Latin American Studies Collections
Webinar on March 21st: Ukrainian Publishers and Literary Critics Speak
Ukraine Fights On: One Year Later
Ukrainian Publishers and Literary Critics Speak
In this second event, women publishers and literary critics from Ukraine will update us on the current state of publishing, the different strategies they are using to mitigate the tragic circumstances of their war, and how publishing has evolved since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Date: Mar 21, 2023
Time: 9:30 am PDT /12: 30 pm EDT/ 19:30 Kyiv Time
Duration: 1 hr. 15 min.
Language of Event: English.
All are welcome with prior registration.
Link for event registration: http://ucblib.link/ukrainefightson2
Speakers
- Iryna Baturevych co-founded the Chytomo media project (NGO), the largest independent media covering publishing and contemporary literary and cultural processes in Ukraine.
- Anastasia Bilousova is an editor and project manager at the RODOVID Press publishing house in Kyiv.
- Lidia Lykhach is the executive editor and founder of RODOVID Press.
Discussant
Aglaya Glebova is an Associate Professor in the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley.
Organizer: Dr. Liladhar R. Pendse, Librarian for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Armeno-Indica: Four Centuries of Familiarity and Friendship Conference at UCLA
Armeno-Indica: Four Centuries of Familiarity and Friendship
March 17 – March 18
This event is organized by the UCLA Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History.
Friday, March 17, 2023, | 10:00 AM – 6:30 PM (Pacific Time)
to
Saturday, March 18, 2023, | 11:30 AM – 6:00 PM (Pacific Time)
Postponed due to the pandemic, this international conference celebrates the bicentenary of the founding of Kolkata’s famed Armenian College (est. 1821), one of three centers of Armenian higher learning in the diaspora during the nineteenth century and the only one that has survived and is thriving today. Bringing together economic, literary, legal, and cultural historians from India, Armenia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States, the conference highlights how, beginning in the early modern period and continuing to the present, Armenians have traveled to India to make its distant shores and cultures their own. India looms large in the Armenian social imaginary. It was not only the place where the first Armenian proto-constitution for an “imagined” nation-republic was published (Madras 1788/9), it was also the cradle of the first Armenian newspaper (Madras, 1794-1796), the first modern Armenian play (Calcutta 1823), and arguably also where the first Eastern Armenian novel appeared (Calcutta, 1846), as well as where the first Armenian “feminist” tract (Calcutta, 1847) was published.
Gathering an international group of scholars, Armeno-Indica explores the Indo-Armenian saga in South Asia from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. The themes to be explored include the connected economic, literary, legal, and political histories of Armenians and Indians in South Asia and beyond across the waters of the Indian Ocean. The keynote for the conference will be delivered by Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam.
Please fill out the form for providing RSVP for in-person attendance. The form is located at the following hyperlink: https://sscucla.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bgcerNdYzuQgRHU
VENUE: UCLA Royce Hall 314 and Fowler Museum
Alternatively, you may attend this conference using zoom with prior. Here is the hyperlink that will lead you to the form that needs to be filled out: http://bit.ly/armenoindica-virtual
Friday, March 17, 2023 (Royce 314, UCLA)
Welcoming words: Amy Landau and Ann Karagozian
(10:00 AM – 10:15 AM)
Introduction to the conference: Sebouh David Aslanian
(10:15 AM – 10:30 AM)
Panel 1: Trade, Law, and Go-Betweens (10:30 AM – 12:30 PM)
Santanu Sengupta (Kolkata): “Negotiating with Law: Phases of Armenian Interaction with the Early Colonial Law Courts in India.”
Xabier Lamikiz (University of the Basque Country /Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU): “Armenian Merchants from Madras in Eighteenth-Century Spanish Manila: A Story of Love and Hate.”
Ruquia Hussain (Aligarh Muslim University, AMU): “Of Sarhad and Calcutta: The English East India Company, Khwāja Israel di Sarhad and the Foundation of Modern Calcutta.”
Sona Tajiryan (Gemological Institute of America, GIA): “How to Choose and Buy Pearls? An Eighteenth-Century Armenian Guide on the Pearl Trade in India (1730s).”
Discussant: Glenn Penny (UCLA)
Lunch Break: Balcony of Royce 306 (12:30 PM – 1:30 PM)
Panel 2: Language and Literary Revival (1:30 PM-3:00 PM)
Ahona Panda (Claremont McKenna): “Ajab Shahar Calcutta: The Outsider in the Bengal Renaissance.”
Talar Chahinian (University of California, Irvine): “Mobilizing Subjectivity in the Practice of the Nation: Tagheadeants‘s’ Case for Women’s Education.”
Peter Cowe (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA): “Intertextuality and Innovation: Mesrop Taghiadeants‘ and his Experimentation with the Novel Genre in Comparative Perspective.”
Discussant: Houri Berberian (University of California, Irvine)
Coffee Break: (3:00 PM – 3:15 PM)
Panel 3: Armenian Historiography and Print Culture in Madras (3:15-5:00PM)
Martin Adamian (UCLA, graduate student): “Mesrovb J. Seth, Father of Indo-Armenian Historiography.”
Anna Sirinian (Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà, Università di Bologna): “Azdarar (1794-1796): The First Armenian Periodical in the World.”
Hasmik Kirakosyan (Senior Researcher, Mashtots Repository of Manuscripts, Yerevan): “Harutiwn Shmavonean an Armenian Printer-publisher in Madras and a Farman for Printing in Arabic script in Madras.”
Discussant: Nile Green (UCLA)
Panel 4: History in the Present (5:00 PM – 6:30 PM)
Armen Arslanian: (Warden of the Armenian Church of Dhaka, Bangladesh): “The Armenian Church of Dhaka (Bangladesh) and the task of Heritage preservation.”
Vache Tadevosyan: (Community leader, Kolkata, India): “The Mardasirakan Jemaran (Armenian College of Kolkata) and its Bicentenary.”
Satenik Chookaszian (Armenian National Gallery in Yerevan): “Sargis Katchadourian’s reproductions of India’s cultural gems from the collection of National Gallery of Armenia.”
Chair and Discussant: Armen Baibourtian
Saturday, March 18, 2023 (Fowler Museum, UCLA)
Check-in at Lenart Hall (11:30 AM – 12:00 PM)
Welcoming remarks: Amy Landau
Panel 1: Monuments, Patronage, and Indo-Persianate Identities (12:00 PM – 2:00 PM)
Sebouh David Aslanian (Department of History, UCLA): “Cemeteries as Heterotopias: Armenian Sepulchral Culture in Agra and Surat, or what the Dead can tell us About the Living.”
Talinn Grigor (Department of Art History, UC Davis): “‘Transimperial’ Strategies of Artistic Patronage: From New Julfan Merchants to Parsi Industrialists.”
Veronika Zablotsky (Freie Universität, Berlin): “Orientalism and the Making of the Armenian Diasporic Imaginary in Early Colonial India.”
Discussant: Peter Cowe (UCLA)
Panel 2: The Historical Imagination and the Circulation of Revolutionary Ideas in Late 18th Century South India (2:00 PM – 3:30PM)
Michael O’Sullivan (The European University Institute, Florence): “Portfolio Capitalism and History-Writing in Hagop Simonean Ayubeant’s Life of Haydar Ali Khan, c. 1782-1795.”
Ayal Amer (UC Irvine): “Fitna and Patriotism in Late 18th century Madras.”
Satenig Badwagan Toufanian (Inalco, Paris): “The Snare of Glory: A Call for Freedom from Madras.”
Discussant: Sebouh D. Aslanian
Intermission: Lemonade, Cookies, and Open Galleries in Courtyard (3:30 PM – 4:40 PM)
Keynote Address (4:40 PM – 5:40 PM)
Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Distinguished Professor & Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences): “Armenians and Others in Mughal Surat: Rethinking Communities, Collaboration and Conflict.”
Reception on the Terrace (6:00m – 7:30 pm)
ORGANIZERS
- UCLA Richard Hovannisian Chair of Modern Armenian History
- Fowler Museum at UCLA
- Armenian Studies Center at the UCLA Promise Armenian Institute
- USC Dornsife Institute of Armenian Studies
- National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
- UCLA Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies
- UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies
Happy International Women’s Day and Conference Dedicated to International Women’s Day!
In many of the world, we enthusiastically celebrate International Women’s Day. We were not aware then of Valentine’s Day and scamming of flower prices then. While the questions surrounding diverse values, gender identities, and contemporary politics are complicated, it is important to note that for many in the world, the basic human rights that we take for granted in the United States are beyond reach. I have been asked today to post a courtesy conference that is not affiliated with our library in which I will participate as a member of the organizing committee in my private capacity. The conference is dedicated to women of contemporary Afghanistan.
The conference will occur tomorrow, March 9th, from 9 am PST through 12 noon. The website for the conference is Afghan Women Speak: Voices from within and beyond. The conference is FREE and OPEN to all with prior registration.
SIGLA: States and Institutions of Governance in Latin America Database
SIGLA (States and Institutions of Governance in Latin America, www.sigladata.org) is a multilingual digital database that freely provides information on legal and political institutions in Latin America. The beta version of SIGLA offers data on national-level institutions in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, as well as on international institutions. Ultimately, SIGLA will provide cross-nationally comparable, current and historical, qualitative and quantitative data on over 50 legal and political institutions in 20 Latin American countries in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Webinar on February 15: Ukraine Fights On: One Year Later! Episode no. 1
On behalf of the collection development subcommittee of the CLIR-ASEEES and UC Berkeley Library, I would like to invite you to attend the first virtual event in the three-part series of events on Ukraine that we have organized for this year. The first webinar will take place on February 15th at 10 am PST/ 1 pm EST for 60 minutes.
Please register here: https://berkeley.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_d7mMou0MQAmecEH_AINxNA
Events Page: https://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/Library.html?event_ID=150744&view=preview
Here is the event description:
Note: Given the ever-changing situation in Ukraine, this event may be canceled or postponed on short notice.
At this webinar, held nearly one year after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, women social activists and a lawyer from the SICH Human Rights Protection Group in Ukraine will provide updates on the current human rights situation and their documentation of the deliberate destruction of the civilian infrastructure in their country. The event includes a screening of the short documentary “Unbroken Women.” This event is the first in a three-part series about the Russia-Ukraine war and its impacts.
The event will be recorded for archival purposes.
Sponsored by the UC Berkeley Library; the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies; and the Collection Development Subcommittee of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies’ Committee on Libraries and Information Resources (CLIR).
The event is free and open to all with prior registration. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Post-Perestroika Newspapers accessible for the CRL Members
The Post-Perestroika Newspapers collection traces the evolution of post-Soviet Russia, with coverage from 1990 to 2016. Established soon before or soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newspapers in this collection document the changes taking place in Russia, some with breathtaking speed, all the while embracing innovative journalistic methods and standards that were a far cry from the journalism of the Soviet period. These newspapers, some of which had a relatively short lifespan, nevertheless provide essential and critical insight into the events and personalities that defined post-Soviet Russian politics and history (Source:https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/ppn/).
To access these newspapers, please authenticate using the VPN or proxy from an off-campus location.
New Book by Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby
![Creole: Portraits of France’s Foreign Relations During the Long Nineteenth Century [book cover]](https://update.lib.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/CREOLE.jpg)
This book addresses the unique and profound indeterminacy of “Creole,” a label applied to white, black, and mixed-race persons born in French colonies during the nineteenth century.
“Creole” implies that the geography of one’s birth determines identity in ways that supersede race, language, nation, and social status. Paradoxically, the very capaciousness of the term engendered a perpetual search for visual signs of racial difference as well as a pretense to blindness about the intermingling of races in Creole society. Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby reconstructs the search for visual signs of racial difference among people whose genealogies were often repressed. She explores French representations of Creole subjects and representations by Creole artists in France, the Caribbean, and the Americas. To do justice to the complexity of Creole identity, Grigsby interrogates the myriad ways in which people defined themselves in relation to others. With close attention to the differences between Afro-Creole and Euro-Creole cultures and persons, Grigsby examines figures such as Théodore Chassériau, Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, Alexandre Dumas père, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, the models Joseph and Laure, Josephine Bonaparte, Jeanne Duval, and Adah Isaacs Menken.
Based on extensive archival research, Creole is an original and important examination of colonial identity. This essential study will be welcomed by specialists in nineteenth-century art history, French cultural history, the history of race, and transatlantic history more generally.
[from publisher’s site]
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Arts and Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Enduring Truths: Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance; Colossal: Engineering the Suez Canal, Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, and Panama Canal; and Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France.
Creole : Portraits of France’s Foreign Relations During the Long Nineteenth Century.
University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022.
Trial of Brill’s Revolución y Cultura, 1961–2003 (ending February 21, 2023)
Revolución y Cultura, 1961–2003(Cuba)
Please access the trial through February 21, 2023, here
At UC Berkeley Library, we have several individual issues of Revolución y Cultura, however, Brill has produced a complete digitized archive of it that is searchable. We have set up a trial of this resource through February 21, 2023. We look forward to hearing your comments regarding the utility of this resource in your teaching and research. Please feel free to contact your librarian for the Caribbean and Latin American Studies here.
About:
Revolución y Cultura is a fundamental and often unique resource for the study of more than half a century of Cuban culture. Founded as a biweekly in 1961 under the title Pueblo y Cultura and continued in 1965 as the bilingual magazine Revolution et/and Culture and as RC in 1967, Revolución y Cultura has published uninterruptedly since March 1972. From its foundation until 1977, when the Cuban Ministry of Culture was created, it appeared as the official organ of Cuba’s National Council of Culture.
From 2004 to 2019 it was published both in print and electronically. Since mid-2019, Revolución y Cultura is published online only. Revolución y Cultura is listed in the UNESCO Portal of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean (Source: Brill)
Cuba: Grito de Yara (10 October 1868)
Each year, on 10th October, the Cubans all over the world commemorate the call for national independence. The “Grito de Yara,” is one of many important events in the complex historical trajectory of Cuba that unleashed the potential of the national consciousness through rebellions against the Spanish imperial authorities. The full text of the “Manifiesto de la Junta Revolucionaria de la Isla de Cuba” can be read by clicking on the link here.
At UC Berkeley Library, despite our West Coast location and our Pacific Rim orientation, we have a large collection of books that will enlighten our readers about what does “Grito de Yara” means. The other essential Open Access source is dLOC (Digital Library of the Caribbean) where one can browse documents related to the “Grito de Yara.“
Some subject searches like the ones below will provide additional information on the print items on the topic that we have in our collections.
Below are some titles that might of interest to the readers of this blog. Since we believe in the equitable access, I am providing some links to the full-text of these items.
Below is a clip from a film,
Professor Rebecca Herman’s New Book Published: Cooperating with the Colossus A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America Cooperating with the Colossus A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America
Author:Rebecca Herman, the image is being used for academic, educational, noncommercial purposes only.
UC Berkeley’s Professor Rebecca Herman‘s (History) new book –Cooperating with the Colossus A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America on our entanglement in Latin America since the World War II is one book that I feel honored to post about in this blog.
According to the Oxford University Press, the book has several interesting facets that are quoted from its website as follows,
- Offers a new perspective on the period of World War II and its importance in the longer history of US-Latin American relations
- Brings together the local, national, and international arenas in which the history of wartime basing unfolded
- Integrates the international history of US-Latin American relations together with local histories of labor, race, gender, and law
- Moves between the realm of high politics and the ground-level social and cultural histories of the communities surrounding US bases.
I am also pleased to post a video of her presentation at the CLAS-Berkeley.
We have access to its electronic avatar through our catalog. Thank you, Professor Rebecca Herman, for always motivating me to do my best to collect difficult to find materials from Latin America!