PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Brown University will host a series of public lectures, exhibitions, and films during the 2007-08 academic year with a focus on issues facing Latin America.

“The issues and challenges that face the nations of Latin America are neither recent nor entirely contained within their borders. They are, in fact, an important and growing element of our own domestic affairs and the welfare of the hemisphere,” said Brown President Ruth J. Simmons. “Brown University has considerable research and instructional strength in Latin American studies, including the political, economic, social, artistic and cultural factors facing the future of Latin America. This ‘Year of Focus on Latin America’ is an excellent opportunity to understand those challenges and consider possible international responses.”

The year’s inaugural event, on Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007, will feature Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil, and Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile, discussing social and economic inequality in Latin America. Lagos and Cardoso are professors-at-large at Brown, based at the Watson Institute for International Studies. Their talk, titled “Inequality in Latin America: A Presidential Dialogue,” also inaugurates the Watson Institute’s new “Globalization and Inequality Initiative,” which will include research projects, workshops and a lecture series of the same name. The talk begins at 4 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101. The Watson Institute will offer a Webcast live and then in its video archives at www.watsoninstitute.org/stream/?event_id=973

Cardoso and Lagos are in residence for October at the Watson Institute, where they are collaborating on study groups and interactive sessions with students. The former presidents will also lead an internal workshop for scholars in economics and social development titled “Inequality in Latin America: Politics and Policy.”

Additional events in the “Year of Focus on Latin America” include:

• October 1, 2007
  “City of God and Beyond: Broadening the Spectrum of Representation (a Conversation on Contemporary Brazilian Cinema),” with Leandro Firmino (City of God’s Zé Pequeno) and Luis Nascimento of Nós do Cinema. Since the making of the film City of God (2002), Nós do Cinema has been bringing education and awareness through film. Five years later members from Nós do Cinema share their unique experience in audiovisual education and community building in Brazil. Presented by the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies, the discussion takes place in the Joukowsky Forum at the Watson Institute.
• October 4, 2007
  The Center for Latin American Studies and the John Carter Brown Library co-host the annual Maury Bromsen Lecture at 5:30 p.m. at the John Carter Brown Library. The event will include a talk by Karen Racine, professor at the University of Guelph, and remarks by Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera. Racine’s lecture is titled “Love, Liberty and Lobbying: The Transatlantic Life of Francisco de Miranda, Precursor to Spanish American Independence.” Herrera will speak on the legacy of Francisco de Miranda. The event will celebrate both Francisco de Miranda’s role in Latin American independence as well as his relationship with Brown.
• October 11, 2007
  The Center for Latin American Studies Cuba Film series presents Cuba Feliz at 7 p.m. at the Watson Institute. Seventy-six-year-old Cuban street musician Miguel Del Morales, known as El Gallo (The Rooster), travels around Cuba with his guitar, making music in the homes of friends, in bars, and on street corners, in courtyards and stairwells. His rich voice, colored by a lifetime of cigarettes and rum, weathered by the sun and rain, bespeaks the joys and sufferings of his countrymen. An urban troubadour, Del Morales has been called “a living memory of Cuban bolero.”
• October 18, 2007
  Jorge Domínguez, Harvard University professor and vice provost for international affairs, will give a talk titled “Race, Nation, Revolution and Communist Rule in Cuba” at 7 p.m. in the Joukowsky Forum at the Watson Institute. Domínguez’s talk is part of the Cuba Lecture Series sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies’ Caribbean Initiative.
• October 22, 2007
  Peter Smith of the University of California–San Diego will deliver a lecture titled “Hugo and George: Latin America’s Pink Wave and the United States,” at 6 p.m. in the Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer St.
• October 25, 2007
  The Center for Latin American Studies Cuba Film series presents El Super at 7 p.m. at the Watson Institute. Directed by Leon Ichaso and Orlando Jimenez Leal, the film is a slice-of-life look at Roberto and Aurelia, Cuban exiles living in New York City with their 17-year-old daughter Aurelita. Roberto is homesick for Cuba, stuck in repetitive conversations about the Bay of Pigs, Castro, and life back home.
• October 29, 2007
  Colombian Ambassador to the United States Carolina Barco Isakson will speak at Brown during Parents’ Weekend on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 001, in an event sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies.
• November 1, 2007
  Opening reception for Positivism in Brazil, a new exhibition at the John Hay Library. This exhibit highlights the wide-ranging interests and activities of the Positivist movement in Brazil by displaying Positivist holdings in Brown University’s Hay Library Special Collections. The collection reveals not only the varied interests of Positivist thinkers, which range from immigration and women’s rights to orthographic standardization, but also the systematic approach and extent to which the Positivist church in Brazil carried forth its plans for social reformation. The library acquired the majority of the materials on display from Brown alumnus Benjamin Moser. The exhibition will be on display through Dec. 21, 2007.
• November 2, 2007
  Katherine Hagedorn of Pomona College will discuss “Improvisation and its Discontents: Geography, Race and Metaphors or Variability in Afro-Cuban Religious Performance.” Presented by the Center for Latin American Studies Cuba Lecture Series.
• November 7, 2007
  Susan Stokes, Department of Political Science, Yale University will discuss “Globalization, the Welfare Gap, and the Rise of the Left in Latin America,” presented by the Colloquium on Comparative Research and co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies. Her talk begins at 5 p.m. at the Watson Institute, 111 Thayer St.
• November 8, 2007
  The Center for Latin American Studies Cuba Film Series presents The Cuban Hip Hop All-Stars (2004), directed by Joshua Bee Alafia, at 7 p.m. at the Watson Institute. The film captures the quick rise of Cuban hip hop during its infancy. Focusing on the social issues that drive the musical genre in Cuba, such as police violence, and interviews with rising stars such as Obsecion and Explosion Suprema, Alafia creates a thorough portrait of a burgeoning scene.
• November 10, 2007
• in the Novel,” (as part of the 2007 Novel Conference), with eminent Brazilian literary critical and cultural theorist Roberto Schwarz (University of Campinas, Brazil), is presented by the Department of English, the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, and the Center for Latin American Studies at a location to be announced.
• November 15, 2007
  Lillian Guerra of Yale University will deliver a lecture titled “To Condemn the Revolution is to Condemn Christ: National Redemption and the Sacrifice of Civil Society, 1960-1961.” This event, presented by the Center for Latin American Studies Cuba Lecture Series, begins at 7 p.m. at the Watson Institute.
• November 23, 2007
  Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons visits Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico, at the Catedra Julio Cortazar.
• November 28, 2007
  Matthew Steele of the Program for Applied Technologies in Health presents “Introduction of New Health Technologies in the Developing World: Examples from Latin America,” at 6:30 p.m. at the Watson Institute. This is part of the center for Latin American Studies Lecture Series.
• November 29, 2007
  The Center for Latin American Studies Cuba Film Series presents Vampiros en la Habana, directed by Juan Padrón. The film tells the story of a scientist who invents a potion that allows vampires to be able to live under the rays of the sun. When the word gets out to the vampires of the world, they fly to Cuba to gain control of the potion. It becomes a battle between the American and the East European vampires. The screening will be held at the Watson Institute at 7 p.m.

Additional events scheduled during the spring semester include a Brazilian Film Festival in March; a visit and lecture by acclaimed Mexican writer, critic, and Brown professor-at-large Carlos Fuentes, as part of the Transatlantic Conference; a conference on the Andean region featuring ambassadors from Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia, along with other top regional scholars.