On April 23rd, Garifuna artist Andy Palacio presented a talk entitled, "How Does One Assign Value to Culture?" The discussion, which explored the history, music and cultural survival of the Garifuna, also featured a special acoustic performance by this renowned musician. Andy Palacio is not only the most popular musician in Belize, he is also a serious music and cultural archivist with a deep commitment to preserving his unique Garifuna culture (read more about Garifuna culture). Long a leading proponent of Garifuna popular music and a tireless advocate for the maintenance of the Garifuna language and traditions, in December 2004 he was appointed Cultural Ambassador and Deputy Administrator of the National Institute of Culture and History. Listen to the presentation.
On April 11, Mexico City writer, director and producer Julio Solórzano Foppa presented a talk entitled, "Human Rights in Guatemala." In particular, his lecture addressed the case of his mother, Alaíde Foppa, who was kidnapped and disappeared by the Guatemalan Army in 1980. As Alaíde Foppa was a feminist, poet, art critic and university professor, Mr. Solórzano Foppa discussed their efforts for justice in Guatemala. An audio recording of the discussion will be posted online soon.
On March 27th, University of Houston anthropology professor Christine Kovic presented a talk entitled, "Central American Migrants and Mexico's Southern Border: Human Rights and the Criminalization of Poor Workers." Professor Kovic's previous research explores issues of indigenous rights and the Catholic Church in highland Chiapas. Her presentation focused on her recent research on the human rights of Central American migrants crossing southern Mexico in their journey to the United States.
On March 6th, Professors Derek Jinks and Scott Sullivan of the University of Texas School of Law presented a talk entitled, “Rule of Law in Wartime: The Issues and the Academic Program.” Jinks and Sullivan, along with a few of their students, discussed their unique law seminar, in which students work closely with the instructors in the legal representation of individuals detained at the US military base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The casework serves as a vehicle for the exploration of several issues that have broader jurisprudential significance for the role of law in war, and topics covered in the course include the designation of persons as “enemy combatants;” military tribunals; detention; interrogation; and the role of the judiciary in time of war. An audio recording of the talk can be accessed here.
On February 20th, Professor Robert D. King of the University of Texas Linguistics Department presented a talk entitled, "Language Rights?" King's lecture addressed various language issues, such as whether English should be declared the official language of the United States and what rights we have or should have in regard to language. Professor King is the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Regents Chair of Jewish Studies and Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Linguistics Department at UT. His most recent publications include Nehru and the Language Politics of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996) and “Does One Nation Equal One Language?” (The Atlantic Monthly, April 1997). The thread running through his current work is the relationship among language, ethnicity, nationhood, and politics in the largest sense of the word.
On February 5th, the Rapoport Center welcomed our first speaker for the Spring 2007 Human Rights Happy Hour! Author Rachel Holmes presented a reading and discussion of her most recent book, African Queen: the Real Life of the Hottentot Venus (2007). African Queen is a probing look at historical racism and sexual exploitation presented through the life of an extraordinary woman, Saartjie Baartmen, the so-called Hottentot Venus, exhibited in 1810 in London and Paris. Holmes is a writer, broadcaster, columnist and reviewer, as well as an activist on behalf of HIV positive people in South Africa.
On April 12th and 13th, the Rapoport Center co-sponsored a conference organized by students of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. The conference, entitled "Gender, Globalization and Governance," explored various themes related to gender, globalization and governance, including women's human rights activism, violence, challenges of the feminization of migration, women in the informal labor market, and the gendered nature of the HIV/AIDS crisis. For more information, please visit the conference website or read the Press Release.
The fourth annual conference on Activist Scholarship in the Americas took place on February 22-24. Abriendo Brecha IV drew together scholars, activists, artists and others whose research and creative intellectual work is developed and carried out in alignment with communities, organizations, movements or networks working for social justice. This year’s conference theme was "Public Education, Marginalized Publics, and the Politics of Insurgency." The conference explored how research, and intellectual and artistic production can engage with issues of public education, broadly defined. The Rapoport Center co-sponsored a panel entitled, "Human Rights Clinics in Latin America," which featured a discussion with four human rights experts on existing types of clinics in Latin America, the relationships between the clinics and their clients, the pedagogical methodology used, the way cases are selected, and the possibility of creating a human rights clinic at the University of Texas. Also, Rapoport Center Human Rights Scholar Annelies Lottman was featured in the workshop, "The Living Newspapers Across the Disciplines and The Free Minds Project," along with several people involved with community activism, including the Humanities Institute’s Living Newspapers Program and The Free Minds Project. The discussion focused on performance as an educational and political tool for human rights and justice. For more information, please visit the conference website.
On February 9th, a select group of faculty representing a range of academic disciplines gave presentations on both quantitative and qualitative field research methodologies. The workshop also covered details about the application process for the Center for Latin American Social Policy's (CLASPO) Summer Funding Program. Finally, Rapoport Center Human Rights Scholars Elise Harriger and Rachel Lopez provided information about internship opportunities in Latin America. The worshop was co-sponsored by CLASPO, LLILAS and the Rapoport Center. For more information, please see the workshop program , or contact Paloma Diaz, at (512) 471-8593 or diazlobos@mail.utexas.edu.
On February 1st through 3rd, the Rapoport Center co-sponsored the 27th Annual Conference of the Institute of Latin American Studies Student Association (ILASSA), the oldest student-run academic conference on Latin America in the world. Nearly 100 undergraduate and graduate students from Texas and the U.S., as well as Canada, Bolivia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Europe presented their research. Student research varied in academic discipline and subject, but included remittances and the economics of immigration, national identity, social movements, and indigenous rights. Discussion moderated by UT faculty and doctoral candidates followed each student presentation. For more information, please visit the conference website or contact Catherine Pees Scott at (512) 659-8426 or cpscott@mail.utexas.edu.
On December 1st and 2nd, the Rapoport Center hosted a conference on "The Life and Legacy of George Lister: Reconsidering Human Rights, Democracy and U.S. Foreign Policy." The conference was co-sponsored by the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies and the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law.
Called "Mr. Human Rights" by historian Arthur Schlesinger, George Lister served at the State Department for six tumultuous decades, from the 1940s until 2002. Lister was particularly effective at drawing attention to the cause of human rights in Latin America, serving as the Department's first Human Rights Officer in the Latin American bureau. Lister's papers were donated to the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas in July 2005, providing the Rapoport Center an opportunity to initiate critical research and discussion on the institutionalization of human rights in U.S. foreign policy, and, more generally, on the struggle to promote human rights in Latin America.
The conference used Lister as a launching point for exploring various themes related to human rights policy development, including the institutionalization of human rights in U.S. foreign policy decision-making, the relationship between NGOs and the State Department, and the role of mid-level bureaucrats in shaping U.S. foreign policy. As Lister was a specialist in Latin America, U.S. foreign policies towards Latin America formed the basis of a large portion of the discussion, with special emphasis on the countries where Lister was most involved.
View photographs from the conference here (photos courtesy of Tracy Wahl) and video of the conference proceedings here (video courtesty of Donald Dodson). More information on Lister may be found on the conference home page and on our George Lister Resources page.
On Thursday, October 5th, the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice joined 200 other schools in 44 states in a nationwide, day-long teach-in on the detentions in Guantánamo. The day’s events included a real-time webcast of panel discussions followed by a live photo presentation, play reading and discussion of the role of the arts in human rights advocacy.
A video of the play reading, "Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," can be viewed here. Human Rights Scholar Annelies Lottmann produced the performance and several of the actors are UT Law students, including Human Rights Scholars Rachel Lopez and Radney Wood.
Read more about this multi-media event in the press release. Additional information about the Guantanamo Teach-In and the Panel Schedule may be found by clicking on these links, and by visiting the Guantanamo Teach-In page at Seton Hall Law School .
On September 25th, the Rapoport Center welcomed our first speaker for the Fall 2006 Human Rights Happy Hour! Professor Thomas Franck of New York University presented a talk entitled, "State Responsibility in the Era of Individual Criminal Culpability." The presentation was based on Professor Franck’s current representation of Bosnia in its genocide case against Serbia before the International Court of Justice.
On October 9th, Professor Liliana Obregon of the Universidad de los Andes Law School in Bogotá, Colombia presented a talk entitled, "A Historical Look at the Inter-American System of Human Rights." Professor Obregon specializes in the history and theory of international law and international institutions in Latin America, and also studies comparative systems of human rights protection and third world approaches to international law.
On October 23rd, Professor Amr Shalakany of the American University in Cairo, Egypt, presented a talk entitled, "Comparative Law as Archeology: On Sodomy, Islamic Law and the Human Rights Activist." Professor Shalakany served as legal advisor to the PLO Negotiations Support Unit in Ramallah during the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process and has taught at Harvard Law School and Birzeit University.
On November 6th, Denise Gilman of Georgetown University Law Center presented a talk entitled, "Calling the United States' Bluff: How Sovereign Immunity Undermines the United States' Claim to an Effective Domestic Human Rights System." Ms. Gilman has worked for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights First, and the Washington Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights and Urban Affairs.
On Monday, November 20th, Dr. Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology in Mexico presented a talk entitled, "Indigenous Peoples of Mexico and their Struggles for Rights: Gender Perspective on Cultural Citizenship." Dr. Hernández Castillo is an anthropologist and activist who lived in Chiapas for fifteen years. She is currently exploring new and old opportunities for power through indigenous women, collective organization, and daily resistance by analyzing the comparative histories of indigenous women's initiatives in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Veracruz.
More information about the Happy Hour speakers in the series may be found on our Human Rights Speaker Series page.
On Thursday, November 9th, the Rapoport Center co-sponsored a speaker event entitled, "Weaving Consciousness: Women and Indigenous Identity in Chiapas, Mexico." Celia Santiz Ruiz, founding member of the Mayan women's weaving cooperative, Jolom Mayaetik, spoke about her experiences as an indigenous woman living in Chiapas, Mexico. The event was co-sponsored by ILASSA, Humanities Institute, Center for Women's and Gender Studies, College of Liberal Arts, LLILAS, and the Mexican Center. For more information, please contact Kristen Petros at kpetros@mail.utexas.edu.
On Wednesday, November 15th, the Rapoport Center presented “Immigrants and U.S. Workers: The Paradox of Non-Citizen Worker Rights,” a talk with Michele Wucker, author of LOCKOUT: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right. Wucker’s discussion addressed several challenging questions: “Who benefits from competing proposals to either make it easier for foreign-born workers to get jobs legally, or to make it harder for those who came here under wink-wink-nod-nod laws to continue to live and work in this country? What kinds of policies will best balance the economic interests of immigrant workers and U.S. citizens? Can protecting the rights of non-citizens paradoxically leave U.S. citizens better off?” The event was taped for public access television by the local chapter of the ACLU. You can read more about Wucker and her publications here.
On Monday, November 20th, the Rapoport Center cosponsored a free public screening of local filmmaker Heather Courtney’s critically acclaimed documentary “Letters from the Other Side,” a film about Mexican immigration. What made the screening so special was that the women featured in the film were finally granted Visitor Visas eight months after they were initially denied, and they were at the screening to talk with the audience in a Q&A directly following the film. The theater where the event took place was sold out, with many people sitting on the floor! you can read more about the film and watch a trailer here.