The Puerto Rican Studies Association (PRSA) announces the availability of the Preliminary Program for its 10th Biennial Conference, which will take place on October 24–28, 2012, at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). This year’s conference will mark PRSa’s 20th Anniversary. In addition, we have posted on our website a system for online conference pre-registation at discounted rates.
Pre-Registering for the Conference
The deadline for discounted pre-registration rates for the conference is September 15th. PRSA will post updated information on hotel reservations by mid-June.
To pre-register for the conference, please follow the instructions available on the 2012 Conference Pre-Registration page on this website.
Preliminary Program Highlights:
The conference will feature over 200 active participants presenting or performing their research and creative art works in over 60 panels, performances, film screenings and special presentations focusing on a wide range of themes and topics, including:
- Two Plenary Sessions on “Diasporas and Latinidades”;
- A “Conversations with Diasporican Writers”
- Geographical Dispersal and Overlapping Diasporas;
- Puerto Rico as a Diasporic Space;
- Boricuas, African-Americans, Cubans, Dominicans, “Gringo-Ricans,” Mexican-Americans, and West Indians, in Comparative Perspective;
- Critical Race Studies;
- Dominican Studies in the US;
- Education, from K-12 through higher education;
- Frank Bonilla’s Legacy in Puerto Rican and Latina\Latino Studies;
- Gender and Sexuality;
- History and Historical Archives;
- Latinos and Latinas in the Military;
- Literature, from the Diaspora to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic;
- Media Studies, including Film, Websites and Social Media;
- Music, Classical to Salsa and Reggaetón;
- Politics, including Citizenship, Colonialism, Radicalism in the 1960s and 1970s, and Contemporary Social Movements;
- Public Health and Medicine;
- Sports, baseball and basketball, as well as professional and international sports leagues and competitions.
Geographical regions examined and represented in these panels and performances stretch from California to Florida; Chicago to El Paso, Texas; New York to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Conference participants include scholars, artists, community organizers, higher education administrators, and graduate students from colleges and universities located not only in the US and Puerto Rico, but in Canada and Europe, as well.
In keeping with PRSA’s goal of fostering the career development of new generations of scholars, the conference will feature the participation more than 50 graduate and undergraduate students from both the US and Puerto Rico.
The Preliminary Conference Program also includes:
- Two Career Development Workshops for Junior Faculty and Graduate Studets;
- Film and Photography Exhibits documenting PRSA’s history, as well as Puerto Ricans and other Latinos and Latinas;
- An unprecedented number of music performances and a dance celebrating PRSA’s 20th Anniversary, with Cocomama, an outstanding all-women salsa band.
Keynote Address and Awards Ceremony
Dr. Arturo Madrid, Trinity University
In the spirit of the conference theme, “Boricuas and Other Border Crossers: Of Diaspora and Latinidades,” this year’s Keynote Address will be delivered by Dr. Arturo Madrid, The Norene R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. Madrid is the Founding President of The Tomás Rivera Center (Claremont, CA; San Antonio, TX), and the author, most recently, of In the Country of Empty Crosses: The Story of a Hispano Protestant Family in Catholic New Mexico (2012), which Sandra Cisneros has called “a history history forgot, a story older than Plymouth Rock,” while John Phillip Santos has praised it as “a bravura performance of ancestral imagination.” This beautifully written and elegantly crafted book includes a superb collection of images by photographer Miguel Gandert.
Among Dr. Madrid’s numerous awards, he has received the Distinguished Scholar Award, from the National Association of Chicano Studies; the Matt García Service Award, from the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF); and the Tomás Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award, University of California at Riverside, as well as several honorary degrees.
In addition to his role at The Tomás Rivera Center, Dr. Madrid has been a Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He has served as a member of the board of directors of the National Chicano Council for Higher Education; the Latino\a Journal of Research & Policy; Arte Público Press; the Inter-University Program for Latino Research; the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education; and the Universidad Autónoma de México Foundation, among many others.
Dr. Madrid earned his B.A. from the University of New Mexico, in Spanish and Comparative Literature, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. He had earlier teaching appointments at the University of Minnesota, the University of California at San Diego, and Dartmouth College.
Following Dr. Madrid’s Keynote Address, PRSA will announce the recipients of two prizes: the 2012 Book Award in Puerto Rican Studies –named in honor of the late Frank Bonilla, one of the most signally distinguished, centrally foundational figures in our field– and the 2012 Ph.D. Dissertation Award.
Click here to access the 2012 Conference Preliminary Program (PDF file).
To pre-register for the conference, please follow the instructions on the 2012 Conference Pre-Registration page.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please send us a message using the “Contact Us” form available on our website, or by calling our Secretariat at Cornell University at (607) 255-3197.
