Description:

NU Graduate Lecture and Discussion Series Presents
Latinx Tapestries: Literature, Film, and Comics from the U.S. / Mexico Border

Given by: Professor William A. Nericcio
Friday, April 12, 2019
at the Congdon Shaffer Mansion (405 Church Street – Evanston)
6 p.m. - Program begins
7 p.m. - Mixer to follow

Description: Recently we have been bombarded with scary headlines concerning the “Southern Border”—the “spectre” of various “caravans” and “illegal” intruders filling the American imagination with fear and loathing. While human rights advocates on the left spring to the defense of our southern American neighbors and national security campaigners on the right advocate all manner of increased defense (walls; drones; troops), it might be stimulating to take a moment to examine recent works that come from the border and from south of the same. To that end, this lecture, moving south, north, and into the U.S./Mexican border, introduces the audience to dynamic creative works that re-direct our focus on the Border in ways that open up the imagination and complicate the narratives we may be too accustomed to from our bubble-boy social media outlets (Facebook and Twitter) or the increasingly polarized National News (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, PBS, and MSNBC).

Looking at recent cinema by Alfonso Cuarón (Roma) and Alex Rivera (Sleep-Dealer); fresh fiction/non-fiction by Salvador Plascencia (People of Paper) and Myriam Gurba (Mean); innovative graphic narrative by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez; and fine art by Izel Vargas, Nericcio’s multi-media presentation (sunglasses encouraged!) examines recent "visions" and versions of Latinx bodies in film, literature, and comics. Primarily focused on renditions of Latina/o subjectivities by Mexican and Mexican-American writers, the lecture / presentation / screening also looks at debilitating and monstrous imaginings of Mexicans et al in the popular press and mass media. In the end, Dr. Nericcio wants to ask if it is possible that these scary notions of the Latinx other are bettered or re-imagined by samplings of cutting edge art, writing, and cinema from, in, on, and with the Border?
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Professor William A. Nericcio is the Director of MALAS, the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences Cultural Studies Program, Dr. William A. Nericcio also serves as Professor of English and Comparative Literature and serves on the faculties of the Department of Chicana/o Studies & the Center for Latin American Studies at San Diego State University.

Nericcio's first book, Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of "Mexicans" in America, appeared with the University of Texas Press in February 2007. His next book, an edited anthology of playwright Oliver Mayer's early works entitled The Hurt Business appeared in April of 2008 and his follow-up to that, Homer from Salinas: John Steinbeck's Enduring Voice for California appeared in March, 2009. Other noteworthy essays by Nericcio include his lurid meditations on the life of Pee-wee Herman (aka Paul Reubens) in the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies and an illustrated survey of the cool graphic narrative Mestizo stylings of Gilbert Hernandez and his spiritual godmother, Frida Kahlo, for NYU Press's Latino Popular Culture.

Nericcio's long-awaited meditation on American visual culture, Eyegiene: Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race, is in preparation with UT Press, while his next book, with Frederick Luis Aldama, #brownTV: The Brown Revolution Will Be Televised, will appear in 2019 with the Ohio State University Press.
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FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Hosted by Northwestern University's School of Professional Studies
To learn about programming at NU's SPS, visit:
https://sps.northwestern.edu/