La Casa with the support of Leslie Center and LLC planed a series of activities and workshops around -Latinx month- and November 1st and 2nd “Day of the Dead.” The purpose is to provide an opportunity for students and community members to understand and learn about social justice through the Day of the Dead celebration
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During their stay in São Paulo, LSA+ students captured their experiences through creative writing. Also, they collectively constructed a visual narrative of their time in Brazil as part of a photograph workshop led by photographer Rafael Roncato. As a culminating experience, they put all this fabulous material together in a publication titled Quatro cavaleiros no Brasil (Four Knights in Brazil). The books were produced during a workshop with the collective Dulcineia Catadora, the first Brazilian “cartonera” (cardboard publishing) initiative. The “catadoras” from Dulcineia are women who work in recycling and who, since 2007, generate extra income by publishing hand-made books.
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Please join us in this public lecture, "Brazil under Bolsonaro: culture war in a fragile democracy," by Kai Michael Kenkel (Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro). This talk will discuss the current political and socioeconomic situation in Brazil. The focus is on the threat to minority protections, attacks on freedom of expression (including academic freedom), and politically motivated budget cuts in a context of severe economic inequality.
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Wednesdays from 4:30 to 6:00 La Casa hosts “El Cafecito” a chance for people to get together and converse in Spanish at all levels. Participants talk about their own lives and current events. We usually bake bread and pastries for our guests and coffee and tea are also served. Added to the tradition of Cafecito, Spanish language board games such as Scrabble and Boggle are played.
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The figure of the freak as perceived by the Western gaze has always been a part of the Latin American imaginary, from the letters that Columbus wrote about his encounters with dog-faced people to Shakespeare's Caliban. The freak acquires greater significance in a globalized, neoliberal world that defines the "abnormal" as one who does not conform mentally, physically, or emotionally and is unable or unwilling to follow the economic and cultural norms of the institutions in power. Freak Performances examines the continuing effects of colonialism on modern Latin American identities, with a particular focus on the way it has constructed the body of the other through performance.
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