This year the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) hosted its annual conference in Bogotá, Colombia from June 12 to 15, 2024 at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Apart from being the world's largest conference in Latin-American studies, this particular meeting attracted the highest and most diverse attendance to date.

Jo-Marie Burt, LASA President, provided the numbers that illustrate how exceptional this conference was in her welcome message in the conference program.

This year’s Congress will be one of the largest and most diverse in LASA’s history. At present, 5,477 members are registered to participate in LASA2024. Members will be joining us from 63 different countries, making this one of the most international congresses in LASA history. There will be 1,459 sessions, including panels, workshops, roundtables, and book presentations, with a total of 4,386 papers being presented. 

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese followed suit by departing in large numbers for the heart of the Andes Mountains making this one of largest groups from SPO to partake in the same conference in recent years. Below is the list of faculty, students, and alumni who were in attendance:

Faculty

LASA Vice President / President Elect and SPO Professor Javier Guerrero was in attendance and pictured here in an LASA2024 Instagram post in celebration of the success of this year's conference and in anticipation of LASA2025 scheduled to take place in San Francisco, CA.

Christina Lee presented “El culto de los indígenas filipinos al espíritu de los árboles durante el período colonial español” in the panel “Historias de ruptura y convergencia: Vectores de intercambio cultural en el entorno al Pacífico bajo el dominio colonial español.” She also served as Discussant for the panel “El contacto colonial y sus permanencias culturales en Europa: Arte, comercio y gastronomía.”

Lecturers

Maria F. Chiaramonte presented Pedro Almodóvar’s "La piel que habito"/"The Skin I Live In"
(2011) and the Depiction of Transsexuality," in the panel “Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Latin American Film”

César A. Romero Fernández presented “Andean Monsters: Interviews on the Peruvian Political Crisis of December 2022-January 2023,” in the panel “Raza y Política”

Graduate Students (alphabetical order A-Z)

Alejandro Virue (G-4) and Pablo Guarín Robledo (G-2) co-organized the panel “Actos de Fe: Conversaciones en torno a Luis Ospina”. Alejandro presented “¿Cómo detectar una deep fake? Esbozo de una pedagogía a partir de la obra de Luis Ospina” and Pablo presented “Papeles falsos: La reaparición de Corea en (y desde) el cine de Luis Ospina”.

Catarina Oliveira (G-4) organized the panel “Rethinking Queerness in Latin American Cultural Production”, and presented “Que ninguém nos ouça: à escuta da queeridade em Ana C.”

David Rivera (G-3) presented “Playing Games: Profit and the Anxiety of Control in Early Modern Manila” in the panel “Tokens of Exchange: Translation and Transaction in Colonial Latin America.”

Estela Imigo (G-1 SPO/PLAS) presented the paper “Intertextos y vínculos intermediales entre La guerra de Arauco (2001) de Lotty Rosenfeld y Testimonio de un cacique mapuche (2010) de Pascual Coña” in the panel entitled “Voces de Mujeres: Resistencia y textualidades en Abiayala”.

Gastón Perez Taborda (G-2) presented the paper "Complejizando las nociones de biopolítica y necropolítica: epidemias en el México de la segunda mitad del siglo XVI" as part of the panel "Genealogías necropolíticas: Del terror colonial y el terror dictatorial hasta el terror económico del capitalismo neoliberal".

Jonathan A. Romero (G-5) presented “José María Pérez Gay: Entre lenguas, ciudades y guerras” as part of the panel “De la crítica a la edición: Profesionalización, instituciones y bibliodiversidad en la literatura mexicana moderna”

Nora Muñiz (G-3) organized the panel “De la crítica a la edición: Profesionalización, instituciones y bibliodiversidad en la literatura mexicana moderna” alongside Luis Fernando Bañuelos (NYU), Alonso Burgos (G-5 COM), and Jonathan Romero (G-5). She presented “Laboratorio de taquimecanografía: El ethos de Tumbona ediciones”.

Oriele Benavides (G-5) presented the paper “Contra la cursilería, u otra forma de terror en el impasse” as part of the panel “Tanato-ficciones: Suplicios, espectros y monstruos en la literatura hispanoamericana moderna y contemporánea. She also served as a Discussant in the panel “Narrativas de resistencia y transformación en las Américas: Identidades, violencia, migración, ética y estética en Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Perú y Venezuela”.

Renee Congdon and Dylan Blau Edelstein co-organized the panel “El contacto colonial y sus permanencias culturales en Europa: arte, comercio y gastronomía”. Renee presented the paper “‘España ha enseñado a comer al mundo’: Hispanismo culinario en el primer tercio del siglo XX”. Dylan presented the paper “‘From the Feather to the Skyscraper: A Totalizing Vision of Brazil at a Swiss Ethnography Museum (1955-56).”

Rodney Lebrón Rivera (G-5) presented the paper “Vida anhelada, autofiguración alcanzada: Un estudio sobre los diarios de campaña de José Martí” as part of the panel “Género epistolar, diarios e intimidad”.

Tatiane França Rangel (G-2) presented the paper "Corpos indomesticáveis: a performance teatral diante da ditadura brasileira e de suas heranças" as part of the panel "Queer Theory, Performance and Activism".

Yangyou Fang (G-6, PLAS Graduate Fellow) presented “Manila Chinese’s Letters to the King: Writing Resistance and Transculturation in the Spanish Pacific”' in the panel “Colonialism in the Periphery.”

You-Jin Kim (G-4) presented the paper “A Clash of Devotions to Our Lady of Antipolo: The Collective Making of an Indigenous Supernatural Woman in the Spanish Philippines” in the panel “Colonialism at the Periphery - Part 2.” You-Jin and David Rivera co-organized the panel “Historias de ruptura y convergencia: vectores de intercambio cultural en el entorno al Pacífico bajo el dominio colonial español.”

Alumni

Alejandro Martínez *23 organized the panel "Poesía e imaginación política en América Latina" and presented "Zurita celestial." He is now an Assistant Professor and Director of the Archival Program at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile.

Check out SPO's Instagram post for more photos from LASA2024!