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Exeter Centre for Latin American Studies (EXCELAS)

EXCELAS is dedicated to strengthening the existing expertise in Latin America in various departments at the University of Exeter, including Modern Languages, Archaeology, History, and Politics. We seek to nurture the visibility of Latin American Studies, which we conceive broadly to include research and teaching that engages with Latin American relations with North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. We provide a platform to draw together the existing, but fragmented, expertise in Latin America in various departments of the University of Exeter.

The Exeter Centre for Latin American Studies (EXCELAS) connects researchers across the University of Exeter, including students and staff from Archaeology, History, Modern Languages, Film, Geography, Politics and Sociology. Our expertise is diverse and embraces Latin America and the Caribbean, frequently establishing connections with North America, Africa, Europe and Asia, both in the past and the present.

We aim to foster innovative research collaborations that may lead to interdisciplinary research bids, to share intellectual curiousity and to support each other in teaching, research and public engagment. Many of our members also belong to the Centre for Translating Cultures, Centre for Imperial and Global History, and Centre for Archaeology of the Americas, and EXCELAS and these centres frequently co-host events. In collaboration with the Digital Humanities Lab, we are also looking to curate digital exhibitions, and produce video and audio recordings of future planned events.

We are keen to welcome new members to the EXCELAS. If you are an MA or PhD student, a new member of staff or a member of the wider Exeter community, do get in touch, our activities are open to all.

To join our mailing list, please get in touch with Katie Brown (k.brown4@exeter.ac.uk)

 

Centre Director

Dr Katie Brown (Modern Languages)
 

Centre Members

Dr Susana Afonso (Modern Languages)

Cariad Astles (Drama)

Dr Silvia Espelt Bombín (History)

Ana Lucía Estrada Jaramillo (Sociology)

Professor Sally Faulkner (Modern Languages/Film)

Dr Cordelia Freeman (Geography)

Dr Felicity Gee (Film)

Professor José Iriarte (Archeology)

Dr Gabriel Katz (Politics)

Dr Marisa Lazzari (Archeology)

Dr Ana Martins (Modern Languages)

Dr Melisa Moore (Modern Languages)

Francesco Orlandi Barbano (Archeology)

Adrián Oyander Rodríguez (Archeology)

Dr Natália Pinazza (Modern Languages)

Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marin (Sociology)

Dr Dunia Urrego (Geography)

Diana Valencia Duarte (History)

Our regular seminar series combines a variety of activites, including:

  • Research presentations from international and UK-based visiting scholars, artists, film-makers and NGOs
  • Research-in-progress from Exeter staff and students
  • Film screenings
  • Reading groups

We regularly co-host seminars with other research centres, such as the Centre for Translating Cultures, the Centre for Imperial and Global History, and the Centre for the Archaeology of the Americas.

Past seminars

11 Nov 2020

Dr Anna Brinkman-Schwartz (King’s College London): Balancing Power: International Law, Strategic Thinking, and Anglo-Spanish Maritime Conflicts in the Seven Years' War

Co-organised with the Centre of Maritime Historical Studies, Exeter

21 Oct 2020

Manny Medrano (St Andrews): Andean History in Knotted Cords: Khipu Decipherment from the Past to the Future

7 Oct 2020

Dr Miguel Hernández (Exeter): "Low Type Peons, Catholics and Communists": Mexican Immigration and American Nativists' Attempts to Fortify the U.S. Border in the 1920s

18 Feb 2020

Professor Bruno Gomide (University of São Paulo): Translating Russian literature in Brazil

Funded by the European Research Council (Horizon 2020) through the RusTrans project

6 Feb 2020

Dr Juan Carlos Berrio (University of Leicester): Late Pleistocene Landscapes of Colombia

5 Feb 2020 Screening of Iracema: Uma Transa Amazônica and Q+A with director Jorge Bodanzky (Brazil), presented by Dr Natália Pinazza
11 Dec 2019 Dr Susan Conlon (University of Bristol): Negotiating Water in Colombia - Multi-level legal reforms and páramo water communities
6 Nov 2019 Dr Amelia Casas Pardo (Colombian Psychoanalytic Society): Psychology and Conflict in Peru and Colombia
9 Oct 2019 Dr Noelia Meza (Mexico/Visting Fellow, University of Leeds): Visualising Latin American Discourses from a Digital Rhetoric Perspective
16 May 2019

Dr César Parcero Oubiña (INCIPIT, CSIC): Landscape Archaeology and Geospatial Technology

20 Mar 2019

Adrián Oyaneder Rodríguez (Exeter): 'Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes’: Challenging aridity in the Atacama Desert

13 Mar 2019 Dr Joanna Page (University of Cambridge): Decolonizing Knowledge in Contemporary Chilean and Latin American Cinema
6 Mar 2019

Professor Matthew Restall (Penn State): Uncovering the Shocking Truths at the Heart of the Spanish-Aztec Encounter

27 Feb 2019 Dr Elisa Frühauf Garcia (Universidade Federal Fluminense): Indian Women in the Conquest of South America: São Paulo and Asunción during the sixteenth century
20 Feb 2019

Francesco Orlandi (Exeter): Modernity and Contemporaneity of Indigenous Rights: Reading Las Casas, Walking the Field

13 Feb 2019 Dr Natália Pinazza (Exeter): Colonialism in Latin American Road Movies
16 Jan 2019

Dr Silvia Espelt-Bombín (Exeter): Deconstructing a European Frontier: Indigenous-European interactions between Brazil and French Guiana (17th-18th centuries)

13 Dec 2018

Dr Ximena Senatore (CONICET, Argentina): Exploring Capitalism. Historical Archaeology and Heritage of the Modern Expansion into Antarctica

5 Dec 2018 Dr Katie Brown (Exeter): Venezuelan Literature and the Bolivarian Revolution
27 Nov 2018

Professors Inés Quintero and Rogelio Altez (Universidad Central de Venezuela): ”Deconstruir” los mitos de la independencia suramericana

21 Nov 2018

Dr Michael Goebel (Graduate Institute Geneva): Patchwork Cities: Urban Ethnic Segregation in the Global
South in the Age of Steam

14 Nov 2018 Professor Joe Foweraker (Exeter): Polity. Demystifying Democracy in Latin America
7 Nov 2018

Dr Paul Merchant (University of Bristol) Presentation and screening of Tierra sola

24 Oct 2018 Dr Mark Harris (University of St Andrews): The Birth of Brazilian Amazonian Societies
 7 June 2018  Dr Antoine Acker (Universität Zürich): Volkswagen in the Amazon
 6 June 2018  Screening of A Fantastic Woman and Q&A with co-writer and co-producer Gonzalo Maza (Exeter), in discussion with Prof Sally Faulkner
22 Mar 2018 Dr Sabine Hyland (University of St Andrews): Writing with Twisted Cords: Two Newly Discovered Khipu Epistles
22 Feb 2018 Dr Raquel Ribeiro (University of Edinburgh): El lado de acá de la locura, or How the Novismos "Vietnamised" the Angolan War
1 Feb 2018 Prof Catherine Boyle (King's College London): Theatre, Translation and the Presence of Urgency. Seeing the Future from the Past
8 Dec 2017

Prof Michael Chanan (University of Portsmouth): Memory and Politics in Argentina and Chile, and screening of Memoria Interrumpida (2013), directed by Michael Chanan

Here is a sample of workshops and conferences recently organised by our members:

The Avocado Dialogues - Participatory methodologies training - 3-4 July 2020, organised by PhD students Diana Valencia Duarte and Adrián Oyaneder Rodríguez organised this workshop. Read an interview with Adrián Oyaneder Rodríguez, Diana Valencia Duarte and Silvia Espelt Bombín here  (part 1 and part 2) in English and Spanish.

The Second South American Archaeology Meeting at Exeter (SAAME) - 2 July 2020, organised by PhD student Francesco Orlandi, with the support of ILAS, SLAS and Exeter.

The First South American Archaeology Meeting at Exeter (SAAME) - 17 May 2019, organised by PhD students Francesco Orlandi, Adrián Oyaneder Rodríguez and Felipe do Nascimento Rodrigues.

Here is a sample of projects our members are involved in:

Dr Katie Brown is leading a project on the arts and conflict with young people in Venezuela: Pensamiento y libertad.

Dr Ana Martins is working on the AHRC funded project "Women of the Brown Atlantic: Real and Imaginary Passages in Portuguese 1711 - 2011".

Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marin is part of a team creating telenovelas about disappearances in Mexico: Amor Secuestrado.