Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Friday Film Seminar: Philip Kaisary and Javier García León
March 9, 2018 at 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
| Location: | 472 St. Patrick's Building |
| Cost: | Free |
Come hear about exciting new research on Latin American cinema, revolutionary politics, and decolonial, trans corporealities! Note that the seminar starts at 9:30 and not the usual 9:00.
Philip Kaisary, The Haitian Revolution and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s La última cena (The Last Supper)
This talk considers the ideological resonance of the Haitian Revolution in Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s La última cena (The Last Supper), a masterpiece of Cuban cinema from 1976 in which slavery is unequivocally identified as capitalist. An elaborate meditation on revolutionary politics and the possibility of true liberation, La última cena repeatedly invokes the Haitian Revolution, and insists on the necessity of revolutionary social transformation and the dissolution by the oppressed of race- and class-based social hierarchies if the universal human desire for freedom is to be realized.
Philip Kaisary is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. He is cross-appointed to Carleton’s Department of English and Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture. His research elaborates the forms and values of literary, legal, and filmic texts generated by the histories of African-descended peoples throughout the Atlantic world. Philip’s book, The Haitian Revolution in the Literary Imagination: Radical Horizons, Conservative Constraints was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2014. Philip’s current research comprises two projects, the first of which is a study of the creation, context, and legacies of Haiti’s constitutions of 1801–1816. Philip’s second research project currently in-progress is a comparative study of filmic representations of slavery. Works considered to date include Steve McQueen’s adaptation of Solomon Northup’s narrative, 12 Years a Slave, and La última cena (The Last Supper).
Javier García León, Documenting Trans Corporalities in Colombian Cinematography: The Case of Ana Crisitina Monroy’s Este pueblo necesita un muerto (2008)
While there has been extensive scholarship on the representation of gay and lesbian individuals in major Latin American films, there has been little or no research that addresses the depiction of racialized transgender individuals in Colombian cinematography. Therefore, this talk explores the representation of trans women in Colombian documentaries. Particularly, we will be looking at Este pueblo necesita un muerto by Ana Cristina Monroy. I argue that this film portrays trans subjectivities and their temporalities from an intersectional, queer and decolonial perspective, contesting the way mass media represents these corporalities.
Javier García León is a Ph.D. Candidate in Hispanic Studies at the University of Ottawa. His areas of research and publications include trans and queer studies, Latin American cultural studies, film studies, critical discourse analysis, and sociolinguisics. His dissertation examines the representation of trans subjectivities in Colombian and Venezuelan cultural industries.
