Fredrika Bremer (1801-1865)
Panel Discussion
Wednesday, May 16 @ 7 pm
This opening night of the Women Travelers Symposium will consist of a panel discussion featuring scholars Claire Emille Martin, Vanesa Miseres, Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, and Adela Pineda Franco. Adriana Méndez Rodenas will moderate. The panel will explore the contributions and legacies of four pioneering women travelers who wrote about their experiences in Latin America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Panelists will discuss Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), a German naturalist, botanical artist, early ecologist, and the author of Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname; Flora Tristan (1803 –1844), social activist, early feminist, and observer of post-independence Peru which she details in Peregrinations of a Pariah; Countess Paula Kollonitz (1830-90), the Austrian lady-in-waiting to Empress Carlota during Maximilian’s reign and author of The Court of Mexico; and Lady Florence Dixie (1855-1905), a Scottish Victorian noblewoman, adventurer, and author of Across Patagonia. Professors Martin, Miseres, Paravisini-Gebert, and Pineda Franco are all contributors to Review 84 (Women Travelers in Latin America, May 2012). Professor Méndez Rodenas is the guest editor for the issue.
Admission Fee: FREE for AS and CCCNY Members; $10.00 for non-members.
THE AMERICAS SOCIETY
680 Park Ave. (Park Ave. @ 68th St.), NYC
This event is organized and sponsored by Americas Society, in collaboration with the Cuban Cultural Center of New York.
Adriana Méndez Rodenas
Keynote Address by Adriana Méndez Rodenas
Thursday, May 17 @ 7 pm
The second evening of the women travelers symposium features a keynote lecture by Adriana Méndez Rodenas, entitled “Women Travelers in Latin America: The Transatlantic Imagination.” She will present a panorama of literary and artistic production by women travelers in Latin America, principally in the nineteenth century. As historical witnesses, these women have impacted our understanding of Latin America and the Caribbean. Swedish novelist and early feminist Fredrika Bremer (1801-1865) drew a portrait of slave society in Cuba, while other travelers shed light on post-independence societies, particularly Parisian social activist and early feminist Flora Tristan (1803 –1844) in Peru, Madame Calderón de la Barca (1804-1882) in Mexico, and Maria Graham (1785-1842) in Chile. The lecture will conclude by highlighting the broader context and relevance of the travelers today as reflected in contemporary fiction. Professor Méndez Rodenas is the guest editor of Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, no. 84 (Women Travelers in Latin America, May 2012).
Distinguished literary critic Adriana Méndez Rodenas is a professor of Latin American literature at the University of Iowa. She is currently a fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. Her book Transatlantic Pilgrims: Women Travelers to Nineteenth-Century Latin America is forthcoming from Bucknell University Press.
Admission Fee: FREE for AS and CCCNY Members; $10.00 for non-members.
THE AMERICAS SOCIETY
680 Park Ave. (Park Ave. @ 68th St.), NYC
This event is organized and sponsored by Americas Society, in collaboration with the Cuban Cultural Center of New York.
Review 84: Adela Breton, Natural Bridge near San Andrés Chalchicomula, 1894. © Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives.
Launch of Review 84
Friday, May 18 @ 7 pm
This launch of the women travelers in Latin America issue of the Society’s acclaimed journal will feature comments by editor Daniel Shapiro and guest editor Adriana Méndez Rodenas. The event will feature readings by authors Carlos Franz, Pola Oloixarac, and Michael Schuessler, and translator Jessica Ernst Powell, who will read from their respective texts in Review 84. The speakers will touch on historical figures, travel in the Americas, and the notion of the sublime. The launch will include commentary by special guest Hilda Benítez, who will speak about the novel Woman in Battle Dress, by her late husband, Cuban author Antonio Benítez Rojo. This launch will be conducted in English and Spanish. Copies of Review 84 will be available for sale at the launch.
Review 84, guest-edited by Méndez Rodenas, covers seminal women travelers in Latin America such as Flora Tristan, the French-Peruvian writer and social activist, as well as contemporary writers who address the theme of travel. Scholarly contributions include essays by critics on Tristan; on writer, artist, and ecologist Maria Sibylla Merian, who traveled to Suriname in 1699 to research and document insects and flora; on Victorian Scotswoman Lady Florence Dixie, who wrote about her adventures in Patagonia; and on Countess Paula Kollonitz, the lady-in-waiting to Empress Carlota, during Maximilian’s ill-fated reign in Mexico. The essays are complemented by illuminating texts by the travelers themselves. Other contributions include fiction by modern and contemporary writers, including the late Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Argentine novelist Pola Oloixarac, Mexico-based U.S. author Michael Schuessler, and Chilean writer Carlos Franz. The issue also features an essay by art critic Alicia Lubowski on the influence of Humboldt on women traveler-artists and includes reviews of new titles in translation by Latin American and Caribbean writers.
THE AMERICAS SOCIETY
680 Park Ave. (Park Ave. @ 68th St.), NYC
Admission: FREE for AS and CCCNY Members; $10.00 for non-members.
SPACE IS LIMITED / RESERVE EARLY
For guaranteed seating, please click on the following links:
http://as.americas-society.org/calevent.php?id=1343 – 5.16.12
http://as.americas-society.org/calevent.php?id=1345 – 5.17.12
http://as.americas-society.org/calevent.php?id=1346 – 5.18.12
This event is organized and sponsored by Americas Society, in collaboration with the Cuban Cultural Center of New York.