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COLLEGE
OF LIBERAL ARTS
SPANISH AND
LATIN
AMERICAN NETWORK
Lectures
and Colloquia Spring 2012
Yuri Herrera
Mellon Fellow, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Tulane University
Wednesday, April 25 | 4:30 PM | 147
Griffin Hall
The
Semantics of Luminol
What
is it about the way we name
certain spaces? What connotations are carried by the new words
which
have arisen, or have been popularized to designate places that already
had a name? What happens to the words that still designate places whose
meanings have changed violently?
This presentation investigates the
work of language to transform urban space(s) in the context of
the “war
on drugs” in Mexico. Bridges
become places where messages --
cadavers,
blankets -- are left, sidewalks are transformed by yellow tapes into
scientific and judicial spaces, and highways are venues where victims’
families march.
In a context which also puts pressure on language, the
euphemisms and poetic registers used in the public sphere constitute a
verbal map which, registering this experience, uncovers anxiety
or
resignation in the face of a new
order.
The way in which today’s
language alludes to certain political, business, and criminal practices
as well as names certain places, is a logbook that foreshadows the
cities of the future, if we know how to read it still in
darkness.
The chemiluminescence reaction of Luminol is responsible for the blue glow of lightsticks.
In forensics, Luminol is used to detect traces of blood at crime scenes.
Dr. Herrera will
discuss his novels Trabajos
del Reino and Señales
que precederán el fin del mundo Thursday, April 26, at 11 AM in 409
Griffin Hall.
All members of the University and the community are invited to
both
events.
The
SALA lecture series has brought emerging and distinguished
scholars and artists working in Iberian and Latin American Studies to
the UL Lafayette campus since 1999. We
are grateful
to the Lyceum Committee of the
Student Government Association, the Office of
Academic Planning and Faculty Development, the Graduate
School, the College of
Liberal Arts, the
Honors Program, the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology, English,
History
and Geography, Modern Languages, Music, and Visual Arts, the
Minor in Latin American Studies, and KRVS-Radio Acadie
for their generous support of this series.
2008-2011 lectures were Eleanor Laughlin,
Latin
American and Iberian Insitute,
University of New Mexico, Brent
Woodfill, Proyecto Salinas de
los Nueve Cerros, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, Joanna
O'Connell, Spanish
and Women's Studies,
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Guillermo
de los Reyes, Spanish
and Portuguese, University of Houston, Alejandro
Cortazar,
Spanish, LSU-Baton Rouge, Mark
Lentz, History,
UL
Lafayette, Dorota
Heneghan,
Spanish,
LSU-Baton Rouge, Leslie
Bary, Spanish,
UL Lafayette, Joseph
V. Ricapito, Yenni
Distinguished Professor of Spanish,
Italian, and Comparative Literature, LSU-Baton Rouge, and Arthur
Demarest, Ingram
Professor of Anthropology, Vanderbilt
University.
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