The CCCNY resumes its celebration of Women’s History Month with an eye-opening presentation on Puerto Rican educator, journalist, and philosopher Eugenio María de Hostos and his daring proclamation for women’s equality in his groundbreaking series of lectures to the members of the Academy of Fine Letters in Santiago de Chile in 1873.
Hostos scholar Orlando José Hernández will bring to light the revolutionary nature of Hostos’s proposal, placing it in its historical and political context. An advocate and activist for Puerto Rican independence, Hostos had arrived in Chile at the end of 1871, as part of his journey throughout South America, which he had undertaken to promote support for Cuba´s War of Independence. Although Hostos’s propositions were found by many to be divisive, he was undeterred. In his lectures, he set out to prove that women were entitled to equal rights, and claimed:
- That men were responsible for the oppression of women and that, in fact, they had shaped and legislated the terms of that oppression for their own benefit;
- That men and women were intellectually and morally equal;
- That women deserved the right to an education on equal terms with men;
- That men would be happier and live to their fullest by accepting the transformation of the relationship with their female companions and supporting women´s right to an education;
- That women were the single most important factor for change in Latin America.
The lecture will be followed by a Q&A with the audience via Zoom, moderated by Ricardo Gil, director of our History Program.
This special history event is part of our CreateNYC Language Access Series on Cuban History, Art, and Literature. It will be held in Spanish.
DUE TO THE COVID PANDEMIC, THIS PROGRAM WILL BE STREAMED THROUGH OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL.
Please click on this link on the scheduled date and time:
https://youtu.be/HxG4LZ5OZCQ
Orlando José Hernández, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Hostos Community College-CUNY and co-coordinator of the Hostos 180 National Commission. Born in Puerto Rico, he has excelled as a writer and translator, and is widely considered one of the leading scholars on Eugenio María de Hostos‘s work, having recovered numerous unpublished and uncollected works by the multifaceted Puerto Rican writer. Hernández is the author of various critical essays on contemporary Latin American and Spanish authors, among them, José Lezama Lima, Hugo Margenat, Dionisio Cañas, David Cortés and Alfredo Margenat. He has also published several notable translations: En barco de papel/In a Paper Boat, by Eugenio María de Hostos; Antología, by Elizabeth Bishop; Hungry Dust/Polvo hambriento, by Graciany Miranda Archilla; and the forthcoming books New York Fragments by Dionisio Cañas, and ¿Quién preside? by Hostos. He is presently working on rescued texts by Hostos, soon to be published: Documentos de la Liga de Patriotas Puertorriqueños and Correspondencia entre Eugenio María de Hostos y el Dr. Manuel Guzmán Rodríguez, 1898-1903. Both works will be included in Cuadernos Hostosianos, sponsored by Comisión Nacional Hostos 180. Dr. Hernández presently resides in Hoboken, New Jersey and Río Piedras, Puerto Rico.
This event is being held in celebration of Women’s History Month, and is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature.
With the promotional cooperation of
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