Spanish Department

A series of short plays in Spanish performed by students of SPAN 311.

An evening of short plays performed by the students of Spanish 311. All performances in Spanish. Free and open to the public.

El cepillo de dientes is an absurdist play written by the Chilean playwright Jorge Díaz. In this comedy, a married couple conduct their daily ritual of a battle over breakfast. Diego Mattos Vazualdo, Assistant Professor of Spanish at Saint Michael’s College directs and performs the play with Alissa Gamberg.

Introduced by its producer Daniel Díaz Ravelo. In The Wall of Words, Luis, since childhood, has suffered from dystonia and cannot communicate through body language or words. Between the medical institution and family, his inner life is an impenetrable wall. By crafting a fictional story of a family that falls apart when one of the siblings becomes disabled, Pérez provides a parable of the difficult topics of human communication, pain and the limits of sacrifice. Daniel Díaz Ravelo is an audiovisual producer.

Presented by Marisol Rodríguez Rosabel, former director of the Office of Artistic Creation and Director of the Muestra Joven (Young Directors Film Festival) and the development program for emerging filmmakers at ICAIC. Sponsored by the Rohatyn Center, and the departments of Spanish and Portuguese, Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, Film and Media Culture, and Latin American Studies. Spanish with English subtitles Q and A after screening

A lecture by Ruth Hill.

Lecture “Normalizing US-Cuban Relations: The Obama Legacy” by Peter Kornbluh, Senior Analyst at the National Security Archives. Kornbluh currently directs the Archive’s Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects, and formerly was co-director of the Iran-contra documentation project and director of the Archive’s project on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. From 1990-1999, he taught at Columbia University. He has authored numerous articles and four books, including his latest —”Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana” (UNC Press, 2014).

Frederick Luis Aldama, Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English and University Distinguished Scholar at The Ohio State University, will give a talk about Latino Popular culture in the Robert A Jones room of the Rohatyn Center in October 13, 2015. Aldama will unzip his brain, offering a multimedia extravaganza of all things Latino in the 21st Century. This includes a discussion and analysis of film, television, music, animated cartoons, comic books, video games, Latina Barbie, among many others—that mark the abundant presence of Latinos in the nation.

Margot is a fabulous dresser who belts out tunes, interviews herself on TV, and dispenses safe-sex advice. Roxana is a Russian expatriate who is married to a Cuban fisherman and has a penchant for singing Russian songs while wearing opulent gowns. In the macho world of Cuban culture, Margot Parapar and Roxana Rojo stand out-they are two of the country’s best-known drag queens. In his debut film, MASKS, Cuban filmmaker Lázaro J. González González takes an anthropological approach to documenting Margot and Roxana.

Diana Kennedy, Rick Bayless, and the Manufacturing of Mexican Authenticity