Bilingual symposium to examine cultural ties between U.S., Mexico

Bilingual symposium to examine cultural ties between U.S., Mexico

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

The political, economic and cultural ties between the U.S. and Mexico are long-standing and increasingly important. However, the ties that bind can sometimes be divisive. Social, economic and psychic differences between the two countries have fueled the relationship. Scholars have observed, however, that these differences have also generated new and creative ways of thinking about literary expression and cultural identity.

The literary and cultural relations between the U.S. and Mexico will be the topic of scholarly discussion at a bilingual symposium “México y Estados Unidos: Nuevas Posiciones y Contraposiciones,” to be held April 1 at Rice University.

Six scholars from the U.S. and Mexico will examine issues of multiculturalism, modernity, language and speech, cultural identity and the field of border studies from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in 100 Herring Hall.

The morning session, “Ideas, Images, Influences,” introduced by Maarten van Delden, associate professor of Spanish at Rice, will examine how literary developments and intellectual debates in the two nations have paralleled with and diverged from each other. Featured speakers are:

• Rebecca Biron, University of Miami, “Modernities on Parade: William Faulkner and Elena Garro”

• José Antonio Aguilar Rivera, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas in Mexico City, “La Persuasión Multicultural en México y Estados Unidos”

• Mauricio Tenorio Trillo, University of Chicago, “De la ‘Brown Atlantis’ y los Intelectuales Mexicanos”

The afternoon session, “Asuntos Fronterizos,” introduced by Beatriz González-Stephan, the Lee Hage Jamail Chair of Latin American Literatures at Rice, will focus on the U.S.-Mexico border, where some have observed an emerging “hybrid” culture, mixing elements from both sides of the border. The speakers will be:

• Robert McKee Irwin, University of California–Davis, “Border Studies/Estudios de la Frontera: The Legacy of Anzaldúa”

• María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba, Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, “Outlining U.S.-Mexico’s Border Identities and the Ciudad Juárez Cultural Movement”

• Javier Durán, University of Arizona, “Guardianes Fronterizos y Patologías Nacionalistas: Notas Sobre Nativismo, (in)Seguridad Nacional y el Discurso Anti-inmigrante”

The symposium, which is free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by Rice’s Center for the Study of Cultures, the Hispanic studies and history departments, Fondren Library and the Institute of Hispanic Culture of Houston.

For more information, visit <http://hispanicstudies.rice.edu/>.