Latino/Latin American Studies fall series begins Sept. 19

The Latino/Latin American Studies fall 2017 series kicks off Sept. 19 with a speech from a University of Minnesota professor.

Dr. Bianet Castellanos, associate professor of American Studies, will speak on “Touring Maya Culture: Indigenous Migration and Tourism in Neoliberal Mexico” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 19, at the Founders Room (room 170), Quadrangle Building, Saint John’s University.

Her speech, which is free and open to the public, is the first of three themed speeches this fall on the topic of “Indigenous Cultures and Colonial Legacies in the Americas.”

Castellanos’ research interests focus on indigenous communities in the Americas and their relationship to the modern nation-state and global capitalism.

Her first book, “A Return to Servitude: Maya Migration and the Tourist Trade in Cancún” (University of Minnesota Press, 2010), examines the foundational role indigenous people play in the development of tourism and transnational spaces in Mexico.

She co-edited a collection of essays, entitled “Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Toward a Hemispheric Approach” (University of Arizona Press, 2012), that examines indigenous lives across the Américas.

She recently published an essay on Maya women’s migration stories published as part of the special issue “Critical Latinx Indigeneities” of the journal Latino Studies, and edited a special forum “Settler Colonialism in Latin America,” which is forthcoming in the December issue of American Quarterly.

The fall series concludes with presentations Oct. 23 (Tzotzil Maya poet and playwright Ruperta Bautista Vásquez) and Nov. 14 (agricultural expert Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin).