This isn't about some far-off day in the future. It's about right now.
Yesterday, Environmental Protection Agency chief (and climate change denier)
Scott Pruitt called for an exit to the historic Paris Agreement we reached
more than a year ago -- a pact that made huge, undeniable progress. Nearly
every country in the world agreed to do its part on climate change, with the
United States leading the way.
Withdrawing from this landmark achievement would be devastating. The
countries that signed the Paris Agreement pledged to take unprecedented steps
to help protect our health, our planet and our economy: to clean up the air,
to slow the alarming spikes in extreme weather events, and to give working
families access to good jobs in the energy industries of the future.
Sula, when we signed the Paris Agreement, climate change wasn't a partisan
issue -- and it still isn't. It's affecting every one of us, every day, and
pulling out would signal to the world that we can't be trusted. Don't let
this administration undo our years of work with one short-sighted move.
We've already seen with the Affordable Care Act how powerful our voices can
be when we stand together at a critical moment in time. That's why supporters
like you and OFA volunteers around the country are gearing up for climate
marches later this month. Support the work that makes this kind of critical
organizing possible.
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ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
Noemi
Jaffe is an award-winning Brazilian writer, poet, and
teacher whose works have been translated into nearly a dozen languages. She has
published a poetry collection and numerous novels, essays, and short stories. What
are the Blind Men Dreaming?, Jaffe’s book on the legacy of the Holocaust on
Jewish identity, was published in English by Deep Vellum in 2016.
Photo credit: Ninil Gonçalves
Buy Jaffe’s latest book, What are the Blind Men
Dreaming?
Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 E 3RD ST, New York, NY. F
to 2nd Ave.
A
SCREENING OF THE CONTROVERSIAL BRAZILIAN FILM “AQUARIUS,” STARRING SONIA BRAGA
A screening of the powerful 2016 film (directed by
Kleber Mendonca Filho, with Sonia Braga) about the struggles of an independent
woman. Will be followed by a brief discussion of the protests against
repression the film has ignited in Brazil. With Lucrecia Zappi, Elissa Schappell, and D.W. Gibson. Moderated
by Eric M.
B. Becker, editor of Words without Borders and co-editor of Women Writing
Brazil (Pen America).
Co-presented with Cinema Tropical and Words Without
Borders
About Aquarius:
A film by Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil/France,
2016, 142 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
In Aquarius, acclaimed Brazilian
writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Neighboring Sounds) continues to examine
the alienating effects of urban over-development in Recife, a Brazilian
oceanfront city. Clara (Sônia Braga, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Dona Flor
and Her Two Husbands), a vibrant former music critic, avid swimmer,
grandmother, cancer survivor, willing lover and widow with flowing tresses, is
the only remaining apartment owner in a gracious older building targeted for
demolition by ruthless luxury high-rise developers. As the builders tactics to
remove Clara, become increasingly hostile, Clara proves to be a force to be
reckoned with.
Mendonça Filho critiques life in contemporary
Brazil, ranging from issues of social class, to the mistrust of government, to
ageism, nepotism and corporate corruption, while looking fondly at the music,
the places and the objects that we come to cherish in a very personal way. In Aquarius,
this history encapsulated in a dwelling, that in and of itself, has been a
silent witness to a woman’s entire life.
Eric M. B. Becker is a literary translator,
journalist, and editor of Words
without Borders. In 2014, he earned a PEN/Heim grant, and in 2016, he was
awarded a Fulbright to translate Brazilian literature. His work has appeared in
the New York Times, Guernica, and elsewhere. His translation of Mia
Couto’s Rain and Other Stories is forthcoming.
ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE
445 Albee Square W #4,
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Eric M. B. Becker is a literary translator,
journalist, and editor of Words
without Borders. In 2014, he earned a PEN/Heim grant, and in 2016, he was
awarded a Fulbright to translate Brazilian literature. His work has appeared in
the New York Times, Guernica, and elsewhere. His translation of Mia
Couto’s Rain and Other Stories is forthcoming.
Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium is the first full-scale
retrospective in the United States of the Brazilian artist’s work. One of the
most influential artists of the twentieth century, Oiticica’s early work began
with formal, geometric investigations in painting and drawing and soon moved
into large scale "spatial reliefs," exploding his two-dimensional
works into three-dimensional compositions. For the artist, these works were
completed only when viewers interacted with them. That aim reached fruition as
his career advanced and his work took on an increasingly immersive nature,
transforming the viewer from a spectator to an active participant. The
exhibition will include some of these large scale installations, including Tropicalia and Eden.
Oiticica spent a formative time in New York in the 1970s, engaging with the
city and other artists, and extended his work into filmmaking, slide show
environments, and concrete poetry before returning to Brazil. In addition to
viewing original works on display, visitors will be invited to wear and
manipulate exhibition copies of the artist’s interactive works.
Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium is curated by Lynn Zelevansky,
The Henry J. Heinz II Director, Carnegie Museum of Art; Elisabeth Sussman,
Curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, Whitney Museum of American
Art; James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director, The Art Institute
of Chicago; and Donna De Salvo, Deputy Director for International Initiatives
and Senior Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; with Anna Katherine
Brodbeck, associate curator, Carnegie Museum of Art.
This exhibition is
organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Carnegie Museum of
Art, Pittsburgh; and The Art Institute of Chicago.
Support for the national tour of this
exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and
the National Endowment for the Arts.
In New York, generous support is provided by the Juliet Lea Hillman
Simonds Foundation.
Generous endowment support is also provided by The Keith Haring
Foundation Exhibition Fund.
Admission: FREE and open to the public.
Pre-registration required.
Not yet a member? Learn how to become a Cultural
Circle member for reserved seating at this concert.
Brazilian concert pianist Clélia Iruzun has her
Americas Society debut with music from the Americas and Europe, including solo
works by Villa-Lobos, Lecuona, Chopin, Mignon, and Gottschalk.
Iruzun and Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth.
Program
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Impressões Seresteiras (Serenade
Impressions); Festa no Sertão (Ciclo Brasileiro)
Grande fantaisie triomphale sur l’hymne national
brésilien (ca. 1869)
About the artist
London-based pianist Clélia Iruzun's childhood was
spent in the rich cultural atmosphere of Rio de Janeiro, where she began
playing the piano at the age of four, winning her first competition at
seven, and making her orchestral debut playing Grieg’s Piano Concerto at
15. At 17, Iruzun won a scholarship to study in London with Maria
Curcio and Christopher Elton, who took her under his wing at the Royal Academy
of Music, where she graduated with a recital diploma. She also
studied with Noretta Conci and Mercês de Silva Telles. Her mentors have
included Fou Ts’Ong, Stephen Kovacevich, and her Brazilian
compatriots Jacques Klein and Nelson Freire. From the early years of her
career, her technique caught the attention of Francisco Mignone, who wrote a
suite especially for her, and Marlos Nobre, who also wrote a piece
for her. Iruzun won top prizes at the Tunbridge Wells Piano
Competition (UK), as well as the Paloma O’Shea and Pilar Bayona (Spain). Iruzun
has given recitals and concerto performances throughout Europe, the
Americas, and Asia. Her tours in China have featured numerous sold-out
performances, including recitals in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Beijing.
Her recital in Shanghai was voted one of the ten best concerts of the year in
China. She has also toured with the Coull Quartet in China and Brazil and
recently performed with them at the Southbank Centre (UK) and in quartet's
series at Warwick University.
She has premiered several Brazilian works,
including Henrique Oswald's Piano Quintet; Villa-Lobos's Octet; João
Guilherme Ripper's Piano Sonata; Marlos Nobre's Desafio for piano and
guitar and Sonata breve at Southbank and Wigmore Hall; and Piano
Concertos such as the Mignone’s Fantasia No.3 (Norway with the Kristiansand
Orchestra; London with Lontano Ensemble; Poland with the Poznan Philharmonic).
In her native country, she has premiered works by British composers such
as York Bowen and Arnold Bax, and she recently appeared at the Campos do Jordão
Festival. On disc, Iruzun has championed the music of South American
composers: Villa-Lobos Piano Music (1992, reissued by Meridian
Records in 2005); Latin American Dances (1998,
Intim Musik); The Waltz Album (2002, Intim Musik); Brazilian
Mosaic, which included the world premiere recording of Marlos Noble’s Concertante
do Imaginario (2003, Lorelt); The Music of Lecuona (2005,
Lorelt); and Francisco Mignone-Piano Music (2007, Lorelt). Iruzun
founded the festival “Brazil Three Centuries of Music” with the Coull Quartet,
which has already had two successful editions in London.
Event Funders
The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert
series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife
Foundation.
The Spring 2017 Music program is also supported, in
part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in
partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the
Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State
Legislature.
This program is also supported by The Amphion
Foundation, Inc.
Yesterday, this administration bragged that they could withhold important payments and subsidies to health insurers -- just to gain negotiating leverage in their failing quest to repeal Obamacare. What they are proposing is sabotage, plain and simple. There's no question that this move is cruel -- it would jeopardize access to health care for millions of people. And it's just the latest example of the administration's continued callous attitude towards Americans' access to health care. If you agree that access to affordable, quality care is more than a political bargaining chip, speak out against efforts to sabotage Obamacare now. Access to care -- getting much-needed cancer treatment, visiting a doctor to check in on a pregnancy, or even getting a regular check-up -- is crucial for most Americans. It's often a matter of life and death. It's irresponsible to explicitly try and sabotage Obamacare like this, and even worse to brag about it. Just a few months ago, leaders in Congress cobbled together an inadequate, unacceptable, and unpopular replacement for Obamacare. They couldn't pass that bill thanks to folks like you -- people who stood up, got organized, and spoke out, letting Speaker Ryan and other Washington Obamacare opponents know that ripping health coverage away from 24 million Americans is a bad idea. When they realized they lost, they sat back and started calling for Obamacare to fail. But Obamacare isn't in a death spiral, so now the same opponents have to explicitly work against it at every turn. People like you are still here to defend our friends, family, and neighbors who depend on Obamacare. It's up to all of us to keep raising our voices against cruel, irresponsible attempts to sabotage it.
Eduardo Neves to present "Was There Ever a Neolithic in the Neotropics?: A Discussion from the Amazon"
New Trends in Latin American Studies Series Featuring: Eduardo Neves (Anthropologist, Visiting Professor at Harvard)
It is accepted today that the Amazon was an ancient center of plant domestication in the Americas. However, it is also becoming clear that the management of several tree crops that were never domesticated provided an important source of resources for ancient Amazonian societies as well. Some of these tree species are known to be currently hyperdominant are overrepresented in floristic surveys done across the basin and it is likely that such ecological pattern results from human management in the past. If true, this means that the Amazon forests have a cultural history as much as they have a natural history. This presentation will draw from Eduardo Neves' own ongoing research in Southwestern Amazonia as well as research from others to provide a criticism of concepts such as domestication and agriculture when applied for the Amazonian past. It will be proposed that their application obscures rather than helps one to understand how complex forms of interaction between people and nature unfolded over the millennia in the tropical past.
Location: 216 Burr Hall
Date/Time: 04/19/17 at 12:00 pm - 04/19/17 at 1:20 pm
Category: PLAS Lecture
Department: Program in Latin American Studies
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN BRAZILIAN AGRIBUSINESS
Join Us on April 18, 2017Time: 8:00 AM to 10:30 AMLocation: 1"Brazil stands among the worlds foremost agricultural producers, and its farm exports contribute decisively to food security of nations and populations on all continents. The farm sector currently accounts for 21.5% of Brazil's Gross Domestic Products and for half of its export earnings, thereby contributing toward economic well-being and social stability. Though Brazilian farmers enjoy no subsidies, they remain competitive on international markets. Brazil is the worlds largest exporter of sugar, coffee, orange juice, soy beans, and chicken. And stands among the leading exporters of products, such as corn, soybean oil and beef. Notwithstanding such achievements, there is still space for diversification and productivity gains. Brazil can count upon significant competitive advantages, including vast areas of arable land, immense natural reserves, and among the worlds largest fresh water resources. Brazil has made great strides in agricultural research and technology, thereby increasing yields, while exercising social responsibility and environmental sustainability."
- The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA
More information to follow!185 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York
Anna Mester – Brazil's (Re)Encounter with "Africa" Wednesday, April 19, 2017 12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
This presentation will explore “Africa” as a cultural and historical construct and the museum as a space which discerns, creates, and writes historical discourse of and about “Africa” in the present. I will study two exhibitions A nova mão afro-brasileira and África ancestral e contemporânea: as artes do Benin to understand how the museum serves as spaces of discursive and historical contention for the (re)writing of Black histories across the South Atlantic. Co-sponsored by Africana Studies. MORE INFORMATION: http://watson.brown.edu/brazil/events/2017/anna-mester-brazil-s-reencounter-africa
Reflections on Brazil’s Global Rise and its Future: A Conversation with Celso Amorim April 24 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm University Seminar on Latin America
Reflections on Brazil’s Global Rise and its Future: A Conversation with Celso Amorim
Join the University Seminar for a conversation with Ambassador Amorim, former Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations, Minister of Defense and author of “Acting Globally: Memoirs of Brazil’s Assertive Foreign Policy”.
Introduction by Dr. Albert Fishlow.
Monday, April 24
7 – 8:30 pm
Faculty House, Room 1
Details
Date:April 24
Time:7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Event Category:University Seminar on Latin America
Event Tags:
Brazil, Foreign Policy, Globalization, Politics, University Seminar on Latin America
Organizer: University Seminar on Latin America
Proposing a Law with your Cellphone: Technology as a tool to promote Civic Participation and Improve Democracy
May 3 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
The Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies at ILAS invites you to its discussion titled, “Proposing a Law with your Cellphone: Technology as a tool to promote Civic Participation and Improve Democracy” with Ronaldo Lemos, Tinker Visiting Professor at SIPA and ILAS and Director of the Institute for Technology & Society of Rio de Janeiro (ITS Rio).
Some scholars claim that Brazil has become a laboratory for the development of civic technology and new participatory tools. The country is indeed the birthplace of “participatory budgeting”. In addition, Brazil created one of the very first crowdsourced laws, the so-called Marco Civil da Internet (Brazil´s Internet Bill of Rights protecting free speech online, privacy, net neutrality and other Internet rights). In this talk, I will explain how Marco Civil was created, and the challenges of building a crowdsourced law. I will also introduce the Mudamos platform, a new technology built for Brazilians to come together and introduce new legislative Bills directly in Congress, using their cellphones.
Ronaldo Lemos is an internationally respected Brazilian scholar and commentator on technology, intellectual property, and culture. He is a director of the Institute for Technology & Society of Rio de Janeiro (ITS Rio) and professor of law & innovation at the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). He is currently a Tinker Visiting Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds law degrees from University of Sao Paulo Law School, and Harvard Law. Lemos was one of the creators of the Marco Civil, a law enacted in 20014 regulating the Internet in Brazil protecting civil rights, privacy and net neutrality. He is a member of the Council for Social Communication in Brazil’s Congress, created by Brazilian Constitution to deal with matters related to media and freedom of expression. Lemos writes weekly to Folha de S.Paulo, a national newspaper in Brazil. He hosts a TV show focused on innovation at Globonews, a cable news channel, and has contributed to a number of other publications, including Foreign Affairs, Harper’s Bazaar, and Bravo!. In 2015 he was appointed a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. In 2016 he was appointed a fellow with Ashoka. Dr. Lemos serves as a board member in various organizations, such as the Mozilla Foundation and Access Now.
New York City Latin America History Workshop: “Loving Los Spurs: A History of Basketball Fandom in Greater Mexico”
April 21 @ 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Join the New York City Latin American History Workshop (NYCLAHW) in a lecture, entitled “Loving Los Spurs: A History of Basketball Fandom in Greater Mexico” with Frank Guridy of Columbia University.
***Seminars run from 11 am to 12:30 on Fridays and are followed by lunch.
Please note that this year’s spring meetings will take place at The New School (Location TBA).
For inquiries and comments, as well as to receive updates and draft papers in advance, please contact Emmanuel A. Pardo, emmanuel.pardo@stonybrook.edu.
Sponsored by Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Stony Brook University; History Department & Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University; CUNY Graduate Center Doctoral Program in History; Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, New York University; Committee on Historical Studies & The New School for Social Research.