Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean (PLAC) Conference

Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean's (PLAC) Third Annual Conference

Right, Left, Right: U-Turns and Their Impact in Latin America and the Caribbean

 

October 12, 2017 - University of Pennsylvania - Perry World House 

 

 

8:30-9:00am: Registration and Coffee

 

9:00-9:15am Welcome

Dean Antonia M. Villarruel, Professor and Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing; and

Tulia G. Falleti, Class of 1965 Term Associate Professor; Director of Latin American and Latino Studies Program; Senior Fellow Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics[1].

 

9:15 – 10:00am: Inaugural Presentation by Steven Griner, Director of the Department of Sustainable Democracy and Special Missions, the Organization of American States (OAS).  

“Evolution of the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the OAS”

 

10:00 – 11:30am - Panel 1: Law, Transitional Justice, and Politics in Changing Times

Moderator: Tulia G. Falleti

 

“Counter-narratives of Security, State Violence, and Terrorism,” Jennifer Ponce de León, Assistant Professor of Latina/o Literature and Culture, Department of English.

 

“Politics turn, corporations remain: The undone Transitional Justice in Brazil,” Eduardo Saad-Diniz, Professor in Ribeirão Preto Law and Program for Latin American Integration at the University of São Paulo.

 

“The International Criminal Court and Latin America” Andrea Matačić Cayley, Penn Law School.

 

“Overview of Current US Immigration and Refugee Laws” Fernando Chang-Muy, Thomas O’Boyle Lecturer in Law, University of Pennsylvania School of Law

 

“NAFTA: Future uncertainty, prospective factual analysis negotiation, and potential implications.” Diego Alejandro Sanchez Labrador, M.A. Candidate in International and Human Rights Law, Syracuse University College of Law; Samuel Torres-Landa, Research Fellow, Department of Surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; Veronica M. Zoghbi, Periopoerative Safety Fellow, Perioperative Services, Hospital of the Univerisity of Pennsylvania; Serguei A. Castaneda, PGY3 Radiation Oncology Resident, Department of Radiation Oncology, Drexel University College of Medicine/Hahnemann University Hospital.

 

11:30am – noon: Lunch break

 

12:00-1:00pm: Lunch time Keynote Lecture by Nicole Legnani, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University

“Trading Fictions: Love, the Law and the Enterprise of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas” 

 

1:00-1:15pm: Coffee

 

1:15pm-2:45pm Panel 2: Local Politics, Global Consequences

Moderator: Catherine Bartch, Associate Director of Latin American and Latino Studies

 

“Look to the South: Mexico’s Indigenous Heritage in the 21st Century”, Richard M. Leventhal, Professor, Department of Anthropology and Executive Director of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center of the Penn Museum; Tiffany C. Cain, PhD Student, Department of Anthropology; Kasey Diserens, PhD Student, Department of Anthropology; and Aldo Anzures Tapia, PhD Student, Graduate School of Education.

 

“Gender, Patriarchal Participation and Infrastructural Publics in Quito, Ecuador,” Julie Gamble, Perry World House Postdoctoral Fellow, Professor- Research, College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Universidad San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador.  

 

“The Return of the Right in the City: The Case of São Paulo” Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology.

 

“Decolonizing the Caribbean Subject: Responses to the Danilo Medina Presidency in the Dominican Republic,” Ana Almeyda-Cohen, PhD Student in Hispanic Studies.

 

2:45-3:00pm: Coffee Break

 

3:00-4:00pm – Roundtable discussion: School Choice in the Americas – A Comparative View of US and Chilean Experiences, with Alejandro Carrasco, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Theory and Policy, School of Education, and Director, Center for Educational Policy and Practice (CEPPE), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile;  Sigal Ben-Porath, Professor of Graduate School of Education, and Michael Johanek, Senior Fellow at the Graduate School of Education. 

 

Moderator: Nancy Biller, Assistant Dean for Global Health Affairs, School of Nursing.

 

4:00-5:00pm: Poster Presentations (with Coffee)

 

Poster Group 1: Politics and Health Outcomes

Moderator: Kent Bream, Assistant Professor of Clinical Family Medicine and Community Health, Perelman School of Medicine

 

“Stuck Healthily in the Left Lane: Leveraging Nicaragua's Socialist Platform to Pioneer Rural Surgical Care for the Poor,” Jordan Swanson, MD, MSC; Jesse A. Taylor, MD; Scott Bartlett, MD, Division of Plastic Surgery, Perelman School of Medicine.

 

“Donation of Rescued Medical Supplies to Venezuela: A Feasibility Study,” Veronica Zoghbi, Safety Fellow, Perioperative Services, Hospital of the University of Pennyslvania.

 

“Perceptions of Spirituality and Religion among Haitian Immigrants/Descendants with Cancer”, Christy Charnel, Undergraduate Student, Nursing School, Du Bois College House Research Fellow.

 

Poster Group 2: Politics and Health Policies and Interventions in Guatemala  

Moderator: Johnny Irizarry, Director of the Center for Hispanic Excellence: La Casa Latina

 

“Bettering the Quality of Care Where the Government Overlooks: Implementing an Electronic Patient Registry and the Use of Mobile Health in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala.” Zoe Barbati, Undergraduate Student, College of Arts and Sciences.

 

“Establishment of a sustainable dermatology global health outreach and residency partnership program in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala,” Peter B. Chansky, MD Candidate, Perelman School of Medicine.

 

“Is obesity the cost of being food insecure?  An analysis of food environments and behaviors in rural Guatemala,” Lynn Hur, Biology, College of Arts and Sciences.  

 

“Creciendo Juntos (Growing Together): A Mobile Early Childhood Development Intervention for Community Health Workers in Guatemala,” Esha Khurana MD, MPH Candidate, Perelman School of Medicine.

 

Poster Group 3: Cuba: From Revolution to Tourism.

Moderator: Katelyn Leader, Senior Program Associate, Perry World House

 

"Castro Care and Search for New Identity: How the influx of Capitalism is affecting the Future of Cuba's Socialized Healthcare," Brittany Keesling, MPA and MBE (Bioethics) candidate

“Political nostalgia and the Cuban Revolution: past wars will make you win,” Azahara Palomeque, Associate Director, MSSP Program, School of Social Policy and Practice.     

 

“Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Women: State Violence, Gender Politics, and Resistance in Cuba and in Exile, 1952-1962,” Amanda Nart, Undergraduate Student, College of Arts and Sciences.

 

“Perspectivas: Social Policy, Race, and Tourism in Cuba,” Melissa Beatriz Skolnick, Research Fellow, School of Social Policy and Practice.

 

5:00-6:15pm Screening and Discussion of Documentary Four Days in May.

 

Presentation and Discussion of the experimental documentary Four Days in May (2017, 45 minutes (English, Jamaican Patois)) by Deborah A. Thomas, R. Jean Brownlee Term Professor of Anthropology; Deanne M. Bell (University of East London), and Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn (Kingston and New York).  Executive Producer, John L. Jackson, Jr., Richard Perry University Professor; Dean, School of Social Policy and Practice; and Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor (University of Pennsylvania)

Four Days in May explores how state violence generates archives of both suffering and life by focusing on the 2010 State of Emergency in West Kingston, Jamaica. Locally dubbed the “Tivoli Incursion,” the joint operation of the military and police forces into Tivoli Gardens and surrounding communities in order to apprehend Christopher “Dudus” Coke (who had been ordered for extradition to the United States to stand trial for gun and drug-related charges) resulted in the deaths of at least 75 civilians. The film features community residents talking about their experiences during the “incursion,” and naming and memorializing loved ones they lost. Through the use of archival film and photographs, footage from the U.S. drone that was overhead during the operation, and contemporary hyper-realist film photography of the “garrison” of Tivoli Gardens, it encourages viewers to think about how people negotiate the entanglements among nationalist governments, imperialist practices, and local articulations with illicit international trades. The film has spurred a broader research project on these same issues, and provides a springboard to imagine what kinds of political futures are possible in the wake of the plantation, colonialism, and the garrison politics that have characterized Jamaica’s governance structure since independence in 1962.

 

6:30-7:30pm Talk and Performance by Cuban Feminist Rapper, La Fina