the requirements, a student will
receive a certificate from the Program in Latin American Studies and is entitled to list the credential on his or her curriculum vitae. Please note
that the certificate does not appear on a student’s official transcript and students cannot be admitted to the Latin American Studies graduate
certificate program since it is not a degree program.
The requirements to receive a Graduate Studies Certificate are as follows:
(1) Fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, or French (for students working on the Caribbean). Students can satisfy this requirement by completing
a course taught in Spanish, Portuguese, or French.
(2) Four full-term approved graduate courses on a Latin American topic or substitutes approved by the Program Director. At least one course
should be outside the student’s home department. For a list of the approved courses, please see the PLAS website. In addition, the Program Director
may approve other graduate courses, on a case-by-case basis, for which the student has written a final paper focusing on a Latin American topic.
(3) Participation in the graduate colloquium at least once during a student’s course of study. The colloquium consists of informal, weekly
meetings – usually over lunch –, during which advanced graduate students present their research to an audience of faculty and graduate students.
(4) A dissertation that includes a significant amount of research on a Latin American topic; students enrolled in the Masters in Public Affairs
at the Woodrow Wilson School will be required to write a research paper on a topic approved by the Program Director. Students are expected to
either: (a) write a dissertation on a Latin American topic; or (b) write a dissertation that includes significant research on Latin America. Ideally
the dissertation should be directed by a faculty member affiliated with the Program.
14
Photos courtesy of the named individuals
The New Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies
ALUMNI NEWS
SARAH SCHAFFER DE ROO ‘06
Photo by Kristin Vogel
Five years after graduating from Princeton with a degree in the Woodrow Wilson
School and certificates in Latin American Studies and Spanish, I find myself in my first
year studying medicine at the University of Maryland. I just recently received a white
student-doctor coat, and have begun taking histories from patients. It is hard for me
to believe that this is where I am today, but I know that medical school is merely a
brief divergence from the work that I wish to accomplish in international development
and global health!
I arrived on this path following a yearlong Princeton in Latin America (PiLA) fellowship,
a two-year master’s program in international development, and two years of pediatrics
research at the University of Michigan. My PiLA fellowship landed me in Mexico City
when I was fresh out of college, writing grants to international donors on behalf of a
non-profit organization that implements health projects for women and children. The
next year, my master’s program took me to Haiti on a medical mission, and to Tanzania
to develop tools to support people living with HIV who wanted to safely resume their
sex lives and/or start families. Most recently, I researched various topics related to
childhood obesity and vaccinations with pediatricians at the University of Michigan.
Through these experiences, I developed deep interests in infectious disease, access to
health services, and technology transfer, and I subsequently entered medical school!
I recently married fellow Princeton grad Pier DeRoo, P’06, in my hometown of Severna
Park, Maryland. Pier is an attorney with an intellectual property law firm in DC. We
hope to travel – and perhaps live – abroad in the future.
I barely had landed in Santiago, Chile to begin a Princeton in Latin America fellowship
at Human Rights Watch when my boss had me on a flight to Venezuela. I spent the year after
graduation researching and writing a report on human rights under President Hugo Chávez.
I delighted at the chance to interview victims directly and to help craft press releases about
events as they unfolded. But writing about human rights in Venezuela was tricky for two
reasons. First, Venezuela’s extreme polarization made it very hard to establish facts and
objective accounts of events. Almost all interviews spiraled into a commentary on Chávez’s
presidency. Second, many human rights issues in Venezuela are subtle—problems receiving a radio license, delays in authorization to hold union elections, frequent tax audits of
non-government organizations, and so on. Such obstacles do not fit neatly into regional or
international human rights conventions, but do compromise the work of journalists and organizations essential to a robust democracy. The best evidence of the problem came from the
reception of the final report itself: after presenting our findings, the Venezuelan government
expelled Human Rights Watch from the country on an alleged visa violation.
Wanting to deepen my knowledge of Latin American politics, I started graduate school in political science at Harvard University. I long have
been interested in issues of law enforcement, both civil and criminal, in Latin America. Recently, I had a revised version of my senior thesis on
crime in El Salvador accepted for publication. My dissertation focuses on why governments do not enforce their own regulations, particularly
toward squatting and unlicensed street vending. I spent the last eight months interviewing politicians, bureaucrats, and gathering data on offences and enforcement in Bogotá, Colombia and Lima, Peru. The project’s basic idea is that non-enforcement rarely stems from state weakness as
commonly thought, but rather from political attempts to win votes or an ideological commitment to assist the poor in the absence of an inclusive
welfare state. The constitutional recognition of economic rights also has undermined enforcement in some contexts. For instance, the Colombian
Constitutional Court has blocked the eviction of squatters or street vendors without the provision of an alternative home or job. Quite explicitly,
the enforcement of state regulations can only advance with the development of social policies that reach the poor.
PLAS ALUMNI: WE WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU!
SEND NEWS TO [email protected]
15
Photo courtesy of Alisha Holland
ALISHA HOLLAND ’07
SPOTLIGHT
RICARDO LUNA, SPRING 2012 PLAS VISITING FELLOW
Ambassador Ricardo Luna spent the spring semester as a visiting fellow in the Program in Latin
American Studies. A career diplomat with over twenty years of experience as Peruvian ambassador, he
has served as Peruvian ambassador to the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.
Before coming to Princeton, Ambassador Luna has taught at Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and the Fletcher
School. During his time at Princeton he taught LAS 318/WWS 498/POL 471 Passive Aggressive Diplomacy: US-Latin American Relations, a survey on US-Latin American diplomatic relations. The course,
attended by 22 undergraduate students, focused on old or recurrent historical myths and disparate
perspectives on the nature of hemispheric links. Key Cold War crises were reviewed, especially as they
affect the present. Topics covered included the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations’ approaches to democracy, security, and economic policies; and new issues in relation to the larger emerging countries (Mexico and Brazil) and Andean governance in the context of the current crisis
of globalization and evolving crosscurrents of power in the international system. On February 9, 2012 he gave a talk for PLAS entitled Tropical
Delusions: The Origins, Essential Differences, and Fragile Links of a Shared Ideology for the Americas. Ambassador Luna will return to Princeton
in Spring 2013 as a visiting lecturer in the Program in Latin American Studies and the Woodrow Wilson School.
Sarah Hirschman:
Founder of People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos Passes Away
Sarah Hirschman, 90, founder of People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos, and recipient of the Leslie “Bud” Vivian Award, died January 15, 2012 in Princeton.
Born in Kovno, Lithuania in 1921, Mrs. Hirschman was the daughter of the late Nicholas and Fania Chapro.
The family moved to Paris in 1925, where Sarah attended the Lycée Molière. At 18, she studied Existentialism
with Simone de Beauvoir, prompting a life-long interest in philosophy.
In 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, the family relocated to New York City. After studying
philosophy at Columbia and Cornell Universities, Sarah moved to California, where she received a BA in
philosophy and a master’s degree in French literature from the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1941, she married Albert O. Hirschman, a young German scholar who had lived in France for several
years. While he served in the U.S. Army, she continued her studies, receiving a fellowship to Columbia. After
the war, the Hirschmans lived in Washington, D.C., while Dr. Hirschman worked on the Marshall Plan. In
1952, with their two young daughters, they moved to Colombia, where he had been assigned by the World
Bank to oversee that country’s economic development. Already multi-lingual (Russian, French, English), Mrs.
Hirschman then became fluent in Spanish.
Returning to the U.S. in 1956, the Hirschmans lived in New Haven, Connecticut, and New York City, where
Dr. Hirschman held teaching and writing positions at Yale and Columbia Universities. During this time,
Mrs. Hirschman worked as her husband’s assistant during travels to South America, India, Thailand, and
Africa. Her ability to speak Spanish was instrumental in her working with New York City resident Latinos,
struggling with a range of problems, and she continued to help Hispanic people after a move to Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where Dr. Hirschman taught economics at Harvard.
Interested in ways to relate literature to the lives of impoverished, often illiterate people, Sarah Hirschman
created Gente y Cuentos, a new way of learning and sharing great literature with those who had little or no
formal education.
In 1974, Dr. Hirschman was appointed a faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study. With the move to Princeton, Mrs. Hirschman
continued her work with Gente y Cuentos, establishing the program in a series of New Jersey locations, including Trenton and Newark. Eventually, through her efforts, the program grew to encompass sites in learning centers, libraries, and prisons. A grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities enabled the project to expand to other states across the country, and Mrs. Hirschman held workshops to train others in the
program’s concept and method. She also set up a program in a barrio outside Buenos Aires. An English program, People & Stories, was added in
1985, and Mrs. Hirschman also began an inter-generational and inter-town (Princeton and Trenton) related project, a pre-cursor of Crossing Borders.
For her efforts in establishing, developing, and continuing People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos, Mrs. Hirschman received the 12th annual Leslie
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 18)
16
Photos: Luna by PLAS; Image of Hirschman from People Stories/Gente y Cuentos
FROM TOWN TOPICS, JANUARY 18, 2012
PLAS ADVISORY COUNCIL 2012–2013
The Program’s Advisory Council is composed of alumni and friends who have strong interests in Latin American studies. The Council will meet at
Princeton University in Spring 2012–2013.
Council Members:
Jorge Castañeda ‘73
Global Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies at New York University
Olivier Dabène
Professor of Political Science and Director of Latin American Studies at the Paris Institute of Political Studies
Charles R. Hale
Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin
Timothy M. Kingston ’87
Partner and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs & Company
Efraín Kristal
Professor and Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles
Claudio Lomnitz
Campbell Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University
Richard Peña
Film Program Director for the New York Film Festival and Film Society of the Lincoln Center; and Professor at
the Columbia University School of the Arts
Julia Preston
National correspondent for The New York Times
Robert Punkenhoffer
Director of the World Fair Office in Austria and Founder of ART&IDEA
Edward J. Sullivan
Helen Gould Sheppard Professor and Professor of Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts
Allen Kinsey Taylor ‘03
Director of Global Networks for Endeavor
Ignacio Walker *89
Senator of the Republic of Chile
17
SARAH HIRSCHMAN
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16)
“Bud” Vivian Award for Community Service in 2008, presented by the Princeton Area Community Foundation. At the ceremony, she was aptly described as “a citizen of the world, who developed a way to invite those with basic literacy skills to enjoy and benefit from the same artistic works
usually studied in college classrooms. She has included thousands of people in a world where the doors were previously closed.”
Mrs. Hirschman had been honored with awards from numerous other organizations, including the Public Humanities Award from the New
Jersey Council of the Humanities.
In 2009, her book, People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos, Who Owns Literature? Communities Find Their Voice Through Short Stories, was published, and has recently been translated into Spanish by Fondo de Cultura Económica, Argentina.
A fervent lover of literature, Mrs. Hirschman enjoyed reading the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Montaigne in their original languages,
as well as a wide range of literature in English. She was a great admirer and patron of the Princeton University Firestone Library.
Predeceased by her daughter, Lisa (who greatly encouraged her in the early days of People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos), Mrs. Hirschman is survived by her husband, Albert O. Hirschman of Princeton, daughter Katia Salomon of Paris, two sons-in-law, Alain Salomon and Peter Gourevitch;
four grandchildren, Lara Salomon Pawlicz, Grégoire Salomon, Alex, and Nick Hirschman Gourevitch; and seven great grandchildren, Hannah,
Rebecca, Isaac, Eva, Rachel, Olivia, and Ezra.
RACE AND INEQUALITY
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5)
Americans and undocumented immigrants,
and socioeconomic issues in Brazil.
In 1997, he found an opportunity to study
Brazil more closely when he took a four-year
leave to work there as a program officer for
the Ford Foundation. With his main responsibility to award grants to advance human
rights, Telles had access to ordinary citizens,
grassroots activists, top academics and highlevel government officials. During that time,
he observed both the rise of social movements
for equal rights of blacks and indigenous
people and, largely in response, the government’s eventual implementation of affirmative
action policies.
Telles’ 2004 book “Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil”
examined how skin color and racial identity
influenced socioeconomics and culture, as well
as the country’s racial history and policies,
using demography, ethnography, history and
policy analysis. The American Sociological
Association honored it as the best book published in sociology in 2004.
Compared to the United States, Telles found,
people in Brazil have much more interaction
with people of other races in their economic
class — through marriage, friendships and
less residential segregation — but discrimination, educational inequality and economic
inequality persist for nonwhite Brazilians.
The book provided a new lens for viewing
race relations in Brazil.
“Some of what I said had already been out
there, but I don’t think anybody brought it
together like I did,” Telles said. “I went well
beyond demographic analysis so that I could
present the big picture.”
Before Telles went to Brazil, he had begun another big-picture project in his other
area of expertise, immigration. When an old
UCLA library was being retrofitted to meet
earthquake-related building codes, workers
found boxes in the basement with 1,200 surveys done in the 1960s of Mexican immigrants
and Mexican Americans in San Antonio and
Los Angeles.
Telles and fellow UCLA sociologist Vilma
Ortiz decided to follow up with the original
respondents, as the surveys provided unique
information about assimilation unavailable
through census data.
“People were writing about what was
going to happen to Mexicans, often with no
data,” Telles said.
Telles and Ortiz interviewed nearly 60 percent (nearly 700) of the original respondents,
and their children, looking at structural issues
such as education and socioeconomic status,
as well as cultural factors such as language,
religion, intermarriage and political views. In
Telles and Ortiz’s 2008 book “Generations of
Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation
and Race,” which won the American Sociological Association’s awards for best book
in the Latino and population sections, they
concluded that Mexican Americans did not fit
neat categories of assimilation or exclusion.
“There have been negative conceptions
associated with this group that there had
not been for many other groups of children
of immigrants,” Telles said.
Telles explained that culturally, Mexican Americans became part of the American
melting pot, though not as quickly or fully
as European immigrants, and the socioeconomic outcomes were much less certain. He
noted that while education levels improved
for the second generation — the children of
immigrants — they leveled off or declined for
future generations, with Mexican Americans
having the lowest education levels among
major ethnic and racial groups, slowing their
assimilation in other areas such as occupation,
wealth and residential integration.
“I sensed it from personal experience, but
when it came out of the data it was really
clear and it was really powerful,” Telles said.
While other researchers expand on the
book’s findings, Telles said he is now focusing
his research attention across Latin America.
He plans to help extend the range and quality
of research, and capitalize on new data and
heightened awareness of racial identity and
inequality matters.
Said Telles, “For the first time, most of the
countries in Latin America are beginning to
collect data on persons of African descent.
All of the countries except for a couple of
Caribbean countries are collecting data on
indigenous people. This signals an increased
awareness of the importance of the subject
in Latin America and will provide the data
for studies that are likely to challenge the
dominant idea that race has little or no importance in the region. That’s a big change.”
Adapted from http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/
archive/S32/69/91O42/index.xml?section=featured
18
COURSES
Fall 2012-2013 LAS Courses
In Fall 2012-2013, there will be six courses taught by PLAS visiting scholars. For updated information and a complete list of courses on Latin
American topics (including LAS courses, cross-listed courses, and courses of interest), please visit our webpage.
ARC 505C / LAS 506 Architecture Design Studio
Explores architecture as a social art and the spatial organization of the human environment. Projects include a broad range of problem types,
including individual buildings, groups of buildings, urban districts, and landscapes. Other Requirements: ARC Graduate Students Only.
Giancarlo Mazzanti Schedule: U01 1:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m. MWF.
LAS 322 / SPA 324 Gossip: Autobiographical Fiction from Vargas Llosa to Bolaño
Thirty-five years ago, Vargas Llosa’s La tía Julia y el escribidor had a cold reception because of its autobiographical content. Today Bolaño’s Los
detectives salvajes, an autobiographical novel, is the most influential book in Spanish. Globalization, democracy, and the rise of Latin America’s
middle classes, produced a different idea of what literature should say. Personal matters became public, politics private, nationalities indistinct,
and allegories hollow. We will read a series of intimate fictions in search of the traditions that interweave them, developing a corpus of ideas that
can explain the reason for the success of this hybrid genre. Prerequisites and Restrictions: A 200-level Spanish course or equivalent. Other information: Course will be taught in Spanish. The readings are in Spanish and English. Discussions can be conducted in Spanish, English or both.
Álvaro Enrigue Schedule: S01 1:30 p.m.–4:20 p.m. T.
LAS 401 / ANT 434 Latin American Studies Seminar - The Politics of Ethnicity in Latin America
In the late 20th century, an acknowledgment of ethnic and cultural diversity in Latin America influenced politicians to rethink their definition
of citizenship in order to, at the very least, publicly demonstrate interest in fostering democratic forms of government. This opened up channels
through which indigenous leaders organized their constituent communities by strategically using ethnicity as a platform for political participation. This seminar focuses upon Latin American indigenous movements with an eye towards anthropological concerns with representation, voice,
and the precarious balance between solidarity and academic critique. Prerequisites and Restrictions: There are no prerequisites for this course,
although a working knowledge of anthropological theories, the practice of ethnography, and some familiarity with Latin America (either through
literature or field experience) will be useful. Other information: This course is open to advanced undergraduate students and graduate students.
Timothy Smith Schedule: S01 1:30 p.m.–4:20 p.m. Th.
LAS 402 / SPA 407 / ARC 402 Latin American Studies Seminar - Architecture as a Mechanism of Social Inclusion
Architecture as a mechanism of social inclusion investigates the processes that are transforming urban structures, in particular the public and
common spaces. Latin America has become an urban laboratory of unique living experiences, becoming a scenario to look into new solutions
for contemporary challenges. We will begin with a broader study that explores the characteristics behind the informality and urban plans, understanding the stories behind the new forms of city development, the related forms of democracy and governance in the Latin society; together
with the power of architecture as a mean to transform social realities. Prerequisites and Restrictions: Recommended that student has previous
understanding of urban realities. The course will be taught in Spanish, therefore it is mandatory to understand and speak the language. The
readings must be done in Spanish. Discussion can be conducted in Spanish, English or both. Other information: The course will be taught in
Spanish. The course will be developed as lecture/discussion sessions. Students expected to work in groups comprised of students from different
academic backgrounds.
Giancarlo Mazzanti Schedule: S01 7:30 p.m.–10:20 p.m. T.
SPA 331 / LAS 331 Modern Latin American Fiction
“Las afueras” - This course focuses on the analysis of Latin American fiction that doesn’t speak about Latin America, but about other times and
places. Even if we tend to think that mainstream tradition of Latin American literature always deals with the problems of Latin American identity, there has been a strong tradition of Latin American literature that tries to take distance from its boundaries and explore other realities.
The course will examine how many Latin American writers of the 20th Century had reinvented European and Asian traditions, and what their
narratives show us about Latin America. Prerequisites and Restrictions: A 200-level Spanish course above SPA 209 or instructor’s permission.
Other information: Visiting Professor Jorge Volpi is a literary critic and renowned Mexican writer. Taught in Spanish.
Jorge Volpi Schedule: C01 11:00 a.m.–12:20 p.m. T Th.
SPA 342 / LAS 342 Topics in Latin American Modernity - Autobiographies of the 20th Century
This course will focus on autobiographical writings of some of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th Century. It’s a common
place to say that Latin America doesn’t have a strong autobiographical tradition, but this seminar aspires to demonstrate the falsity of this
remark. From the seminal memoir of José Vasconcelos at the beginning of the 20th Century to the most recent autobiographical narratives of
some young authors, the course will also explore the relation between literature and politics in Latin America. Prerequisites and Restrictions:
A 200-level Spanish course above SPA 209 or instructor’s permission. Other information: Visiting Professor Jorge Volpi is a literary critic and
renowned Mexican writer. Taught in Spanish.
Jorge Volpi Schedule: C01 3:00 p.m.–4:20 p.m. T Th.
19
PROGRAM IN LATIN
AMERICAN STUDIES
Princeton University
309–316 Burr Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
PLAS LECTURE ON “MEXICO AND VIOLENCE”
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN
PLAS FALL 2012 DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
JAVIER SICILIA
(MEXICAN POET & PEACE ACTIVIST)
&
JUAN VILLORO
(MEXICAN WRITER & JOURNALIST)
Since the 1994 Zapatista upheaval, Mexican poet, columnist, and social activist
Javier Sicilia has been deeply involved in the fight for the rights of the indigenous
communities. In 2011, after the assassination of his son, he devoted himself to the
peace movement. In the last six years, the Mexican "war on drugs" has claimed more
than 70,000 victims. Through his poetry, public speeches, and long-term marches,
Sicilia has raised an outstanding voice of discontent and hope.
Photo courtesy of Javier Sicilia
During this dialogue with Mexican writer Juan Villoro, Sicilia will discuss the
relationship between art and politics, the moral challenges of democracy, the Mexican-American relationship, and the quest for solidarity among grief and violence.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
4:30 p.m. | 50 McCosh
Event in Spanish • Free and Open to the Public
20

PLAS 2011–2012 Newsletter

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