The Wandering Nation | Latin American Studies

The Wandering Nation

Last Thursday, March 26, the Center for Latin American Studies hosted an online lecture by Luis Miguel Estrada, a writer and a scholar of Mexican and Latin American literature, titled “The Wandering Nation.”

From his personal experience teaching Mexican literature to Mexican American students, Estrada reflected on how contemporary literature articulates new imaginaries on the national or the “mexicanidad” from unstable contexts and positions. Estrada explored how the works of Julián Herbert, Guadalupe Nettel, and Cristina Rivera Garza (who spoke at the Center for Latin American Studies in September 2019) destabilize, demystify, and reinvent the national-Mexican as constructed in the “Narrative of the Revolution.”

Estrada, currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University, also talked about his own literary work, particularly about genres and his approach to the representation of violence in his stories.

Statement on Diversity and Inclusion

The Center for Latin American Studies at Boston University is proud of BU’s history of diversity and inclusion. BU’s founders opened the University’s doors to all students without regard to religion, race, or gender, and building and sustaining a vibrant community of scholars, students, and staff remains essential to its mission of contributing to and preparing students to thrive in, an increasingly interconnected world.

Success in a competitive, global milieu depends upon our ongoing commitment to welcome and engage the wisdom, creativity, and aspirations of all peoples and the Center for Latin American Studies is vital to the University’s mission of preparing global citizens. We forge concrete initiatives to integrate faculty and students across the university in the promotion of antiracism, diversity, and inclusion from a Latin American Studies perspective. Through our in-depth and interdisciplinary academic programs, as well as through a rich array of talks, lectures, round-table discussions, conferences, and other educational and cultural events, we assist the University in its efforts to create environments for learning, working, and living that are enriched by racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity.

At the Center for Latin American Studies, we believe in and practice respect for individual differences in life experience, sexual orientation, and religious belief, and we aspire to be free of intellectual parochialism, barriers to access, and ethnocentrism. We appreciate and deeply value the contributions and talents of every member of the Boston University community and invite you to learn more about us.