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Last summer, Claire Payton—inspired by the post-earthquake chaos she saw unfolding in Haiti—bought an audio recorder, packed her bags, and booked a flight to Port-au-Prince.

Despite having studied Haiti extensively, her motivation to travel to Haiti was purely personal. She wanted to help tell people’s stories.

Soon after arriving in Port-au-Prince, she developed contacts and started doing interviews. Traveling to interviews was particularly challenging because of the traffic, which had worsened due to the buildings lying in the streets. When Claire arrived in Haiti, she spoke fluent French, but not Kreyol. After several interviews, and with help of translators, she developed a grasp on the language.

Almost a year later, Claire launched the Haiti Memory Project, an “online archive of oral testimony about the January 12, 2010, earthquake and post-earthquake life.” She was motivated to create the website so that she could share people’s stories with a broad audience.

Continue reading "NYU Student Launches Haiti Memory Project" »

Faculty, students and friends danced at the Quechua Week finale.

This fall, CLACS organized a diverse array of events and programs related to Latin America.

The Colloquium series, titled “Patrimony, Space and Performance in Latin American Cities,” was organized by Tom Abercrombie and Rafael Sanchez. The Colloquium aimed to “query Latin American cities as sites for the performance and contestation of authority, rights, and personhood,” and featured groundbreaking research from contemporary scholars working throughout Latin America and Spain. Saskia Sassen presented on “Urban Incompleteness and Norm-Making,” Alejandra Osorio discussed the baroque in colonial Lima, Peru, and Daniel Goldstein analyzed community justice in Bolivia—to name a few.

In Spring 2011 CLACS Faculty members Aisha Khan and Millery Polyné will host a colloquium titled “Our America: Cross Currents and Intimate Dialogues in the Making of a Hemisphere.” This colloquium will investigate the U.S. “from the 19th century to the present, as simultaneously a site of empirical practice and an imagined way of being.”

Continue reading "CLACS Fall 2010 Wrap-up" »

Ex-president of Colombia and visiting scholar at Georgetown University, Álvaro Uribe Vélez. (Image: Center for American Progress @ Flickr.)

In the U.S., journalism is rapidly evolving to meet the demands of a technological age, and CLACS journalism students are at the forefront of innovating the field. In November 2009, CLACS students Andrew O'Reilly, Roque Planas, Mari Hayman, and Rachel Brooks-Ames launched an innovative online news source to produce original news pieces about Latin American and Hispanic immigrants in the U.S.

A year later, the Latin American News Dispatch (L.A.N.D.) is a sophisticated online news site with daily, breaking news on Latin America, and features reporting by foreign correspondents, U.S. based journalists and NYU journalism students and alums.

This week, L.A.N.D. achieved a major milestone. Roque Planas, co-founder and Managing Director of L.A.N.D., broke international news with an investigative news piece regarding Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe.

“On our first year anniversary, the Latin America News Dispatch broke an international story. That's pretty awesome,” Planas said.

Continue reading "CLACS journalist breaks international news on Latin America News Dispatch" »

Dr. Gustavo Solis Fonseca is a professor at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and at the Center for Research and Applied Linguistics in Lima, Peru. He will also be speaking during NYU's Quechua Week - December 13th-17.

Dr. Solis holds both a PhD and M.A in Linguistics, specializing in Amerindian languages. Dr. Solis has been the director of the Center for Research in Applied Linguistics (CILA) at the UNMSM for several years. He has also twice been the recipient of the Medal of Scientific Merit from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Continue reading "CLACS Quechua Week Presenter: Dr. Gustavo Solis Fonseca" »

Tarpurisunchis team, Image by Miryam Yataco

Uno nunca debe desestimar el poder de la imagen, su magia, su potencial dentro del proceso de comunicación. Ese es el caso de SAQRAKUNA un programa de TV producido por Tarpurisunchis. Una nueva television en lengua materna (Quechua) es más que una prueba fehaciente de ese potencial.

¿Que es Saqrakuna?
Constituye un esfuerzo único y pionero, porque es el inicio de la Televisión Quechua en el Peru. Busca fortalecer a la juventud en su identificación con su propia cultura y su lengua materna.

Continue reading "Saqrakuna: Quechua Television in Peru" »

Patricio Navia is a faculty member at New York University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. His research focuses on electoral systems, democratization and democratic institutions, with a particular focus on Chile. He is also professor of political science at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales, director of the Magíster en Opinión Pública and founding director of the Observatorio Electoral.

Navia has published extensively in both English and Spanish language publications including: La Tercera, Revista Poder, INFOLATAM, Buenos Aires Herald (English), Observatorio Sudamerica XXI, Revista Época Intereconomia.

Continue reading "Focus on Faculty: Patricio Navia" »

When I tell people that I study the Quechua language, the news often inspires a feeling of surprise: Here? In New York City? I used to study Quechua as a graduate student at CLACS, but now that I’ve finished the program I have to take more personal initiative if I want to continue developing my language skills. Fortunately, I’m able to attend Quechua Conversation Night – a monthly event that asks participants to engage with the language in a variety of ways that are suitable for beginner and advanced-level Quechua language learners.

Continue reading "Quechua Nights at CLACS" »

Alejandro Velasco is a professor of Latin American history in the Gallatin School at New York University, and a CLACS affiliated faculty member.

Velasco teaches interdisciplinary courses that incorporate cultural studies, urban social movements and human rights, and 20th-century revolutions.

In a recently published article, titled “ ‘Weapon as Powerful as the Vote’: Urban Protest and Electoral Politics in Venezuela, 1978–1983,” Velasco challenges popular notions regarding “popular passivity” in Venezuela in the decades immediately following the founding of democracy in 1958. Velasco argues that street protest played an important role in evolving conceptions of democracy outside of those in urban popular sectors.

Continue reading "CLACS Focus on Faculty: Alejandro Velasco" »

Queloides is an art exhibition that investigates race and racism in contemporary Cuba. Cuban artists, including musicians, writers, painters, performers, and academics, have been denouncing the persistence of racial discrimination in Cuban socialist society since the early 1990s. Queloides, curated by Alejandro de la Fuente and Elio Rodriguez, brings together artists whose work actively confronts racism in contemporary Cuba.

Queloides is currently on exhibition at the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. On October 22nd, Queloides artists Marta María Pérez Bravo, Elio Rodríguez, Armando Mariño, and René Peña participated in a CLACS sponsored artist roundtable at NYU. Ana María Dopico, CLACS affiliated faculty and Associate Professor in NYU’s Spanish and Portuguese department, moderated the event.

Continue reading "Cuban Artists Discuss Queloides Exhibit at CLACS Artist Roundtable" »