Date/Time: 28th April 2017, 09:30 - 18:00 followed by drinks reception

Venue: Research Beehive, Old Library Building

Funded by Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Newcastle University, co-sponsored by School of Modern Languages.

View the Provisional Programme (PDF 204KB) 

Keynote speaker:

Dr Kerstin Oloff, Durham University

'Monsters of Neoliberalism: The Human-as-Waste in the Sacrifice Zone'

Monstrous figures (including cannibals, zombies and sirens) have long registered systemic relations of inequality, environmental exhaustion, as well as, more recently, the growth of a permanent "surplus population.“

In this talk, Kerstin will consider the recent spike in monstrous narratives from the Hispanic Caribbean within a world-systemic context and situate the noticeable cross-fertilisation of monstrous narratives across national and regional boundaries within the larger historical context.

This will allow some insights into the emergent "transitional aesthetic" of more recent times.

Call for Papers

The art of bregar, coined by Arcadio Díaz Quiñones (2000), describes the constant sheer hard work involved in navigating with the positive and negative processes of everyday life. Across the Caribbean and Latin America, the art of bregar describes not only historical and cultural heritage, but also describes the unpretentious mechanisms of coping that constantly create new concepts and new intricacies of heritage and imaginaries in the present day.

The essence of bregar acknowledges the dynamic processes involved in passing on knowledge and is fundamental to academia and cultural production. In this conference, we encourage papers that celebrate and encapsulate the struggle for diversity and creativity within the humanities and social sciences that advance our understanding of the intangible nature of heritages and everyday living.

We welcome papers for a 15-20 minute presentation from all disciplines and particularly encourage papers from: film, heritage, art, dance, music, modern languages, literature, history, fine art, media, theology, and education.

The deadline for abstracts is Friday 10th March 17:00.

Find out how to book accommodation