Past Events

2024-25

Tinker Lecture: Writing the Unspeakable: Memory, Archive and Poetry

TVP Carlos Soto Román
March 6th, 2025

China’s Communication Strategy in Latin America: Implications for the Region and Beyond

Pedro Morales
March 3rd, 2025

Tinker Lecture: Educational Expansion and Regional Inequality: Challenges in Access to Higher Education in Brazil

TVP Luciana Luz with Jenny Trinitapoli
January 25th, 2025

Echoes of the Ancestors: The Influence of Aztec and Inca Rituals on Modern Mexican and Peruvian Identity

Claudia Brittenham and Alan Kolata
February 27th, 2025

Poetics of the Unspeakable

TVP Carlos Soto Román
February 24th, 2025

The Interim Period of the 2024 Military Intervention in Haiti: Gang Violence and Humanitarian Workers’ Perspectives

Martín Castillo Quintana
January 20th, 2025

Resurrecting Walls: The Historical and Contemporary Politics of Deportation in the US

Panel
February 10th, 2025

“Book Presentation: The Royal Inca Tunic. A Biography of an Andean Masterpiece by Andrew Hamilton”

Andrew Hamilton, Claudia Brittenham, Mary Weismantel and Erica Warren
February 5th, 2025

Grieving Geographies, Mourning Waters: Environmental Racism and Mestizaje in Mexico

Yoalli Rodríguez
January 30th, 2025

CLAS Churros & Chocolate

January 27th, 2025

Fidencio, en la frontera de la materia

Patricia Méndez Obregón
January 16th, 2025

Tinker Lecture: Mexican Women and Tortilla Making: From Metate Bondage to Molino Liberation

Aurora Gómez Galvarriato
December 5th, 2024

Third Annual Kreyòl Poster Event

November 20th, 2024
2023-24

Outlook For Brazilian Democracy

This was a series, organized by CLAS and cosponsored by the Chicago Center on Democracy, that sought to paint a balanced, non-partisan picture of the state of democracy in Brazil. As the world’s 4th largest democracy, Brazil has been at the center stage of contemporary concerns about the demise of democracy and the rise of fascism.

In recognition of the critical role that judicial activism has played in the fortunes of Brazil in the last decade, the series began with events that focused on the role of the law and the judicial system in pushing back against threats to democracy. The series then took a broader view of issues affecting democracy, including:

  • The rise of political activism by the police and the violence perpetuated by paramilitary groups
  • The increase in the number of Black women working to advance racial democracy by running for office
  • The role of social movements in advancing gender equality, reproductive rights, self-housing, and urban mobility, and the resistance from authoritarian and conservative social movements
  • The history of energy infrastructure, land management, and legislation that continue to affect Brazil’s handling of environmental issues

These events were designed to situate to take the pulse of the Brazilian state and Brazilian democratic institutions at the time, and to reflect on what the future may hold.

Latin American Debates

Latin American Debates was an event series that focused on issues affecting our region. It was a lunch forum aimed at a broad audience, addressing critical, public issues of the day, with insightful and well-informed expert analysis, lively moderated debate with Q&A. The event series included the following topics:

  • The Amazon in Peril
  • Argentina's Presidential Election
  • 50 Years of the 1973 Coup in Chile
  • Lula's (Third) First Year in Brazil
  • Worlds Longest Human Migration