The Idea of Latin America that Historians Built and Disseminated
| Historian Antonio Mitre, exhibitor at the first meeting of the cycle Latin American Identities |
The first meeting of the “Latin American Identities” conference cycle will focus on “The Latin America of Historians,” and will take place on April 15, at 4 pm, at the IEA’s Events Room. The lecturer will be historian Antonio Mitre, from the Department of Political Science of Minas Gerais Federal University (UFMG).
Panelists of the event will be historians Boris Fausto, of the International Situation Analysis Group (Gacint) of USP’s Institute of International Relations (IRI); Gabriela Pellegrino Soares, from USP’s School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH); and Guillermo Palacios, from Colegio de Mexico. The event is coordinated by political scientist Bernard Sorj, a visiting professor at the IEA.
The meetings of the Latin American Identities cycle will take place in the months of April, June, September and November 2015. According to Sorj, the goal of the cycle is not “affirm or deny the validity of the existence of a Latin American identity or of the Latin American dream of a ‘great motherland,’ but rather to understand how the idea of Latin America was – and continues to be – built and disseminated, particularly by artists, intellectuals and social scientists.”
According to him, over the course of a long historical process, Latin America acquired multiple connotations associated with political, cultural and economic projects. Thus, the notion of a Latin American unity has become “part wishful thinking and part reality, partly political will and partly product of ponderous objective and dynamic factors.”
“When generalizations about Latin America emphasize unity, we find that they arise from an unawareness of the continent’s diversity. However, we must also acknowledge that the winds that blow in one country, even if they find different national conditions along the way, also affect with particular force the entire region,” he added.
The event will be broadcast live on the web.
Photo: UFMG