Mexico
Contemporary Mexico Through Art, Literature, and Cinema
June 21-28, 2009
Itinerary
This 8-day seminar takes place in the beautiful colonial city of Guanajuato. Click here to see the Summer 2009 Seminar itinerary.
Seminar Fee
CIEE Member: $2,300 Non-Member: $2,500
Academic Content (please note this is tentative and subject to change)
Lectures
- The Visual and Written City: the cultural explorer’s guide to Guanajuato
- Recent Trends in Mexican Art: who’s who on the contemporary art scene
- Themes of Social Justice, Resistance, and Revolution in Visual Mediums
- The Body and Identity in Contemporary Mexican Art
- La Generación del Crack: beyond the Boom to a more global Mexican literature
- Literature of the Border and Migration: writing from this side
- Mexican Jewish literature of the late 20th and early 21st century
- Nuevo Cine Mexicano: cinema from the 1990s to the present
- Mexico City in the Movies: the megalopolis in recent film
- Gender and youth culture in Mexican cinema
Co-curricular Site Visits & Field Trips
- City tour and trip down into the mines
- Museum visits – Diego Rivera, Olga Costa, Museo del Pueblo
- Gallery tour and reception
- Evening reading: a poetry and fiction reading with local writers
- Film viewing with facilitated discussion
- Day trip to San Miguel de Allende - crafts, shopping, galleries
- Noche Mexicana
Rationale
In the last several decades, Mexican creative work has shifted away from the now almost rote or stereotypical elements that much of its fame has rested upon. This seminar intends to take participants into the contemporary creative scene of the late 20th and early 21st century focusing on newer artists, writers and creators. We will go beyond the Boom, beyond Diego and Frieda, and beyond the nostalgic films of Mexico’s Golden Age. Participants will leave with a strong sense of who’s who, what new tendencies and themes are emerging, and how Mexican creative work dialogues with the nation’s larger intellectual, political, and social issues.
Host Institutions
Founded in 1732, the University of Guanajuato is ranked among the top institutions of higher education in Mexico. Currently there are approximately 21,000 students enrolled in various types of programs. Of these, about 8,000 are pursuing undergraduate degrees in 46 different disciplines. The university’s different faculties and departments are scattered around Guanajuato with the effect that its intellectual and cultural energy is felt throughout the community.
Seminar Leadership
Karen Rodríguez is the Director of the CIEE’s Center for Mexican Studies in Guanajuato, Mexico. She has taught cultural anthropology courses in Mexico and Venezuela, and has been a faculty member at Bard College’s Learning and Thinking Institute and Upward Bound’s summer program at Georgetown University. Her research interests include critical theory, psychoanalysis, and the intersections between writing, culture and subjectivity. She is currently working on a bilingual book of poetry about Mexican icons and the fetishization/iconization of space in Guanajuato. Her graduate work is in Cultural Studies, Applied Anthropology, and Latin American Studies.
Click on the links below to learn more about participating on an IFDS.