2019-2020 Events
Spring 2020 Events
Thursday, January 9: Visionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom, Artists’ Talk and Opening Reception
Visionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom brings together twenty contemporary artists working across a range of media to interpret an extraordinary—and now lost—historical artifact: a so-called “Book of Paintings” created by José Antonio Aponte, a nineteenth-century Afro-Cuban revolutionary and artist. Authorities found the “Book of Paintings” in 1812 during the investigation into a major antislavery conspiracy in Havana. During the trial, Aponte was forced to describe his book in detail. Its pages portrayed lush landscapes and Biblical stories; Roman goddesses and Spanish kings; black men as warriors, emperors, and librarians; Rome and Ethiopia; Havana and the heavens. Shortly after testifying, Aponte was publicly executed, his head severed from his body, and placed on a pike inside a cage in a well-travelled crossroads in the city. Then, his “Book of Paintings” disappeared.
Using Aponte’s trial testimony—which is all that is known to remain of the “Book of Paintings”—the artists included in Visionary Aponte have reimagined Aponte’s book for the present day. They experiment with ways to mitigate the violence of the colonial archive and invite us to think about the role of art in envisioning and making social change.
Artists include: Grettel Arrate (Santiago, Cuba), José Bedia (Miami),María Magdalena Campos-Pons (Nashville), Juan Roberto Diago(Havana, Cuba), Édouard Duval Carrié (Miami), Alexis Esquivel Bermudez (Cuba/Spain), Jöelle Ferly (Guadalupe), Teresita Fernández(New York), Alberto Lescay (Santiago), Tessa Mars (Port-au-Prince, Haiti), Emilio Mártinez (Miami), Emilio Adán Martínez (Miami), Nina Mercer (New York), Clara Morera (North Carolina), Glexis Novoa(Miami), Vicki Pierre (Miami), Marielle Plaisir (Miami), Asser Saint-Val(Miami), Jean-Marcel St. Jacques (New Orleans) and Renée Stout (Washington, D.C.).
The exhibition incorporates scholarly research on Aponte and his world by NYU Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean History Ada Ferrer, author of the prize-winning book Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, and art historian Linda Rodríguez, curator of the digital humanities website Digital Aponte. Visionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom, which originally opened in Miami’s Little Haiti Cultural Center during Art Basel 2017, has traveled to King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University, Power Plant Gallery at Duke University, Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales in Havana, and Galería Arte Soy in Santiago, Cuba. Programming for the Fine Arts Gallery was made possible by the Vanderbilt University Department of History, Center for Latin American Studies, Jean & Alexander Heard Libraries and Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities.
Friday, January 24: Latinx Networking Cocktail
5:00-7:00 pm Owen Graduate School of Management
Thursday, January 30: Afro-Latinx Symposium
Thursday, February 20: Reading by Daisy Hernández
7:00 pm Buttrick 101
Daisy Hernández is the author of the award-winning memoir A Cup of Water Under My Bed and coeditor of Colonize This! Young
Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. The former editor of ColorLines magazine, she has reported for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Slate, and she has written for NPR’s All Things Considered and CodeSwitch.
Her essays and fiction have appeared in Aster(ix), Bellingham Review, Brevity, Dogwood, Fourth Genre, Gulf Coast, Juked, and Rumpus among other journals. A contributing editor for the Buddhist magazine Tricycle, Daisy is an Assistant Professor in the Creative Writing Program at Miami University in Ohio, and is the Vanderbilt Visiting Writer in Nonfiction for the Spring 2020 semester.
Thursday, May 7: Latinx Graduates Recognition Ceremony
1:00-3:00 pm SLC Ballrooms
Fall 2019 Events
Friday, October 18: Latinx Alumni Cocktail Reception
3:30-5:30 pm Buttrick Hall Atrium
Monday, October 14: Día de la Raza Celebration
4:00 pm SJI Multicultural Lounge (3rd floor of Sarratt)
Thursday, October 3: Film Screening: The UNAFRAID
6:30 pm Buttrick 103
#somosVU Hispanic Heritage Month: September 15-October 18
In conjunction with the Latino and Latina Studies Program and the Association of Latin American Students, the 2019 Hispanic Heritage Month theme is #somosVU, which means “We are Vanderbilt.”
This dynamic message calls the community into conversation and emphasizes the values of connection, inclusion, and celebration that are engrained in HHM. #somosVU addresses the need for the visibility of Latinx presence, influence, and representation on campus while honoring the accomplishments of Latinx leaders and groups like ALAS, AMIGOS, CLAS, LATS, LMSA, SACNAS, and the Latinx Seminarians. #somosVU encourages faculty-student mentor relationships, as well as solidarity among allies, to create opportunities to celebrate and elevate their Latinx peers. #somosVU charges all of us to build an inclusive Latinx community at Vanderbilt University.
The most up-to-date digital calendar of events is available online at https://bit.ly/vandyHHM.
Friday, September 6: Bienvenida Reception
4:30 pm Latinx Community Bienvenida Reception, Sutherland House Lobby
