Dear CLAS Community,
What an exciting year we have in store! Earlier this month, CLAS was awarded both National Resource Center (NRC) and Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) grants by the Department of Education. Over the next four years, we will focus on Contemporary Challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean. We will address collective attitudes and social movements, particularly relevant in our region over the last decade. We also aim to discuss how the struggle to acquire rights remains a fundamental challenge in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in the post-pandemic context, with global consequences.
CLAS will address the following issues: Rights to the Past, addressing the heritage of colonialism and the history and memory of Afro and Indigenous Latin American populations; Rights to the Present, addressing topics in public health, urbanization, migrations, and democracy; and Rights to the Future, looking at the environment and education and the perspectives for the area. As always, we welcome your ideas and suggestions for events, seminars and other programming related to these topics.
We are also very happy to announce that CLAS will receive a Fulbright Brazil Distinguished Scholar Award as recognition of the key role Pitt has played in Latin American Studies. We will welcome this Fulbright scholar in the Fall of 2024 to enrich and diversify our academic environment through collaboration on our strategic focus areas.
On October 15 we will celebrate our 40th Annual Latin American and Caribbean Festival. The date marks the close of the Latinx and Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and the start of International Week at Pitt. We expect the festival to be no less joyous and grand an occasion than what it has been over the past forty years.
On September 14 will hold our annual Welcome Back Reception, to celebrate these achievements and our plans; besides our customary great food and good company, I will also take the opportunity to acknowledge the extraordinary work done by CLAS’s staff: Alexis Takoushian, Courtney Newhouse, Martha Mantilla, Luz Amanda Hank, Luis Bravo, and Manuel Roman-Lacayo. I hope to see you all there!
