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Latin American Short Stories Reading Group – November
November 12 @ 6:30 pm
VLACC, in partnership with UBC, is thrilled to present the November session of our reading group. This program invites all who are interested in exploring short stories by Latin American authors.
Join us on Tuesday, November 12, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm at the Britannia Community Centre’s Conference Room for a lively discussion of Woman on the Riverbank and Frogs (2019) from the book Songs for the Flames by Juan Gabriel Vásquez. The session will be facilitated by Professor Pilar Riaño-Alcalá.
Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Time: 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Location: Conference Room (Britannia Community Services Centre) 1661 Napier St, Vancouver, BC V5L 4X4
Both stories are available in the original Spanish and English translations, with the discussion taking place in English. No prior knowledge of Latin American literature or culture is necessary. Everyone is welcome!
Links to the stories:
English https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Tf264829Nds3Al7MwrxhOlPBaSbWoWeU?usp=drive_link
Spanish https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nQ0e1bXlnVkMmbKOFat2cW6zMRwGJVXD?usp=drive_link
About the facilitator
Pilar Riaño-Alcalá is a professor at the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia and co-lead of the Transformative Memory International Network. As an anthropologist and interdisciplinary scholar, her research focuses on historical memory, social repair, forensics of care, and the lived experiences of violence in the afterlives of mass violence. Pilar explores the ethnography of memory through oral history, sound memory, and social practice art. She is particularly interested in the politics of knowledge and epistemic justice, using creative and relational methodologies that integrate different forms of emplaced and relational knowing and emphasize action and change in knowledge production. Her current projects include Transformative Memory: An International Network; Exhumations and Reburial in Colombia, and Sacred Responsibilities to Water, a Canada-Colombia Indigenous Knowledge Exchange. Pilar’s published works include Avanzar a tientas. Memorias, violencias y producción de conocimiento; Dwellers of Memory: Youth and Violence in Medellín, Colombia (Transaction Publishers, 2006, ebook Routledge, 2017) , and Poniendo Tierra de por Medio: Migración Forzada de Colombianos en Colombia, Ecuador y Canadá, alongside numerous journal articles in Memory Studies, International Journal of Transitional Justice, and more.
Pilar has collaborated for over two decades with public performance artist Suzanne Lacy on The Skin of Memory project, which has been featured in exhibitions worldwide, and Museo de Antioquia, Art Biennale. As a public intellectual, she has worked extensively with community organizations in Colombia and Uganda on historical memory initiatives, including her role as a researcher for the Historical Memory Group from 2008 to 2013. Pilar also advised the Museum of Historical Memory of Colombia on its conceptual development (2015-2018). Through her work, Pilar has made significant contributions to both scholarly discourse and community-based efforts aimed at justice, memory, and social transformation.
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