This podcast series surveys the unique ecosystem of contemporary scholarship and art being generated by scholars and creatives in New England who are working in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Episodes in the series address topics such as knowledge production and technological adaptation in the Global South; trans activism and feminism in transnational perspective; indigenous perspectives on the cosmos and the capitalist state; and processes of cultural hybridization though migration and South-South relations. Join us for a fascinating set of conversations from thinkers and innovators crossing boundaries and expanding the frontiers of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies

Eden Medina (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), an historian of science and technology, addresses relationships between technology and politics in her work on Project Cybersyn, a radical computational experiment by the 1970s government of Salvador Allende, and her upcoming project on the use of forensics in the search for truth and reconciliation. She also reflects on approaches to AI in teaching and learning at a STEM university.

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies

Javier Puente (Smith College) discusses historical relations between indigenous communities and the state during Peru’s internal armed conflict, theories of underdevelopment, and future projects on dynamite and El Niño. He also considers the pitfalls of identity-based epistemologies in academic research and the dangerous appeal of authoritarianism in the Americas.

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies

Macarena Gómez-Barris (Brown University), an interdisciplinary scholar, speaks on decolonial advocacy and creative expression in indigenous activism, and alliances formed among peoples and between human and more-than-human subjects in opposing extractive capitalism. She also discusses how greater attention given to perspectives from the Global South might further reshape considerations of knowledge production, learning, community, and activism in higher education.

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies

Aarti Smith Madan (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), a scholar of Latin American literature and spatial humanities, maps the trajectory of her interests in nineteenth-century Argentine nation-builders, gauchos as literary subjects, and histories of South-South interactions through connections between Argentina and India. She also outlines her research on the manifestations of Afro-Brazilian consciousness in street art, artistic identity, and social media.

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies

Carmen Jarrín (College of the Holy Cross) engages in a conversation about ethnographic research on trans and travesti creators and activists in Brazil’s artivismo movement as they contend with violence and right-wing nationalism. Carmen connects this work to earlier investigations of plastic surgery, biopolitics, and relationships between gender, beauty, and national identity in Brazil.

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies

Ginetta Candelario (Smith College) addresses historical feminist advocacy and resilience in the Dominican Republic, transnational solidarities forged by shared feminist and Black experiences around the Americas, and distinctions between knowledge production in advocacy and scholarship. She also discusses her editorship of the leading intersectional feminist journal Meridians and the use of terms like “Latinx.”

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies

Musician and scholar Carlos Odria (Worcester State University) talks about heavy metal, Brazilian jazz, Daoism, the picado technique, migration from Peru, and other influences on his improvisational, hybridized, and fluid guitar-playing style. He also reviews the ethnomusicology research he conducted on urban tambores groups that transformed his perceptions of cultural production in metropolitan Lima.

To learn more about the Crossing Fronteras podcast, visit https://wp.wpi.edu/lacs/podc/

To learn more about the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at WPI, visit https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/humanities-arts/latin-american-caribbean-studies