News

Essay Prize Winner
Congratulations go to Conor Farrington for his essay "New Political Spaces and Public Sphere 'Deliberativeness' in Ecuador 1822-2009" which has won the prestigious Harold Blakemore Prize.

Olivia Harris Obituary
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Olivia Harris, Professor of Social Anthropology at the LSE, who has died suddenly of cancer on 9 April 2009.

Olivia was an internationally renowned anthropologist, known especially for her work on highland Bolivia, and one of the most distinguished academics in the whole field of Latin American Studies. She was also a charismatic and compelling teacher, a good colleague and a dear friend to many people working on and in Latin America. She will be greatly missed by all her students and colleagues.

A touching obituary by James Dunkerley appeared in The Guardian on Monday 20 April (click here [new window]).

New Committee
Following the electoral process, the following took up their posts at the SLAS Conference.
President: Nikky Miller
Vice-President: Lucy Taylor
Treasurer: John Fisher
Secretary: Adrian Pearce
Ordinary Members:
Polly Wilding
Jasmine Gideon
Jens Hentschke
Caroline Williams

New e-letter Editor
The new editor of the monthly member's e-letter is Silvia Posocco. Email s.posocco@lse.ac.uk if you wish to advertise conferences, workshops, seminars, funding opportunities, postgraduate study etc.

Annual Lecture
James Painter recently gave the SLAS annual lecture on "Climate Change, Latin America and the Media" at Canning House. James is a BBC reporter and has developed an impressive expertise in the fascinating field of politics and climate change in the region. His thought-provoking and important talk is available here [Word].

 

What is SLAS?

Excellent Research | Multidisciplinarity | Community
SLAS was founded in 1964 and is one of the leading Latin American studies organizations in Europe. We hold an annual conference in March/April, an Annual Lecture and publish the Bulletin of Latin American Research (BLAR). We have around 400 members. While most are academics and PhD students, members also include diplomats, journalists, and research analysts from business and non-governmental organisations. More >>

Events

Annual Conference 2009
(Re) Invasions and Inventions: Latin America Confronts the 21st Century
University of Leeds, Thursday 26 & Friday 27 March 2009

The highly successful conference gathered over 200 delegates from the UK, Latin America, Europe and the United States. There were 36 panels and over a hundred presentations, ranging in topic from film, literature and art, through history, sociology and politics to economics, anthropology and methodology.

Events included film screenings, workshops and a plenary lecture by Professor Maxine Molyneaux, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London. Entitled "Latin America's 'Neoliberal' social policy: what's neo-liberal about it?", she took a critical, deeper view of neoliberalism, tracing the twists and turns of social policy in Latin America over the last 30 years and its highly varied implementation across the region.

The conference was hosted by the University of Leeds School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies [new windows]

A report on the conference will appear shortly, but for further details consult the conference website here [new window].