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Simposium: “Challenging the Lettered City: counter-hegemonic modes of literacy in Latin America”. Febrero 27, 14 hrs. Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The Applied Linguistics Department (TTKA) of the VUB is pleased to invite you to participate in the Symposium:

Challenging the Lettered City: counter-hegemonic modes of literacy in Latin America.

27/2/2014 – 2 PM

Meeting Room TTKA, Pleinlaan 5, 1050 Brussels (third floor)

Organisation: Universiteit Antwerpen & Instituto Cervantes (Brussels) , with the support of Casa do Brasil (Brazilian Embassy) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Contact: Christiane Stallaert, christiane.stallaert@uantwerpen.be

Locations: Universiteit Antwerpen / Instituto Cervantes Brussels / Vrije Universiteit Brussel / Université de Liège.

From the 16th Century, as a result of Iberian colonialism, the ‘first globalization’ was characterized by a world system where being literate (‘ser letrado’) became a constituent of colonial power relations. In the colonial context, the notion of literacy took a Eurocentric definition, meaning written literacy in the colonizer’s (Western) language. This narrow Eurocentric concept of literacy guaranteed the survival of a structural ‘coloniality of power’ even after independence and the end of colonialism. By the end of the 20th Century, a new world order emerged characterized by intensified global mobility and interconnectedness. From a historical Latin American point of view and according to world-system analysis, the current age can be defined as a ‘second globalization’, coinciding with the emergence of alternative forms of literacy able to challenge and even undo the structural colonial power relations characteristic of the ‘Lettered city’ put in place during the first globalization. In our symposium we will trace and discuss itineraries from colonial to de-colonial literacies related to Latin America within the context of the new Global City of the 21st Century. A common thread between the presented case-studies – covering most of the Latin American continent- is a trans-disciplinary conceptual and analytical framework informed by Anthropology, Translation and Intercultural Studies.

Case studies:

  1. 1. COLOMBIA: ‘Ser letrado’ and the construction of coloniality. A study of 16th Century Franciscan manuscripts of Medellín (Martha Pulido, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia).
  2. 2. BRAZIL: Invisible translations. From colonialism to decoloniality in 19th Century’s Brazil (Sergio Romanelli, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil)
  3. 3. COSTA RICA: Digital literacy and Indigenous empowerment in today’s Latin America. The case of the Boruca (Christiane Stallaert, Universiteit Antwerpen).
  4. 4. MEXICO: Professionalizing oral literacy. The training of indigenous interpreters in Mexico (Cristina Kleinert, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico).
  5. 5. PERU / BRUSELAS: Rediscovering the language of collective memory. Quechua literacy among Andean migrants in Brussels (Carmen Núñez Borja, KU Leuven).

At the end of the Symposium a cocktail will be offered by the Applied Linguistics Department