Of Soldiers and Dreamers: Peter Lilienthal in Latin America

by Claudia Sandberg 

Claudia Sandberg is the author of Peter Lilienthal : A Cinema of Exile and Resistance.

Sitting at a wooden bench, the young woman Marcela follows the teacher attentively. She has decided to take part in the literacy campaign that was launched by the Unidad Popular government. In a group with other woman, they have gathered in the meeting place and school of the shanty town community La Victoria, situated at the fringes of the Chilean capital, to get trained for this task. The teacher in front holds up a poster that shows a family of three generations. Below appears the Spanish word HOGAR (home). Marcela protests that this image surely does not represent the reality of many people. The other women chime in by referring to their own situation; they are married, divorced, or widowed, they live alone, with their children or with their parents. The word home means something different to each one of them.  

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TRANSBORDER MEDIA SPACES: AYUUJK VIDEOMAKING BETWEEN MEXICO AND THE US

Ingrid Kummels

As a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, social arrangements allowing people to carry on despite the restrictions on mobility forced upon them became predominant across the world. From work (home office) and education (home schooling) to birthday parties, meetings, conferences and political campaigns (Zoom, etc.) diverse aspects of life were reoriented to adapt to the requirements of “social distancing” – although this term is a misnomer, since the actual challenge consists of overcoming physical distance. Even countries that are leaders in high-tech have had a hard time adjusting, since they had failed to consider the necessary widespread availability of equipment, training and creativity to remotely organize a community, its social life and leisure for long periods of time.

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Who is María Lionza?

A GODDESS IN MOTION: Visual Creativity in the Cult of María LionzaBy Roger Canals, lecturer in the department of social anthropology at the University of Barcelona.


The book A Goddess in Motion: Visual Creativity in the Cult of María Lionza finds its origins in my vivid interest in Afro-Latin American religions, art and visual anthropology. I understand the latter in a broad sense, that is, as an anthropology of images, as an exploration on the act of seeing and being seen, as a visual ethnography and, lastly, as an attempt to write and publish the outcomes of our research, including visual material.

 

The main goal of A Goddess in Motion: Visual Creativity in the Cult of María Lionza  is to explore how this goddess is represented and what people do with –and through– her images in contemporary Venezuelan society and abroad. For those who do not know this amazing figure, let me tell you that María Lionza is a fascinating goddess, still highly unexplored by academia: symbol of the Venezuelan identity, she is represented as Indian, White, Mestiza and as a Black woman, sometimes benevolent and sometimes evil, at once represented with a high sexual component and at once depicted as a mature woman close to the Virgin Mary. The images of María Lionza may be found in many different locations, where they play a variety of roles: on religious altars, in museums and galleries, on television, on the Internet or on the walls of the streets of Venezuelan cities, to mention just a few. Moreover, María Lionza can “descend” into the mediums’ bodies or “appear” in dreams, visions and apparitions.

 

The challenge of this book is to think of all these images (material, corporeal and mental) as a whole, that is, as a sort of dynamic and open network in which practices, discourses and visual representations mingle.

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Visit Berghahn Books at LASA Conference

 

We are delighted to inform you that we will be present at the Latin American Studies Association Conference in Barcelona, Spain, May 23-26, 2018. Please stop by our table to browse the latest selection of books at discounted prices & pick up some free journal samples.

 

If you are unable to attend, we would like to provide you with a special discount offer. For the next 30 days, receive a 25% discount on all titles listed below. At checkout, simply enter the discount code LASA18

 

Visit our website­ to browse our newly published interactive online Latin American Studies Catalog or use the new enhanced subject searching features­ for a complete listing of all published and forthcoming titles.

 


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Mes de la Herencia Hispana

September 15th – October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month which celebrates the histories, the heritage, the cultures and contributions made by Hispanic and Latino Americans to the United States.

 

September 15th was chosen as a starting point for the celebration because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September 18, respectively.

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Berghahn is delighted to highlight the CEDLA Latin America Studies Series published in Association with the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation. CEDLA is an inter-university centre for research and documentation on Latin America whose series represents the results of original research on Latin America in the field of the Social Sciences, understood in a broad sense to include History, Economics and Geography.

 

 

Volume 104 Forthcoming in November 2014!

ENHANCING DEMOCRACY
Public Policies and Citizen Participation in Chile
Gonzalo Delamaza
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Giving a Voice: Sharing Work of the Late Willem Assies

Renowned Dutch anthropologist Willem Assies’ lifework was a study of Latin American politics. Up to his unexpected death in 2010, Assies had made strides in bringing awareness to the situations of the downtrodden, those considered “voiceless.” In Dignity for the Voiceless: Willem Assies’s Anthropological Work in Context, editors Ton Salman, Salvador Marti i Puig, and Gemma van der Haar have given the political anthropologist his own voice once again. Following, the editors provide further insight into their recently published volume.

 

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In 2010, Willem Assies, an astute and prolific Latin Americanist and political anthropologist, died unexpectedly, at the age of 55. The book launched today brings together some of his finest writing. Assies would always gave central stage to the collective and multi-layered actor and not the system — but he would constantly do so within the context of restrictions, pressures, conditioning factors and contradictions, to provide the actor with a real setting of operation.

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