This half-day symposium brings together scholars, performers, and graduate students to examine the music, history, and cultural contexts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Through papers, panel discussions, and an archival presentation, participants explore topics including musical exchange, nationalism, folklore, and performance practice on the island of Kiskeya. The symposium features contributions from invited scholars and Cornell faculty and students, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue at the intersection of research and performance.

Faculty and guest performers bring chamber music from Haiti and the Dominican Republic into close focus in this Center for Historical Keyboards Salon. Performance unfolds alongside commentary by Claude Dauphin, PhD, curator of the Society of Haitian Classical Music Research, and Cornell Music Professor Gabriela Gómez Estévez, inviting audiences to hear the development of chamber music on the island from the late nineteenth century, through the world wars, and into the mid-twentieth century.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Historical Keyboards (CCHK) and the Society for the Humanities.

Student musicians step into the spotlight with chamber and vocal music from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Featuring works by Rafael “Bullumba” Landestoy, Julio Alberto Hernández, Werner Jaegerhuber, and Julio Racine.

The Cornell Chamber Orchestra, Gabriela Gómez Estévez, conductor, performs Margarita Luna’s Miniaturas Quisqueyanas (orch. Gómez), Stravinsky's Suites for Small Orchestra Nos. 1 & 2, and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major.

photo credit: Manifesto Designs

Recent U.S. military actions in Venezuela—including strikes on civilian boats, the seizure of oil tankers, and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro—have raised questions about U.S. ambitions in Latin America and their implications for peace and international order. This panel brings together five prominent experts on Venezuelan history and politics, with the aim of deepening understanding of Venezuelan perspectives on recent events and their broader implications.

How are Venezuela’s political parties responding to shifting U.S. foreign policies? What are the likely effects of recent military actions on prospects for peace and stability in Venezuela and Latin America? Can the U.S. play a meaningful and legitimate role in helping Venezuelans restore democratic governance, and if so what policies might contribute to that goal?

Panelists

Irina Troconis, Professor, Cornell University (moderator)David Smilde, Professor, Tulane UniversityVeronica Zubillaga, Professor, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas; Visiting Scholar, University of Illinois, ChicagoMargarita López Maya, Professor, Universidad Central de Venezuela
Register

Register here to join the virtual conversation.

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Event Hosts

This virtual event is hosted by the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and cosponsored by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. Both are part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. The program is open to graduate students, recent graduates, and young professionals. Undergraduate students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.

The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Mario Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Register for the virtual session.

Can’t attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. The program is open to graduate students, recent graduates, and young professionals. Undergraduate students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.

The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Mario Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Register for the virtual session.

Can’t attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Possible Landscapes joins seven people in seven different regions of the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago in the course of their daily lives: Kevin, a fisherman on the east coast suffering the recent loss of one of his crew members at sea; four generations of the Josephs family in the steep hillsides of the northern range; Captain ‘Spaceman’ Philips and his glass-bottomed boat in Tobago from which he has witnessed the decline of the coral reefs; Crystal, a trade unionist active in supporting workers who lost their jobs when a major oil refinery was closed; Romulas, known as the “last sugar cane farmer” in the central plains and his Venezuelan workers; Stephanie a nurse who worked in the oil fields in the south starting just after World War II; Tony, originally from Jamaica, a climate change analyst, agriculturalist and rabbit farmer in St Joseph.

A collaboration between a documentary filmmaker, Kannan Arunasalam, and two professors, Tao DuFour (Architecture) a spatial theorist and Natalie Melas (Comparative Literature) a postcolonial comparatist and student of Caribbean thought, Possible Landscapes is the outcome of the team research project, “Possible Landscapes: Documenting Environmental Experience in Trinidad and Tobago,” funded through a grant from Cornell University’s Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge and the Mellon Just Futures Initiative.

Filmmaker Kannan Arunasalam and producers Natalie Melas (Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell) and Tao DuFour (assistant professor of architecture) will join for a conversation after the screening.

Free admission! Reserve your free ticket through Cornell Cinema. Sponsored by the Migrations Program with cosponsorship from the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, both part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies.

"Advancing Second Language Proficiency and Intercultural Competence in Postsecondary Education"
LRC Signature Speaker
LeAnne Spino
Associate Professor of Spanish, Proficiency Coordinator, and Director of International Studies and Diplomacy, University of Rhode Island

This is a pivotal moment for language programs. Enrollments in languages other than English are plummeting across the United States. Also in flux is the landscape of higher education more generally. In this climate of uncertainty, language programs must be able to clearly and convincingly articulate their value. Yet how can we effectively make these arguments?

There are, of course, many possible strategies for demonstrating and communicating the value of language programs. In this talk, I will detail one possible approach, resulting from a deep realignment across six degree-granting language programs at the University of Rhode Island that sought to advance students' language proficiency and intercultural competence. We will explore what these constructs are, the extent to which they develop in postsecondary studies, and how they can be framed to university leadership, faculty, and students to successfully communicate at least part of the value of a postsecondary language education.

Bio: Dr. Spino (Spino-Seijas) received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Second Language Studies. She is currently an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Rhode Island and the Proficiency Coordinator for the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, where she spearheads the Department’s Proficiency Initiative. This initiative seeks to increase students' language proficiency through faculty training, large-scale proficiency testing, and evidence-based curricular revamping. Dr. Spino is also the Director of the International Studies and Diplomacy program, a dual degree program in which students major in International Studies and a language, study abroad for at least a semester, and reach a high proficiency benchmark in the language they study before graduation.
Dr. Spino specializes in second language acquisition. Much of her research focuses on issues that impact language teaching directly. She is particularly interested in the development of second language proficiency and the sociopolitics of language acquisition and pedagogy, especially as it pertains to heritage language speakers of Spanish.

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom (registration required). Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public.