Latino Literature / La Literatura III
Pedro Lasch, Hypnotism and Necromancy (detail, BM4S3) from the museum installation, cibachrome edition, and book project ‘Black Mirror / Espejo Negro,’ 2008. Courtesy of the artist.
The third biennial conference of the Latino Literary Cultures Project/ Proyecto culturas literarias latinas will take place on Friday and Saturday, November 5-6, 2010 at UC Santa Cruz. Over a dozen novelists, poets, new-media writers, and scholars will come together for a weekend of lively readings and thoughtful interchange around creative writing by and about U.S. Latinas and Latinos, past and present.
Featured fiction writers include the Chicana icon Helena María Viramontes, author of The Moths and Other Stories, Under the Feet of Jesus and Their Dogs Came With Them, as well as Cuban-American novelist and essayist H.G. Carrillo, author of Loosing My Espanish, and the Central Valley-born Manuel Muñoz, author of two award-winning short story collections and a forthcoming novel. Also reading will be Tijuana-based poet and experimental writer Heriberto Yépez, author of more than a dozen books and winner of a national literature prize; Liliana Valenzuela, the premier translator of Chicano/Latino works into Spanish as well as a poet; and Lawrence La-Fountain Stokes, the Puerto Rican author of the story/poem sequence Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails and several plays. They will read on Friday and Saturday nights at 5 pm in Merrill Cultural Center, followed by a reception and book signing.
Four panels, on topics ranging from Latinos and the literary marketplace to transnational latinidad to the influence of visual and sound media on literary forms. Jim Mendiola, director of films such as Pretty Vacant and active blogger (Ken Burns Hates Mexicans) will participate in the panels, along with Liliana Valenzuela, Heriberto Yépez, and Lawrence La-Fountain-Stokes. Visiting scholars include Claire Joysmith (North American Studies, UNAM, Mexico City); Manuel Martín-Rodriguez (Humanities, UC-Merced); Ellen McCracken (Spanish & Portuguese, UC Santa Barbara); Robert McKee Irwin (Spanish & Portuguese, UC Davis); Marissa López (English, UCLA); and Alicia Arrizón (Women’s Studies, UC Riverside); as well as UCSC faculty. The panels will take place Friday 12-4 and Saturday 10-4 in Humanities 1, Room 210.
This conference is co-sponsored by the UC Humanities Research Institute; the Puknat Endowment of the Literature Department; the Chicano/Latino Research Center; the Institute for Humanities Research; and Merrill and Oakes Colleges.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2010
Location: Humanities 1, Room 210
12:00-12:15 PM Welcome
12:15-02:00 PM Panel 1: Latinos in the Market (moderator: Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Literature, UCSC)
- Manuel Martin-Rodriguez: “Reading the unpublished: Virtual presses and their role in leveling the Latina/o literary field”
- Ellen McCracken: “The Mutable Text: Paratextuality and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”
- PLEASE NOTE SCHEDULE CHANGE: HERIBERTO YEPEZ TALK MOVED TO SATURDAY
02:00-02:15 PM Break
02:15-04:00 PM Panel 2: Trans-Locations (moderator: Norma Klahn, Literature, UCSC)
- Claire Joysmith: “Wounds, Narratives e identidades cruzafronteras: Transborder Testimonios”
- Alicia Arrizón: “Performing Transindigeneity and the Colonial Imaginary”
- Liliana Valenzuela: “A Flash in the Pan or the Next Wave?: Translating Contemporary Chicano/Latino Literature into Spanish”
Location: Merrill Cultural Center
05:00-06:30 PM Reading: Helena María Viramontes, Manuel Muñoz, Larry LaFountain-Stokes
06:30-07:15 PM Reception and book signing
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6
Location: Humanities 1, Room 210
10:00-10:15 AM Welcome
10:15-12:00 PM Panel 3: Sounds Latino? (moderator: Catherine Ramírez, American Studies, UCSC)
- Robert McKee Irwin: “Literature of a Truncated Latinidad: Reading 19th Century Racism and Xenophobia in California through the Writings of Vicente Pérez Rosales”
- Marissa López: “¿soy emo, y qué? sad kids, punkera dykes and the Latino public sphere”
- Jim Mendiola: “Making Post-Chicano Art in an Age of Latino Immigration”
12:00-01:30 PM Lunch Break
01:30-03:15 PM Panel 4: Inside/Outside the Box
- Larry LaFountain-Stokes (University of Michigan): “Body, Otherness, and Knowledge: New Developments in Puerto Rican Gay, Lesbian and Queer Literature and Criticism”
- Juan Poblete (Literature, UCSC): “Comics in a Tropical Country”
- Lourdes Martínez-Echazábal (Literature, UCSC): “Cuba, My Revolution, Or Memories in rojo y negro”
- Heriberto Yépez: “Post-Book Post-Mexican Writing” *note schedule change*
03:15-04:00 PM Closing roundtable discussion with all participants
Location: Merrill Cultural Center
05:00-06:30 PM Reading: H.G. Carrillo, Heriberto Yépez, Liliana Valenzuela
06:30-07:15 PM Reception and book signing
