Conferences

February 23-25, 2012

A conference sponsored by the Americas Initiative of the College of Arts ad Sciences at Georgetown University

Political Women in the Americas: Gender, Culture, Power, and Public Life

This conference will bring together a group of rising scholars whose work explores the very contemporary dynamics of gender and politics as they specifically condition women's lives across the new world.  From the rise of the female heads of state in countries as various as Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Costa Rica, to the political fates of female former guerilla fighters in the Central American civil wars, to the impact of social and other new media technologies on women's political activism in countries like Cuba, to the emerging complications of political feminism from both the right and the left in the Obama/Tea Party-era US, the papers presented at the conference will focus on very specific, often regional, national and even local topics, and will at the same time in concert help us pose the larger hemispheric question: can we detect in what we see before us today something like a "New (World) Politics of Gender"? The conference is richly interdisciplinary, gathering scholars presenting fields as various as history, sociology, anthropology, American Studies, Latin American Studies, and Women's Studies.

Confirmed Participants:

  • Macarena Gómez-Barris
    • Associate Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California
    • Where Memory Dwells: Culture and State Violence in Chile (U of California Press, 2009).
  • Ted Henken
    • Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Black and Hispanic Studies, Baruch College (CUNY)
    • Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook (ABC-CLIO, 2008).
  • Lázaro Lima
    • E. Claiborne Robbins Distinguished Chair in Liberal Art, Professor of Latin American and Iberian Studies, Professor of American Studies, University of Richmond
    • The Latino Body: Crisis Identities in American Literary and Cultural Memory (NYU Press, 2007).
  • Bethany Moreton
    • Assistant Professor of History and Women's Studies, University of Georgia.
    • To Serve God and Walmart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Harvard University Press, 2009).
  • Irina Carlota Silber
    • Associate Professor of Anthropology, CCNY/CUNY
    • Everyday Revolutionaries: Gender, Violence and Disillusionment in Post-War El Salvador (Rutgers University Press, 2010).
  • Duchess Harris
    • Associate Professor of American Studies, Macalester College
    • Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Obama (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2009).

Friday, March 18, 2011, 9am-6pm in ICC 662

The Georgetown College Americas Initiative, the Center for Latin American Studies and the Georgetown Institute for Global History present:

New Nations in a New World, 1750-1850, a working conference.

Schedule:

  • 9am: Coffee, History Suite, ICC 600
  • 9:30am—12pm: Session I: The Challenge and the First New World Nations
    • The Challenge: John Tutino, Georgetown University
    • Haiti: Carolyn Fink, Concordia University, Montreal University 
    • The United States: Adam Rothman, Georgetown University
    • Commentator: John McNeill, Georgetown University
  • 12pm—1pm: Lunch, History Suite, ICC 600
  • 1pm—3:30pm: Session II: Making Spanish American Nations
    • Mexico: Alfredo Avila, UNAM; John Tutino, Georgetown University
    • Guatemala: Jordana Dym, Skidmore College
    • Argentina: Jonathan Brown, University of Texas at Austin
    • Commentator: David Sartorius, University of Maryland, College Park
  • 3:30pm—4pm: Coffee
  • 4pm—6pm: Session III: Other Routes to Independence
    • Brazil: Kirsten Schultz, Seton Hall University
    • Indigenous Independence: Erick Langer, Georgetown University
    • Commentator: John Tutino, Georgetown University
  • 6pm: Reception, History suite, ICC 600

As ongoing bicentennial commemorations have led scholars toward ever more complex understandings of the politics of the New World independence, it had become increasingly clear that the post-independence challenges of nation making were complicated further by transforming changes in the Atlantic and global economies during the period from 1750 to 1850.

This working conference has challenged established scholars of independence in diverse New World regions to gather and share perspectives on nation making in the context of the demise of the first global commercial economy—in which key American regions were pivotal participants—and the rise of Anglo-centered industrial capitalism—in which some New World regions found new opportunities and others faced uncertainty and decline.

CCAS Boardroom, ICC 141
4-6 pm
27 April 2010

Reconstructing Community under Chronic Impunity:The Illusion of Post-War Reconciliation in Guatemala

Tani Adams
Public Policy Fellow
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Tani Adams is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Guatemala. She earned an MA in Anthropology at the University of Chicago and has founded and led several NGOs in the U.S. and Latin America, among them Greenpeace Latin America. From 1996 to 2006, she
directed the Mesoamerican Regional Research Center (CIRMA), overseeing the development of a library and historical and photographic archive, while coordinating research projects on issues ranging from ethnic relations to transnational environmental
problems.

With Fellowship support from the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center, she is completing a book on four communities facing the challenges of reconciliation and justice in post-Civil War Guatemala. She will share perspectives from this work in our seminar.

March 26, 2010 in Riggs Library, Healy Building

Law, Justice, and Public Security: Challenges for Mexico and its Neighbors

A conference on problems, policy and possibilities, co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, the Americans Initiative, Grupo Salinas and Fundacion Azteca America.

With support from the Government Department, the Georgetown Institute of Global History, the Mortara Center for International Affairs, and the Center for Peace and Security Studies.

Agenda:

  • 8:30-8:45—Welcome
    • Professor Erick Langer, Interim Director, Center for Latin American Studies
    • Dr. Chester Gillis, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
    • Dr. Carol Lancaster, Interim Dean, School of Foreign Service
  • 8:45-9:30—"New Directions for US Security Policy in the Western Hemisphere," Hon. Arturo A. Valenzuela, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
  • 9:45-11:15—Law, Justice, and Crime before the Contemporary Challenges
    • Moderator: Katherine Bliss, CSIS and Georgetown Univeristy
    • Prof. Brian Owensby, University of Virginia
      • "Law, Justice, and Legitimacy in New Spain"
    • Prof. John Tutino, Georgetown
      • "Re-Making Law, Justice, and Crime in the Nation"
    • Prof. Pablo Piccato, Columbia University
      • "Crime and Justice in the Twentieth Century"
  • 11:30-1:00—Public Insecurity and daily Life in Mexico
    • Moderator: Daniel Sabet, Georgetown University
    • Dr. Arturo Arango Instituto Estatal de Seguridad Pública del Estado de Nuevo León
      • "Crime Trends as Shown in Victimization Surveys"
    • Prof. Marcelo Bergman, CIDE, Woodrow Wilson Center
      • "Secondary Markets, Organized Crime, and the Rise of Criminality in Mexico"
    • Lic. Ana Franco, President, Mexico Unido Contra la Delincuencia
      • "Civil Society Responses to Insecurity"
  • 1:00-2:30—Lunch Break
  • 2:30-3:45—Threats Posed by Drug-trafficking Organizations
    • Moderator: Margaret Daley-Hayes, Georgetown University
    • Lic. José Díaz Briseno, Reform daily newspaper, Washington, D.C. bureau
      • "Heroin Distribution Networks in US Cities"
    • Dr. Samuel González Ruiz, UNAM
      • "Violence and Corruption: Threats by Mexican DTOs"
    • Discussant: Lic. Juan Carlos Garzon, OAS
  • 4:00-5:15—Prospects for State Reforms to Promote Rule of Law
    • Moderator: Mark Chernick, Georgetown University 
    • Prof. David Shirk, University of San Diego
      • "Trends and Issues in Police-Justice Reform in Mexico"
    • Prof. John Bailey, Georgetown University
      • "Do the Mexican and US Governments Have a Strategy?  Is It Working?"
    • Discussant: Dr. Andrew Selee, Woodrow Wilson Center
  • 5:30-6:15—"Beyond Merida: Next Steps in Mexico-US Relations"

Crime, violence, corruption, and impunity present formidable challenges to the consolidation of democracy—and to everyday life—in contemporary Mexico.  One key requisite for high-quality democracy is an adequate functioning of rule of law.  US audiences are increasingly aware of the enormous destruction wrought by hyper-violent drug-trafficking organizations in various regions of Mexico and are especially concerned about violence along the US-Mexico border.  But problems of crime, violence, and corruption reach deeper into Mexican society—and their roots and ramifications extend beyond Mexico's borders.

Mexico's government and civil society are currently at a critical point in responding to challenges to rule of law through a variety of reforms to police-justice administration, supplemented by targeted social-welfare programs.  Beyond such challenges of government policy and program, questions remain: Given mexican drug organizations' involvement in a transnational (if illegal) economy, can the challenges it presents be addressed primarily in the Mexican national context?  Given Mexicans' deeply unequal participation in a national and North American economy hit hard by the current recession, can these challenges be addressed primarily in the domain of the Mexican state, its institutions and programs?  The purpose of the seminar is to promote a deeper understanding of the root causes of the public insecurity in Mexico and the prospects of reform in the remaining three years of President Felipe Calderón's administration—and beyond.

  
November 5, 2009

Migration, Labor, and the Family in Diasporic North America:
Literary and Cultural Perspectives

A conference sponsored by the Americas Initiative of Georgetown College, with support from departments of English, French, Spanish and Portuguese; Comparative LiteratureProgram, Institute for the Study of International Migration, and Center for Latin American Studies

Program

9:00-9:30 Morning refreshments

9:30-9:45 Welcoming remarks by Miléna Santoro and Ricardo Ortiz, Georgetown University

9:45-11:00 Panelists presented by Gwen Kirkpatrick, Georgetown University

From Milan, Québec to Lewiston, Maine: A Ride on the Grand Trunk Railroad into a New Culture
Irène Mailhot-Bernard, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia

This multi-media presentation tells the story of Marthe Grenier Rivard who immigrated to the United States via the Grand Trunk Railroad to build a new and vastly different life in Lewiston, Maine. By listening to her story, we can come to understand the fear, loneliness and awe that hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Québec felt as they left the security of their rural homes and stepped onto the train that would lead them to their new lives in an industrial city.

Immigrating within Enfolded Borders, or the Aphasic Contradiction of being Filipino American
Allan Punzalan Isaac, Rutgers University

“Filipino-American” once designated the War of Pacification [1899-1901 (1913)] in which 100,00 Filipinos were killed. “Benevolent assimilation” of the archipelago quickly followed, and Philippine citizenship came under the designation US “national” for a half-century. “Enfolded borders” describes the forcible but vexed inclusion of the Philippines and other colonial sites as U.S. territory. Given this enfolded border constructed by the US imperium, I argue that “immigration” from early 20th century pensionados and manong laborers from US territory to present-day healthcare professionals poses a difficulty in locating migratory origin and destination. By extension, “Filipino American” as an ethnic assimilative term bears the historical mark of violent erasure and contradiction.

11-11:15 Coffee Break

11:15-12:30 Panelists presented by Adam Lifshey, Georgetown University

Diasporic Homelands: Redefining Borders in the Caribbean
Florence Ramond Jurney, Gettysburg College

Even though islands in the Caribbean were influenced over centuries by different colonial powers, commonalities and echoes can be found among them. While Edouard Glissant explained some of the cultural influences coming to the islands by the theory of reversion and diversion (Glissant, Caribbean Discourse), Antonio Benítez-Rojo has argued that a pattern can be found in the Caribbean because there are “features of an island that ‘repeat’” within the Caribbean archipelago (Benítez-Rojo, The Repeating Island 3). Edouard Glissant has since then argued for a Tout-Monde literature (All-World), forcing, in doing so, a reevaluation of the notion of homeland. In this presentation, I choose to focus on literature by women authors because much of the literary criticism about Tout-Monde seems to ignore gender considerations. I will focus first on the state(s) of this literature, since some of its major issues are intertwined with the question of migration. Secondly, I will examine how Caribbean novels deal with migration and the family. Finally, I will concentrate on borders: are there borders in the diasporic Caribbean? How are they expressed?

(Self-)Portraits of Migration and Exile by two South American filmmakers in Quebec, Marilù Mallet and Carlos Ferrand
Miléna Santoro, Georgetown University

Canada has long attracted immigrants from many regions of the world, and indeed, claims to have the highest immigration rate per capita in the world. Unlike the US, however, Canada has not historically attracted large proportions of Spanish-speaking immigrants. It is thus all the more interesting to examine the autobiographical films of Mallet and Ferrand, the first a Chilean, the second a Peruvian, both of whom chose to relocate to the French-speaking province of Quebec, and both of whom have chosen to express their multilingual narratives of migration and exile in film. This paper will discuss, respectively, Journal inachevé and Americano, films made 25 years apart, but that offer particularly compelling insights into a shared hemispheric vision and experience of what some might call an américanité, or an American identity that transcends, and indeed, even elides US borderlines. As both of these directors show, their trajectories are not without ghosts and regrets, but they also offer new models and modes of thinking about the migration experience within the Americas.

12:30-2:30 Lunch Break

2:30-4:00 Readings in US Latino/Latina Poetry, Fiction and Memoir

Our afternoon session is devoted to showcasing and discussing creative literary work by two emerging writers hailing from different immigrant US Latino and Latina communities and histories. After readings by Cecilia Rodriguez-Milanés and Rigoberto González two scholars of US Latino Literature, Professors Rodríguez and Ortíz will discuss the relationships between and among different forms of migrant experience in varying political, social and cultural contexts, the opportunities they present for creative expression, and the challenges they pose to cultural criticism and historical scholarship.

2:30 Introductions by Ricardo Ortiz, Georgetown University

Short Fiction: “Beast of Burden” and “Muchacha” from Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles
Cecilia Rodriguez Milanés, University of Central Florida

Memoir and Poetry: Mariposa Tales: A Reading of Memoir and Poetry
Rigoberto González, Rutgers University

4:00-4:15 Coffee Break

4:15-5:00 Marielitos, Mariposas and Other Identity Migrations in Latino America and US Latino Studies: a Conversation
Richard T. Rodríguez, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Ricardo Ortíz, Georgetown University

5:00 Concluding Remarks, John Tutino, Director of the Americas Initiative and Professor of History
Georgetown University

5:15-6:00 Reception, Riggs Library A Working Conference Sponsored by the Americas Initiative

Georgetown University

March 20, 2009
Intercultural Century 662

Urban Transformations in the Americas: 20th Century Challenges. This working conference gathers scholars working on cities across the hemisphere. Each brings a perspective on the nature and importance of urbanization in a major city—in five nations. We have invited scholars, young and senior, who mix diverse emphases: political economy, environment, gender relations, social struggles, cultural challenges, etc.


Our goal is to begin conversations among ourselves—and with interested scholars at Georgetown and across the Washington area—that look across the Americas, seeking new understandings of the urban transformation of the twentieth century.

Schedule

11:45 am: Luncheon Reception, History Suite, ICC 600

12:30 pm: Opening Remarks: John Tutino, Director, Americas Initiative

Session I: 12:30 – 2:00 pm: South American Cities

Four Forms of Fracture: Greater Buenos Aires in the 20th Century
Mark Healey, University of California, Berkeley

Turf Battles in Rio de Janeiro: Formal and Informal Occupation
Bryan McCann, Georgetown University

Comment: Erick Langer, Georgetown University

Session II: 2:15 – 3:45 pm: Mexican-American Cities

Intuiting Mexico City
Matthew Gutmann, Brown University

Immigrants, Newcomers, and Segregation in Los Angeles
George Sanchez, University of Southern California

Comment: Katherine Benton-Cohen, Georgetown University

Session III: 4:00 - 5:30 pm: North American Cities

Houston: Energy Capital
Martin Melosi, University of Houston

Montreal: City Under Strain
Michele Dagenais, University of Montreal

Comment: John McNeill, Georgetown University

Concluding Perspectives: 5:30 - 6:00 pm:

Hemispheric Perspectives: Martin Melosi, University of Houston

Reception: 6:00 pm, History Suite

Amid all the transforming changes of the twentieth century—wars and revolutions, dueling empires and ideologies, globalizations and diverse struggles for liberations—perhaps the explosive rise of cities has been most fundamentally transforming across and globe and the Americas. A hemisphere mostly rural in 1900 has become dominantly urban as the twenty-first century begins.


Scholars have devoted great attention to the rise of cities and suburbs, their politics, environmental implications, social relations, and cultural conversations; rarely have we taken on a search for comparative understanding across the Americas.

Participants:

Michele Dagonais, Professor of History, University of Montreal. Author of Faire et fuir la ville. Espaces publics de culture et de loisirs a Montreal et Toronto, XIX et XXe siecles (2006) and Des pouvoirs et des homes: L’administration municipale de Montreal, 1900-1950 (2000). Co-editor of Municipal Services and Employees in the Modern City: New Historic Approaches (2003).

Matthew Gutmann, Professor of Anthropology, Brown University. Author of The Meaning of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (2nd ed., 2006); The Romance of Democracy: Compliant Defiance in Contemporary Mexico (2002); and Fixing Men: Sex, Birth Control, and Aids in Mexico (2007).

Mark Healey, Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley. Author of Ruins of the New Argentina (forthcoming, Duke University Press).

Bryan McCann, Associate Professor of History, Georgetown University. He is author of Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil (2004) and The Throes of Democracy: Brazil since 1989 (2008). He is writing a book on communities in Rio de Janeiro.

Martin Melosi, Professor of History, University of Houston. Among many works, he has published The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (2000); Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment (2nd ed. 2005); and Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment (2001). Past president of the Urban History Association, he is writing a book on the atomic age.

George Sanchez, Professor of American Studies, Ethnicity, and History, University of Southern California. Author of Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles (1993); co-editor of Los Angeles and the Future of Urban Cultures (2005).

April 10, 2008

Redefining America: Race, Migration and the Politics of Inclusion

Welcome Lisa García Bedolla and Douglas Reed

Panel I: Identity and Change: Race and Ethnicity

- Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race - Arlene Dávila, American Studies and Anthropology, New York University

- Black & White Americans & Latino Immigrants: A Preliminary Look at Attitudes in Three Southern Cities - Paula McClain, Department of Political Science, Duke University

- Darkness of a Different Color: The Early History of Mexicans and Race in the North's Most Segregated City (Chicago, 1916-1960) - Michael McCoyer, Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution

- Discussant: Jonathan Ladd, Department of Government, Georgetown University


Panel II: Making Citizens: Second Generation Youth in Transnational Contexts

- Generation versus Ethnicity: A Look at Political Socialization among Youth in Orange County, CA - Lisa García Bedolla Department of Political Science, UC Irvine

- Of Islands, Gateways, Dead-Ends and Loops: Migration and the Boundaries of U.S. Public Education - Douglas Reed, Department of Government, Georgetown University

- Discussant: Susan Martin, School of Foreign Service & Center for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University


Panel III: Social Movements and Transnationalism

- Intersectional Pan-Ethnic Activism as Bridging and Boundary Work: Latin American Women, Artists & Indigenous Organizations in Toronto - Patricia Landolt, Department of Sociology, Univesity of Toronto

- Transnational Blackness: Race & Social Movements in the Americas - Mark Sawyer, Department of Political Science, UCLA

- Discussant, Maurice Jackson, Department of History, Georgetown University


Panel IV: Membership, Citizenship and Race

- Conceptualizing Racial Identity: Shared Status & Political Context - Jane Junn, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University

- Constitutional Democracy & the Obligation to Include - Rogers Smith, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

- Discussant: Richard Boyd, Department of Government, Georgetown University
 

March 28, 2008 – Conference – “The Spanish Roots of Modern Liberalism: A Celebration on the Bicentennial of May 2nd, 1808”

- Opening Remarks

His Excellency Carlos Westendorp, Spanish Ambassador to the United States

Prof. Albert Carreras, Prince of Asturias Distinguished Visiting Professor

- Opening Lecture

“The Influence of the Cadiz Constitution on European Liberalism” (Richard Stites, Georgetown University)

Commentator: Tommaso Astarita, Georgetown University

- 1st Session – The 1812 Constitution and Modern Liberalism

“Cadiz and the Beginnings of Spanish Liberalism” (José María Portillo, Universidad del País Vasco)

“The War of Independence and the Origins of Mexican Liberalism” (Alfredo Ávila, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

Commentator: Georgette Magassy Dorn, Library of Congress

- 2nd Session – Popular Movements After May 2nd

“The Origins of the Guerrilla War” (John Tone, Georgia Institute of Technology)

“Broken Sovereignty and the Outbreak of Popular Movements in Mexico” (John Tutino, Georgetown University)

Commentator: Luis Granados, Georgetown University

- 3rd Session – Cadiz Mythology and the Shaping of National Identities

“Images of the War of Independence in the Liberal Vision of Spain” (José Álvarez, Junco, Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

“Portuguese and Brazilian Translations of Spanish Liberalism” (Kirsten Schultz, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art)

Commentator: Darryl Williams, University of Maryland

- Closing Remarks

His Excellency Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican Ambassador to the United States

John Tutino, Georgetown University

March 6 - March 8, 2008:

"Limits/Limites," The International Conference on 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies, Washington DC.

October 19, 2007

 “Armies of the Night: A Conference Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the March on the Pentagon,” co-sponsored with the English and History Departments and the American Studies Program.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Mexico and Mexicans in the Making of the United States


Inauguration and Welcome – Jane McAullife, Dean, Georgetown College and John Tutino, Chair, History Department; Coordinator, Americas Initiative

Session I – Colonial Creations – Chair, Bryan McCann, Georgetown University
• “Spanish North America and the Making of the United States” (John Tutino)
• “New Mexico and the Making of North America” (Ramon Gutierrez, University of California, San Diego)
• Commentator – Alison Games, Georgetown University

Session II – National Transformations – Chair, Erick Langer, Georgetown University
• “Rethinking Land and Labor in Northern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest: An Ecological Analysis” (Andrew Isenberg, Temple University)
• “Mexico, Mexicans, and the U.S. Civil War” (David Montejano, University of California, Berkeley)
• “Imagining Mexico at War: Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature and Popular Culture” (Shelley Streeby, University of California, San Diego)
• Commentators – John McNeill, Georgetown University; Chandra Manning, Georgetown University

 Saturday, April 28, 2007
Session III – Continuing Challenges – Chair, Joseph Palacios, Georgetown University
• “Making Americans and Mexicans in the Arizona Borderlands” (Katherine Benton-Cohen, Louisiana State University)
• “Mexican Migrants and Labor in Twentieth-Century North America” (Devra Weber, University of California, Riverside)
• “Transnational Communities: Mexicans Integrating North America” (Robert Smith, Baruch College, City University of New York)
• Commentators – Joseph McCartin, Georgetown University; Michael Kazin, Georgetown University