LLC36: Latin American and Caribbean Culture: Literature and Music Project @ La Casita


About

We're a group of faculty with a strong desire for community engagement: using our expertise in Caribbean culture to offer to both students and members of the Latinx community a way to explore their cultural legacies via literature and music. As a Working Group, the faculty involved will also benefit from learning more about present day- Latinix cultural issues. We also plan to involve students from our colleges to lead several workshops.

Active since: 2022

Closed Group of Collaborators

  • Syracuse University
  • Colgate University
  • Hobart & William Smith Colleges

Collaborative Goals

Music as well as literature are very attractive and useful platforms from which to spring discussions about ethnic, race, and gender identities for many cultural groups, but they're of particular importance for Hispanic Caribbean cultures.(See works of B Aparicio and Quintero Rivera).

We aim to hold an inaugural event that aims at developing interest in the Latino community, in general, and in particular, junior/senior high school Latinx students, in their cultural heritage via a close reading of short stories, plays, and Hispanic Caribbean Music. The inaugural event will feature a live performance by The Caribbean Salsa Musical Group from Rochester, NY, a conversation on Tito Cure Alonso and the history of salsa in an inter-disciplinary context, and a reception for community members.

This inaugural event will showcase to the audience a series of bi-weekly workshops using literature to explore ethnicity, race, and gender in an inter-disciplinary manner. Emphasis will be given to develop the students' analytical and critical skills.

Group Organizers

Gail Bulman

Associate Professor, Spanish, Syracuse University

Fernando Rodríguez-Mansilla

Associate Professor of Spanish and Hispanic Studies, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Frederick Luciani

Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Africana and Latin American Studies, Colgate University

Lourdes Rojas-Paiewonsky

Charles A. Dana Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Africana and Latin American Studies, Emerita, Colgate University

Tere Paniagua

Executive Director, Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community Spanish, La Casita, Syracuse University