Witnessing Rightlessness, Formulating Rights: Gabriela Mistral and World War II’s Refugee Crisis
Tue, 10/22 · 12:00 pm—1:20 pm · 216 Aaron Burr Hall
Mauro Lazarovich, PLAS Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer
How does poetry understand and communicate the experience of losing one’s rights, citizenship, and country? This talk examines how Chilean poet and Nobel Prize laureate Gabriela Mistral addressed the plight of refugees fleeing World War II. We will delve into Mistral’s efforts to create a poetic form that captures the experience of the refugees she interviewed while serving as consul in wartime Europe. Additionally, we will explore how, in the postwar period, Mistral used her poetry as a platform to articulate and promote new rights of asylum and hospitality.
ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKER
Mauro Lazarovich (Ph.D., Harvard University) is a scholar of twentieth-century and contemporary Latin American literature and culture with a focus on migration, refugee studies, and human rights. His book project, Citizens of Nowhere: Stateless and Refugee Literature in Latin America, analyzes works by Latin American writers and artists concerning the refugees fleeing World War II. The project aims to understand how Latin American literature and art documented the implications of the war’s refugee crisis and intervened in the creation of the human rights agenda articulated by the United Nations during the postwar period. His scholarly writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Revista Hispánica Moderna and Historia Feminista de la Literatura Argentina (2020).
DISCUSSANT
Corinna Zeltsman, Modern Latin America, Assistant Professor of History
This event is open to students, faculty, visiting scholars and staff. Lunch will be provided while supplies last.
Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any event does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.
