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2012-2013 Lectures

The Center for U.S. – Mexico Studies cordially invites you to its Lecture Series 2012 – 2013. This year’s series will highlight various perspectives on abstract comics, interpretations on current U.S.-Mexico affairs, regional development and poverty, contemporary Mexican classical music, and international education leadership in Mexico.

The Center for U.S. – Mexico Studies, seeking to foster greater understanding between our two nations, is pleased to host and promote lectures on issues of interest to both Mexico and the U.S. Previous lectures have included such issues as the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), analysis of domestic politics and foreign policy, issues in science and technology, transborder population, and cultural development in both countries. The Center has hosted Carlos Fuentes, Andrés Oppenheimer, Elena Poniatowska, Ana María Salazar, Mónica Verea, Peter M. Ward, Victoria Rodríguez, Adolfo Aguilar Zínser, Jacqueline Peschard, Arexi Urrutia, Mario Moises Alvarez, Adolfo Sanchez, Thomas Linehan, Larry D. Terry, Stephanie Newbold, Paul Ching-Wu Chu, Douglas Watson, Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, Anvar Zakhidov, José Carlos Gómez, Juan Guillermo Figueroa Perea, Jesus Silva Herzog, Robert Nelsen, Rita Lepe, Jorge Volpi Escalante, Enrique Hubbard Urrea, Susan Briante, Coral Bracho, Alejandro Tirado, Monica Rankin, Enric Madriguera, Octavio J. Esqueda, Raul and Daniel Olmos, Ma. Elena Labastida, Ruben Nieto, Soledad Loaeza, Ana Cervantes, Darla Deardorff, Monica Brussolo, Servando Aguirre, and Manuel Quevedo, among others, under the frame of this series.

Monica Rankin, Monica Brussolo, Charles Hatfield, Rene Prieto, Carolina Dabbah, Adrian Avendano, Diego Barrera Mendez, and Paul Miguel Arevalo Rodriguez are scheduled in this academic year. The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) students, faculty and staff, and those interested in U.S. – Mexico affairs from the metropolitan area of Dallas – Fort Worth will benefit from the experience and expertise shared by these scholars.

If you have questions or need further information, please contact us telephonically at (972) 883 6401.

We look forward to seeing you in this series.

2012 Mexican Elections: Outcomes and Interpretations, Monica Rankin, Monica Brussolo, and Rodolfo Hernandez Guerrero.Co-sponsored by UT Dallas School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences and UT Dallas School of Arts and Humanities. The University of Texas at Dallas, Founders North (FN) 2.104, September 6, 2012, 1.00 p.m.

Monica Rankin earned her PhD in History from the University of Arizona with an emphasis in Latin America and Modern Mexico. Her most recent work is The History of Costa Rica published by Greenwood Press in 2012.  Her research focuses on twentieth century diplomacy and cultural issues between the United States and Latin America, with a particular emphasis on the uses of propaganda in Mexico during World War II. Her manuscript, México, la patria! Propaganda and Production during World War II, was published in 2009 (University of Nebraska Press). Dr. Rankin presented findings from the manuscript at numerous academic conferences and is currently revising several journal articles based on that material. In addition to the book manuscript, Dr. Rankin completed a manuscript for a 250,000-word encyclopedia on the history and culture of Latin American in the nineteenth century. The encyclopedia was published through Facts on File Publisher in 2009. Her volume is the third in a four-volume set on the history and culture of Latin America from the pre-Colombian era to the present. Dr. Rankin has published journal articles and book chapters including, “La Ropa Cósmica: Identity and Fashion in 1940s Mexico” (Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, 2010) and “Mexicanas en Guerra: World War II and the Discourse of Mexican Female Identity” (Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s History, 2011).  In addition to research and publications, Dr. Rankin continues to be involved in a number of outreach activities with the educational community. She is a co-director of the Oaxaca Summer Institute graduate field school.  She presented several lectures and participated in teacher workshops in Dallas area and was invited to present her research at a graduate student colloquium in Mexico.

Monica Brussolo is Senior Lecturer at the Naveen Jindal School of Management at UTD and worked as an Assistant Director of Institutional Research at the Collin College. She obtained her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Economy and a Master degree in Economics from the University of Texas at Dallas, as well as an MBA from Texas A&M International University. Her main research interest lies on regional economic development and its spatial analysis. She has focused her work on examining inequality for diverse demographic groups, its determinants and the implications for social domestic policy in the Mexican context. She is interested on education and labor outcomes for disadvantaged social groups, and the effects of Latin American migration on segmented job markets for the American border region. She has collaborated with Mexican local governments in the definition and implementation of their economic strategic plans. She has taught courses of Corporate and International Finance, Management, Applied Statistics, Economics and Public Policy at UTD, Collin College and the State University of Tamaulipas (UAT).  In this last institution, she earned bachelor degrees in Management and in Public Accounting.

Rodolfo Hernandez Guerrero is Director of the Center for U.S. – Mexico Studies and the Office of International Education (OIE) in The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). Under his direction, the Center and the OIE focus on increasing and strengthening the academic relation between UTD and Mexico and UTD and higher educational institutions with international prestige, using an interdisciplinary approach to focus on international education, research, and public service programs. He holds a B.A. in international studies from the National University of Mexico (UNAM), a M.A. in Political Science from the Southern Oregon University, a M.S. in Applied Economics, and a Ph.D. in Political Economy from UTD. He teaches courses on U.S. – Mexico Affairs, Contemporary Politics of Mexico, Mexican Political System, and Mexican Economics. Previous to his current position at UTD, he worked as researcher at the Latin American Institute of Economics, Social, and Communication Studies (ILEESCO), the Permanent Conference of Public Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPAL), the Inter-American Conference on Control of Drug Abuse (CICAD) at the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Secretariat of the NAFTA Labor Commission. Dr. Hernandez Guerrero has published in specialized journals and newspapers and participated in news and documentary T.V. and radio programs in Mexico, the United States, Argentina, Portugal, United Kingdom, and Australia.

Carlos Fuentes: Literature and Life, Rene Prieto and Charles Hatfield Co-sponsored by UT Dallas School of Arts and HumanitiesThe University of Texas at Dallas, Erik Jonsson Academic Center (JO) 4.708, September 18, 2012, 2.30 p.m.

Rene Prieto is a specialist in 19th and 20th century literature and humanities. He is fluent in five languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French and Chinese. Before coming to UT Dallas in 2012, he was a professor of literature at both Vanderbilt University and Southern Methodist University, a visiting professor at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan and The University of Virginia, and an assistant professor at Middlebury College. Prieto received all of his undergraduate training in Italy and France, and did the major part of his graduate work at Stanford University. His interests include 19th and 20th century European and Latin American narrative (including body, gender and sexuality), literary theory, and Indigenismo. His current research deals with the ethical and political dimensions of love in 20th century Latin American literature. Prieto hopes to work closely with museums in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well as with the Dallas Opera, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and TITAS to showcase the bond between literature and the arts. He intends to show how this bond stretches well beyond the confines of the classroom and is, in fact, the very backbone of today’s global culture. He has published more than 40 articles and reviews, and was co-editor of The Handbook of the Library of Congress (Central American literature section) for eight years, as well as on the editorial board of the Latin American Literature Journal. He has received three grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and one from the Guggenheim Foundation. Prieto has published three books, and is completing work on a fourth, Blood Ties, an analysis of the father’s role in 19th and 20th century foundational fictions of Latin America.

Charles Hatfield is an assistant professor of literary studies and specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America.  His current project, Latin America and Anti-Universalism, explores the intellectual underpinnings and political consequences of the politics of difference in Latin American literature and intellectual history.  A former fellow of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), Hatfield is currently the assistant director of UT Dallas’s Center for Translation Studies, where he is an editor of the journal Translation Review.  His essays and reviews have appeared in MLNPolítica Común, and the Revista Hispánica Moderna. Hatfield received his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from The Johns Hopkins University in 2007 and his B.A. in Spanish from the University of Toronto in 2000.

Oaxaca Virtual, Carolina DabbahCo-sponsored by the UT Dallas School of Arts and Humanities and Arts, UT Dallas Technology Program (ATEC), University of Oregon, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Smithsonian Institute.The University of Texas at Dallas, Erik Jonsson Academic Center (JO) 4.122, November 8, 2012, 11.30 a.m.

Carolina Dabbah Ceballos is Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant to Dr. Thomas E. Linehan, director of the Arts and Technology program (ATEC), at The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas). She was born in Jordan and comes from a Greek and Colombian background. She attained grade 5 status as a piano player from ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music), UK. She obtained her bachelor degree in computer science at Al-Ahliyya Amman University in Amman, Jordan, a Master of Fine Arts degree in digital media (ATEC) at UT Dallas, a research fellowship 2010-2011 by the Smithsonian Institute -Office of Exhibits Central in Washington, D.C., and a research grant by the University of Oregon, collaborating with the Smithsonian Institute Latino Center-Washington, D.C., National Endowment for the Humanities, and La Salle Oaxaca University- Mexico. She travelled to Oaxaca-Mexico with more than thirty art teachers/scholars from all over the USA to promote the Latino culture, art, history, and heritage of Oaxaca-Mexico, creating a three-dimensional online environment project of Oaxaca in the Smithsonian-second life platform (virtual Oaxaca). Her Ph.D. dissertation is concentrated on the interpretation of works of art created by three-dimensional technology that reveals unique perspectives of traditional art, creating a strong foundation for the art-making process, reproduction, and three-dimensional digitization in restoration and preservation.

Science in the Consulate, Adrian AvendanoCo-sponsored by the UT Dallas School of Engineering and Computer Science and Consulate General of Mexico in Dallas.Consulate General of Mexico in Dallas, 1210 River Bend Dr., Dallas, Texas, 75247, November 9, 2012, 10.00 a.m.

Adrian Avendano Bolivar finished his bachelor in Mechatronic Engineering in the Saltillo Technology Institute in 2007. After working for GE Electric Distribution Equipment division he started his PhD at The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) in 2008. He finished his M.S. in Material Science from UT Dallas (2011). In Spring 2011 he founded with other fellow students the UT Dallas Mexican Association of Students (MAS) and was appointed as its president. He was also elected in the 2011 summer semester as student representative of the UT Dallas Material Science Department. During the same semester he pursued an internship at Qualcomm in San Jose, California, in the QMT department. Adrian is expected to complete his Ph.D. program in December 2013 under the supervision of Professor Walter Voit. His research focuses on the design and fabrication of thin film transistors (TFTs) on shape memory polymers to implement flexible and stretchable electronics for biomedical applications such as neural interfaces enabling new technologies to study neuron interactions. He is also studying the integration of these TFTs in applications such as pressure and stress sensors.

The Cannibal Night: A Bilingual ReaderLuis Jorge Boone and George Henson.Co-sponsored by the UT Dallas School of Arts and Humanities and the Center for Translation Studies.The University of Texas at Dallas, Jonsson Performance Hall (JO) 2.604, February, 20, 2013, 7.30 p.m.

Luis Jorge Boone (Monclova, Coahuila, 1977) is the author of the seven books of poetry, Legión (2003), Galería de armas rotas (2004), Material de ciegos (2005), Traducción a lengua extraña (2007), Novela (2008), Primavera un segundo (2010) y Los animales invisibles (2010), and two short story collections, La noche caníbal, which won the Premio Nacional del Cuento Inés Arredondo (2005), and Largas filas de gente rara (Fondo de Cultura Econónica, 2012). His first novel, Las afueras, was chosen by La Reforma newspaper as one of the best novels of 2011. In addition to the Premio Nacional del Cuento, Boone is the recipient of nine national literary prizes for his poetry, short stories and essays. He is a three-time fellow of the Programa Jóvenes Creadores del FONCA and twice fellow of the Fundación de las Letras Mexicanas. Boone currently lives in Mexico City and is a columnist for the Arts section of the newspaper Zócalo de Saltillo.  The Cannibal Night is his first work to be translated.

George Henson is a senior lecturer of Spanish at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he is completing a PhD in literary and translation studies. George is the translator of two books, The Heart of the Artichoke (Alligator Press 2011), by Elena Poniatowska and Luis Jorge Boone’s The Cannibal Night (Alligator Press 2012). He is also the translator of numerous short stories, by authors such as Andrés Neuman, Miguel Barnet, and Leonardo Padura. His translations have appeared in World Literature TodayWords Without BordersPuerto del Sol, The Literary Review and Translation Review.

Use of Nanoparticles for Catalysis or OPV’s: A U.S. – Mexico Interaction, Diego Barrera Mendez and Paul Miguel Arevalo RodriguezCo-sponsored by the UT Dallas School of Engineering and Computer Science, UT Dallas Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Mexican Research Center for Advanced Materials (CIMAV).CIMAV – Monterrey, Alianza Norte 202. Parque de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica. Apodaca, Nuevo León, México. C.P. 66600, March 12, 2013, 10.00 a.m.

Diego Barrera Méndez is Ph.D. student and research assistant of the Material Science and Engineering program (MSEN) at The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas). He obtained his bachelor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Coahuila in 2009. After getting his M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Renewable Energies at the Research Center for Advanced Materials (CIMAV) working with Dr. Mario Miki Yoshida in Photo-thermal Solar Collectors (2011), he joined UT Dallas under the premises of the UT Dallas – CIMAV collaboration. Diego is expected to complete his Ph.D. program in December 2016 under the supervision of Professor Julia Hsu, the Associate Department Head of MSEN program. His research focuses on the enhancement of Organic Photo-Voltaics (OPV’s) by using metal oxide nanoparticles as hole and electron transport layers, enabling a low temperature deposition process at atmosphere pressure, reducing significantly cost and time of fabrication.

Paul Miguel Arevalo Rodriguez finished his bachelor degree in chemical engineering in the Parral Institute of Technology in 2007. After his first degree, Paul was sewage water treatment plant supervisor at the “Minera del Norte.” In 2009 he began his master’s degree in materials science at the Research Center for Advanced Materials (CIMAV), working with Dr. Lorena Alvarez and the Hydrodesulfurization Group in collaboration with PEMEX (federal Mexican petroleum agency) to develop a cheaper and more efficient catalyst. After finishing his master’s degree, he began his Ph.D. in materials science at UT Dallas under the premises of the UT Dallas – CIMAV collaboration. His current work focuses on the use of nanoparticles as catalyst for oxidation, supported in a polymer base. He’s currently working with Prof. Amy Walker and her group.