Pitt to Present Center for Latin American Studies Colloquium April 3-4: "Remembering the Future: The Legacies of Radical Politics in the Caribbean"

PITTSBURGH-The University of Pittsburgh's Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) will present a colloquium titled "Remembering the Future: The Legacies of Radical Politics in the Caribbean" to be held April 3-4 on Pitt's Oakland campus. 2009 marks 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the 30th anniversaries of the Grenadian and Nicaraguan revolutions.

The first day of the colloquium begins at 8:45 a.m. with welcoming remarks followed at 9:15 a.m. by the session "Dialogue on Cuba" in 5604 Posvar Hall, 230 S. Bouquet St., Oakland. The final day of the event begins at 8 a.m. in 4127 Sennott Square, 210 S. Bouquet St., Oakland. The full program is available at www.ucis.pitt.edu/clas/rememberingthefuture.

The global contexts in which these revolutions took place have changed dramatically, and this event will allow scholars to assess the legacies of these revolutions in light of the sociopolitical future of the region and their global impact. The colloquium will examine the adequacy of these past conceptions of revolutionary politics and theorize on the status of dissidence in ongoing social movements in the Caribbean. The two-day colloquium will bring together scholars, activists, and artists whose work and interests span the Caribbean region.

Colloquium convener Shalini Puri is an associate professor of English at Pitt whose research focuses on comparative Caribbean studies and the literatures and cultures of the global south. She is currently working on two books-one on the cultural memory of the Grenadian Revolution and its legacies for egalitarian politics in the region and the other a collaborative project that theorizes the role of fieldwork in the humanities. An earlier publication, "The Caribbean Postcolonial: Social Equality, Post-Nationalism, and Cultural Hybridity" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), won the Caribbean Studies Association's Gordon and Sybil Lewis Prize in 2005 for best book on the Caribbean.

Sponsors for the event are Pitt's CLAS in the University Center for International Studies, School of Arts and Sciences, Departments of History, English, Hispanic Languages and Literatures, French and Italian Languages and Literatures, and Political Science as well as the Cultural Studies and Women's Studies Programs.

For more information or to register, visit www.ucis.pitt.edu/clas/rememberingthefuture/.

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3/27/09/tmw