Showing posts with label University of Michigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University of Michigan. Show all posts

Friday, February 5, 2016

Today on Twitter #WhoWillBeNext #UMichChat

Join us today (Friday February 5, 2016, 12-1pm) as we explore methods to enhance diversity & promote equity throughout the University of Michigan. Featuring Royster Harper (Vice President for Student Life), Alexis Farmer (Ford School), Mark Kamimura (Rackham Graduate School) and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (American Culture, Latina/o Studies, Romance Languages, Women's Studies).  #UMichChat




Thursday, October 15, 2015

Save the Date! Conjuring the Caribbean: How Sweet It Is



Conjuring the Caribbean: How Sweet It Is

Symposium # Performance # Installation

December 7 to December 11, 2015

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Join artists, scholars and students in a five  day exploration of tourism, commercialism and gender identities. The symposiums calls for an interdisciplinary response to shifting imaginations about the power and potential of Caribbean studies viewed through the lens of a sugar-saturated past.

Keynote Speaker: Gaiutra Bahadur

Visiting Guest Artist/Scholars: Awilda Rodriguez Lora (independent artist), David Donkor (Texas A and M University), Nadine George (University of California, San Diego), Raquel Monroe (Columbia College, Chicago)

University of Michigan Scholars: Anita Gonzalez (Theatre and Drama), Vincent Mountain (Theatre and Drama), Aliyah Khan (English and DAAS), Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (Latino Studies and American Culture), Silvia Pedraza (Sociology and American Culture), Mbala Nkanga (Theatre and Drama), Alfreda Rooks (School of Public Health), Jocelyn Stitt (IRWG).

Co-sponsored by Institute for the Humanities, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Latina/o Studies, Center for World Performance, Department of African and African American Studies, and the School of Public Health.

For more information visit https://globaltheatremichigan.wordpress.com/conjuring-the-caribbean-how-sweet-it-is/.


Friday, April 17, 2015

15th Annual Latin@ Culture Show at the University of Michigan

15th Annual Latin@ Culture Show: Caminos, at the Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Image from 14th Annual Latin@ Culture Show with Lola von Miramar

Come out, come out, wherever you are! Tonight Michigan está de quinceañera! Yes! It's the 15th Annual Latin@ Culture Show and who is the host? The one and only Lola von Miramar, who is recovering from her cough but will be there with all of her wit and charm! Come to the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre at 7:00pm. In Ann Arbor, Michigan! Viva! See Facebook event here.


Sunday, November 9, 2014

Animal Acts: Performing Species Today on November 11 in Ann Arbor



Animal Acts: Performing Species Today edited by Holly Hughes and Una Chaudhuri
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
2239 Lane Hall
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Speakers:

Holly Hughes
Stamps School of Art & Design, School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Women's Studies

Clare Croft
School of Music, Theatre & Dance

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes
American Culture, Latina/o Studies, Women's Studies

Irina Aristarkhova
Stamps School of Art & Design, Women's Studies

We all have an animal story-the pet we loved, the wild animal that captured our childhood imagination, the deer the neighbor hit while driving. While scientific breakthroughs in animal cognition, the effects of global climate change and dwindling animal habitats, and the exploding interdisciplinary field of animal studies have complicated things, such stories remain a part of how we tell the story of being human.

Animal Acts: Performing Species Today (University of Michigan Press, 2014) is a collection of animal themed performance scripts by influential artists including Rachel Rosenthal, Deke Weaver, Joseph Keckler, Carmelita Tropicana and Holly Hughes accompanied by commentaries by leading scholars in the fields of animal and performance studies. The anthology foregrounds questions of race, gender, sexuality, class, nation, and other issues central to the human project within the discourse of the "post human."

This panel is part of our Gender: New Works, New Questions series, which features new works by U-M faculty that engage gender and sexuality.

Click here for the recommended readings: 

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Expresión artística, docencia e investigación: un innovador

Noticias
8 mayo, 2014

Expresión artística, docencia e investigación: un innovador

en Inglés



Vídeo en Inglés

Larry La Fountain-Stokes, Director de Estudios Latinos en la Universidad de Michigan presentó su libro “Abolición del pato” sobre su experiencia como performero y cómo el transformismo puede enfocar las áreas intencionalmente ignoradas de la historia.

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— Larry La Fountain-Stokes es un académico destacado internacionalmente, escritor homosexual puertorriqueño, autor de libros y actor que ha encontrado formas innovadoras para integrar las artes experimentales de actuación y el trabajo académico.

La Fountain-Stokes, Director de Estudios Latinos en la Universidad de Michigan, acaba de presentar su libro más reciente con relatos breves, “Abolición del pato”, en la Feria Internacional del Libro de Santo Domingo (República Dominicana). En el libro, cuyo título hace referencia al término derogatorio usado en Puerto Rico para los hombres homosexuales,  el autor observa las artes de actuación que experimentan con el transformismo o transvestismo para iluminar  aspectos más amplios de la sociedad.

“El uso experimental del vestuario en una actuación artística va más allá del género y la sexualidad y, en este caso, muestra asuntos tales como la pobreza, la historia de la esclavitud y la homofobia, analizando y criticando a la sociedad,  dijo La Fountain-Stokes a quien se ha descrito como un autor diaspórico,  de la diáspora puertorriqueña.

El show unipersonal del académico se presentó primero en San Germán, Puerto Rico, durante un festival de teatro experimental. El personaje principal es Lola Lolamento Mentosán de San Germán (actuado por La Fountain), y a quien acompañan Rigoberta Quetzal (pájaro y moneda en Guatemala) y la Ñusta, nombre quechua de las princesas del Imperio Inca, Isabel Chimpu Ocllo, dos muñecas indígenas que interactúan con él.

La Fountain inició su investigación acerca de la cultura homosexual puertorriqueña en los años noventa, y  fue uno de los primeros académicos que hizo de los estudios de homosexuales, estudios de género y estudios latinos el foco principal de su trabajo.

“Definitivamente había ya más apertura y menos hostilidad”, explica La Fountain, en comparación con la generación previa de académicos pioneros que sólo podían publicar esporádicamente artículos sobre estos asuntos.

La Fountain se convirtió en uno de los investigadores más respetados en ese terreno después de la publicación del libro “Queer Ricans. Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora” (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) en el cual analiza la migración homosexual, bisexual y transsexual puertorriqueña.

También es conocido por sus relatos breves, sus poesías y su trabajo de ficción. “Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails” (Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2009) incluye catorce relatos breves escritos en los años 1990 y comienzos de los 2000, algunos de los cuales produjo mientras estaba matriculado en un taller de escritura creativa dirigido por la autora chilena Diamela Eltit.

Actualmente La Fountain trabaja en un nuevo libro titulado “Translocas and Transmachas: Trans Diasporic Pueto Rican Drag” que cubre el teatro, las actuaciones y el activismo puertorriqueño y de la diáspora desde los años 1960, como asimismo los eslabones entre el transvestismo, la modificación de sexo/género, y el desplazamiento físico en una zona geográfica marcada por la migración frecuente.

La Fountain-Stokes enseña varias clases y seminarios sobre literatura latina a nivel de posgrado. Según sus estudiantes no sólo se le conoce por su compromiso con la enseñanza de autores conocidos y olvidados sino también como un ejemplo de trabajo pionero en investigación académica sobre expresión artística en sí y como marco flexible que destaca las áreas menos evidentes de las historias.

Contacto (español):
Vivianne Schnitzer
Teléfono: (734) 763-0368

Portal en Español
Universidad de Michigan
© Todos los derechos reservados
2012 Los Regentes de la University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 EEUU




Professor Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (Michigan News Video in English)



When performance art mixes with research about homosexuality in Latin America

May 16, 2014 Contact Vivianne Schnitzer (University of Michigan News Service)

ANN ARBOR—Larry La Fountain-Stokes is a leading international scholar, writer and performer who has found innovative ways to combine experimental performance art with scholarly work.

He has a special interest in Puerto Rican literature and gay culture. The associate professor at the University of Michigan also stages his own solo performances with dolls to tell the story of slavery and homosexuality in Puerto Rico and other parts of Latin America.

"Contemporary Puerto Rican performance artists use drag and cross dressing in very interesting ways to talk about issues of race, poverty and marginality," said La Fountain-Stokes, director of Latina/o studies at U-M.
His most recent book is a collection of short stories, "Abolición del Pato" or "Abolition of the Duck." In Puerto Rico, "duck" is a derogatory term for homosexual men. La Fountain-Stokes recently presented the book at the International Book Fair of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

La Fountain-Stokes began his research about gay Puerto Rican culture in the 1990s and was one of the first scholars to make gay studies, gender studies and Latina/o studies the principal focus of his work. Referring to the environment previous scholars in the field worked in, he said, "Definitely, there is more openness and less hostility now."

He is currently working on a new book, "Translocas and Transmachas: Trans Diasporic Puerto Rican Drag," which covers theater, performance and activism since the 1960s as well as cross-dressing, sex/gender modification and physical displacement.

Related Links:

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lawrlafo and http://ow.ly/wSXPb

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Michigan News
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Phone: (734) 764 7260


Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Recordando a Julia de Burgos (VIDEO): clase en la Universidad de Míchigan


En el centenario del natalicio de la poeta puertorriqueña Julia de Burgos (17 de febrero de 1914—6 de julio de 1953) aprovecho para compartir este video producido por la talentosa Vivianne Schnitzer sobre una clase de español en la Universidad de Míchigan, Ann Arbor, el 4 de febrero de 2008 en la que discutimos la obra de esta autora, específicamente su primer libro Poema en veinte surcos (1938), resaltando los temas del feminismo, la raza, su interés en la Revolución bolchevique, su preocupación por la Guerra Civil Española y su compromiso con la figura de Federico García Lorca (1898-1936). También discutimos el ensayo de Rosario Ferré, "Carta a Julia de Burgos" (en Sitio a Eros, segunda ed. México: Editorial Joaquín Mortiz, 1986, 147-152) y el ensayo de Juan Gelpí, "El sujeto nómada en la poesía de Julia de Burgos" publicado en la revista Nómada [San Juan, PR] 2 (1995): 19-26 y la comparamos brevemente a la figura de Luisa Capetillo. Terminamos la clase con una lectura y discusión de "Pentacromía" por Maxime Foerster, incluyendo las referencias a Don Quijote y a Don Juan. Tal vez el detalle más bonito y conmovedor de nuestra clase es que ninguno de estos estudiantes era hispano, lo cual no les impidió acercarse de manera lúcida a la obra de la escritora boricua.


También aprovecho para compartir un video extraordinario producido por la querida amiga Natatcha Estébanez en el que la maestra puertorriqueña Glaisma Pérez-Silva lee "Ay, Ay, Ay de la Grifa Negra" por Julia de Burgos en Hartford, Connecticut, para el The Favorite Poem Project, 1999 (video bilingüe).

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Aravind Adyanthaya in Michigan




Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, this week! Performance and talk, Thursday, 6pm, G634 Haven Hall. Workshop, Friday, 1-5pm, requires preregistration: contact Larry La Fountain.

Thursday, January 19. The Latina/o Studies Program invites you to a performance by Puerto Rican artist Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya: "TRANSLATION/TRADUCCIÓN" with post-performance discussion. "TRANSLATION/TRADUCCIÓN" is an episode from Adyanthaya's piece "Prometheus Bound," a re-envisioning of Aeschylus' work. In this episode, Prometheus meets Io, a "cow-vaca woman".  The performance resembles a song, its lyrics ramifying through verbal and written scores, the rhythm of phonetics and the typing carrying it through. Body movements are often drawn from Latino popular singers and dancers, trying to explore the iconographic context of translation specific to the artist (a Puerto Rican living between the island and the mainland). What begins as Spanglish transforms into yet another idiosyncratic sign system.  The episode questions cultural images and specificity.  It dramatizes different registers of language precisely through this encounter with, Io, a maiden with the horns of an ox, a monster ("monstrua"), the other (foreign, creature, mutant, paradoxically the self) and in the untranslatable in it. The performance will be followed by a discussion about "escritura acto" and about Adyanthaya's work with Casa Cruz de la Luna, a grass roots experimental company based in the historical town of San Germán, Puerto Rico.  A short clip from "The Marquis de Sade is Afraid of the Sea", a project expanding escritura acto to a group/ensemble practice will be shown.  This presentation, which took place at a public square in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico will also serve as a springboard to talk about the different dynamics and politics involved in the occupation of public spaces. Cosponsored by Arts at Michigan/Course Connections, the Center for World Performance Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, and the School of Art and Design. Free and open to the public. 6pm, G634 Haven Hall.

Friday, January 20. "Escritura Acto" Workshop with Puerto Rican artist Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya. (4 hours, limited capacity, please contact Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes to pre-register.) "Escritura acto" is a form of theatrical poetics that explores the staging of the act of writing. Its setting is based on letting the spectators view the contents of what is written through a video projection of the document as it is being produced in the computer.  This mode of representation examines relationships between the writer and the written, the medium and the message, the audience/spectators and oral and written perceptions.  It also works to performatively explore notions of language hybridization and belonging in different cultural contexts. Automatic writing and contact improvisation principles will also be presented in the context of escritura acto. Some of the exercises will take the form of brief unipersonal and group pieces performed by the participants.  Participants can work in any language they choose. To register please contact Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes. 1:00-5:00pm, G634 Haven Hall.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

In Solidarity with MSA President Chris Armstrong



I oppose the harassment that Chris Armstrong, the elected student leader of the University of Michigan Student Assembly, is being subjected to by a state official.

I fully subscribe to the University of Michigan statement of support on his behalf.

I applaud Anderson Cooper's reporting on this topic and his open confrontation of Chris Armstrong's harasser.



Support Chris Armstrong by signing an online petition here. Let Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox know that Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell's behavior is unacceptable.

Also, please consider donating to the Spectrum Center, the University of Michigan's LGBT Student Center on campus. You can give by accessing an electronic donation link on the Spectrum Center home page. No amount is too small.

You can also give to the Spectrum Center's DOUBLE THE IMPACT Campaign at:
http://www.crowdrise.com/spectrumcenter