Conferences/Panels

XXVIII Annual ILASSA Student Conference

February 7-9, 2008
The University of Texas at Austin
Thompson Conference Center

General Information

The Institute of Latin American Studies Student Association (ILASSA) will host its 28th annual conference at The University of Texas February 7-9, 2008. This is the oldest student-run academic conference on Latin America in the United States, and it will include 23 panels with nearly 100 speakers.  Undergraduate and graduate students from Texas and the U.S., as well as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Japan, will present their research on a wide range of critical topics, including immigration, human rights, social movements, indigenous rights, and social policy.

Lucas Benitez, a farmworker and award-winning human rights activist from the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), will deliver the conference's opening address at the Thompson Conference Center on UT campus at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 7. For more information of the CIW, visit www.ciw-online.org/.

The closing speaker, Dr. Carlos Gaviria, will speak at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 9 also at the Thompson Conference Center. Dr. Gaviria is a Colombian lawyer, academic, and former magistrate. He was a co-author of Colombia's 1991 constitution and a presidential candidate in 2006.

The event is a major effort of ILASSA, an organization of graduate students in UT's Latin American Studies program. Additional sponsors include the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Brazil Center and Mexican Center of LLILAS, Departments of Anthropology, Geography and the Environment, Government, History, Sociology, and Spanish and Portuguese, College of Liberal Arts; Dept. of Radio-Television-Film, College of Communication; Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas; Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice; School of Law; Graduate School; Graduate Student Assembly; Texas Union Events CoSponsorship Committee; UT Co-op; and the Student Government.

The conference will take place at the Thompson Conference Center on the corner of Red River and Dean Keaton.  The entire event is free and open to the public, and no registration is required. Free parking is available along Red River, and maps are online.  For more information, contact Sean Sellers at 239.503.0535 or email.