Thursday, October 1

6:00 PM – 7:20 PM
NCCLA Executive Committee Meeting – location TBD

7:30 PM – 8:30 PM Optional social hour, open to all – location TBD

Friday, October 2

8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Light breakfast and registration – location TBD

8:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Session A (2 panels)

A1. Migration, Diaspora, Identity, and Belonging in the Americas
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• “Longing and Belonging (saudades and nepantla): Marjorie Agosín’s Lyrical Meditations in a Diasporic Landscape,” Elena De Costa (Carroll University)

• “Isabel Allende: transcending national boundaries and becoming a U.S. Latina,” León Narváez (St. Olaf College)

• “Migración en la lírica: el movimiento estético y humano en la poesía Latinx,” Dana Maya (Independent Scholar)

• “Gallery of Relationships: An Arts-Based Approach to Sharing Stories of Identity, Migration, and Becoming,” Jeydelyn Martinez (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee)

A2. Indigenous Rights, Resistance, and Social Movements in Contemporary Latin America
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• “Beyond the Concessions: Searching for an Anti-Institutional Peruvian Indigenous Movement," Elliot Modzelewski (Macalester College)

• “Art and Culture as Resistance: Indigenous Communities Defying State Violence and Racist Repression in Peru,” Claudia Cisneros (DePaul University)

• “Indigenous Lan(d)guage Learning amid an AI Landscape,” Adam Coon (University of Minnesota Morris)

• “Niñas y niños indígenas como actores sociales frente al reclutamiento: narrativas desde Jambaló y Cherán,” Mayra Alejandra Ruíz López (Colegio de Michoacán)

10:15 AM – 11:45 AM: Session B (3 panels)
B1. Experiencing the Local, National, and Transnational in the Americas
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• “Beyond Permanent Departure: Migration, Return, and the Weaving of Translocal Identities in the Post-ELA Classroom,” Victor A. Cruz (SUNY–Binghamton)

• “Lengua, memoria y resistencia afrolimonense: Limón Blues de Anacristina Rossi como contraarchivo diaspórico,” Janderin Diaz Hernandez (University of Wisconsin–Madison)

• “Hidden in Exile: Dynamics of (In)Visibility in Garífuna Migration,” Mira Steinberg (Macalester College)

• “Transnationalism: Reflections on a Concept and Its History and Pertinence in/for Latin America,” Patrick Barr-Melej (Ohio University)

B2. Challenging Histories of Exploitation through Film
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• “Appropriation Filmmaking and the Promise of Indigenous Archives in Já me transformei em imagem,” Daniel Coral Reyes (Macalester College)

• “This Can Be a Wonderful Place to Live: Folk Horror and Forced Sterilization in Madres,” Stacy Hoult (Valparaiso University)

• “Resistencia, memoria y nación en el cine de Benjamín Avila,” Alexandra Martínez Smith (Independent Scholar)

B3. Language Pedagogy and Health
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• “Corrective Feedback vs. Native Input in the Development of Spanish Voiceless Stops,” Rachel Halverson (University of Wisconsin–La Crosse) and Antonio Martín Gómez (University of Wisconsin–La Crosse)

• “Cuénteme: Enhancing Mental Health Care Through Spanish Language Education,” Antonio Martín Gómez (University of Wisconsin–La Crosse)

• “The Pedagogy of Play: Immersive Role-Playing Games in the Spanish Classroom,” Nancy Gates Madsen (Luther College)

• “Navigating the Borderlands of Care: Multilingual Simulations on Latin American Migration, Deafness, and Language Justice,” Michelle Pinzl (Viterbo University) and Jodie Novak (Viterbo University)

12:00 PM – 1:15 PM: Lunch
Location TBD
Welcome remarks; Presentation of NCCLA Research and Travel Awards

1:30 PM – 2:15 PM: Book Presentation
Location: TBD

En el Cinturón del Viento: Antología de poesía latinx en español en el Midwest

• Marlene De La Cruz-Guzmán, editor (Viterbo University)
• Miguel Marzana (Manzana Editorial)

2:30 PM – 3:45 PM: Session C (2 panels)
C1. The Decline of Latin American Studies and Area Studies in Higher Education, Revisited (roundtable)
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• Pablo Toral (Beloit College)
• Elizabeth Brewer (Beloit College)
• Jesús Jambrina (Viterbo University)
• Omar Granados (University of Wisconsin–La Crosse)
• Benjamín Narváez (University of Minnesota Morris)

This panel will discuss the state of interdisciplinary area studies at U.S. colleges and universities, from its origins in the wake of World War II to the present day when federal and foundation resources for such inquiry have plummeted. The panel contends that higher education needs to explore new strategies to generate interest in area studies and meet the needs and expectations of current students. This panel will review some of the main choke points and discuss strategies from colleges and universities to adjust to these changing environments.

C2. Indigenous Cosmovisions from Latin America Moves Pedagogies
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• Bethsabé Huamán Andía (Saint Catherine University)
• Tomeka Jacobs (Saint Catherine University)
• Margret McCue-Enser (Saint Catherine University)

This interdisciplinary panel includes visions from Cultural Studies, Communication and Theology. It focuses on pedagogies used in these disciplines, inspired by Latin American and Latinx authors that focus on indigenous perspectives and move the ways knowledge is understood from European knowledge. We refer to Gloria Anzaldúa, Arturo Escobar, Anibal Quijano and Maria Lugones, as philosophers that open a door to other forms of understanding the world we inhabit, especially in relation with the idea of border, place, water and how that impacts pedagogies and class dynamics.

4:00 PM – 5:15 PM: Session D (2 panels)
D1. ¿Descripción contra el colonialismo intelectual? División internacional del trabajo académico y construcción del conocimiento en América Latina (roundtable)
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• Mayra Alejandra Ruíz López (El Colegio de Michoacán)
• Juan Camilo Vásquez Salazar (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee)
• Milder Constancio Lara Marriaga (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, México)

Esta mesa redonda propone discutir críticamente la división internacional del trabajo académico y sus consecuencias para la producción de conocimiento en las ciencias sociales, en la cual los investigadores del sur global suelen ser situados como proveedores de datos y descriptores de realidades locales, mientras los académicos del norte global se ocupan de emplear dichos datos para construir explicaciones sobre fenómenos empíricos. En América Latina, estas relaciones se han abordado mediante nociones como colonialismo intelectual y colonialidad del saber; mientras algunas interpretaciones privilegian la descripción profunda como estrategia para afrontar esta división, esta mesa considera si la descripción al final refuerza lo que se busca superar. Se discutirán entonces los debates recientes sobre la mejor manera de afrontar estas relaciones coloniales, y en particular dos problemas en la práctica de investigación actual: la aplicación de teorías establecidas a casos latinoamericanos sin problematización y la preferencia por determinadas tradiciones debido a su origen o mayor legitimidad.

D2. Cold War Violence, Gender, and Resistance
Location: TBD
Chair: TBD

• “Identity Formation: How Collective Identity becomes a method of confronting Haunting in the case of Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo,” Abigail Aguilera (Macalester College)

• “Threads of Memory: The work of the Bordadoras por la Memoria,” Ella Stern (Macalester College)

• “La Historia de las Otras,” María José Cordero (University of Florida)

5:30 PM – 6:45 PM: Dinner
Location TBD
Presentation of NCCLA Award of Merit

7:00 PM – 8:30 PM: Keynote Address
Location: TBD

“La Perseverancia, Fe y Acompañamiento in a Time of Fear and Surveillance,” Dr. Kristy Nabhan-Warren (University of Iowa)

This talk focuses on how faith and community have endured for Latin(x) even in the midst of the current government regime and its intent on restricting movement and purging Latin(x) from los Estados Unidos. Latin(x) continue to persevere and for many, their religious faith and communities are at the core of their individual, familial, and communal strength.  Family, faith and community are the heart of perseverance. I will focus on recent events and how Latin(x) have been joined by a broad network of allies who demonstrate in real time how accompaniment is a powerful moral force today and that there is indeed the light of hope in the midst of darkness.