The Day of the Dead talk and workshop
All are invited to join our Talk and workshop on The Day of the Dead to celebrate this Mexican festival Day of the Dead.
After an introduction to the practice of altars and the meaning of the Day of the Dead, author and illustrator Sherwood González will present his comic on family history in Mexico, his use of Spanglish, and how he represents Day of the Dead. This will serve to explore the well-known holiday from a new perspective for the audience, primarily aimed at secondary and higher education students as well as the general public.
Book your place for the Day of the Dead talk and workshop.
Latin American Week
The Latin American Studies at Westminster (LASAW) research group is putting on a series of interactive events at the University of Westminster at its inaugural Latin American Week which will bring together scholars, students, the Latin American diaspora, and wider public and engage them with Latin American culture.
The three events happen in week 6 (Student Engagement Week) which falls on the date of Mexican festival Day of the Dead, around which one of the events is based. All the events will visibilise Latin American Studies and serve as a focal point for these in London, showing how learning a language is a gateway to new knowledge found in unexpected places. The activities include hands-on activities such as mini-museum curation, altar-building for the Day of the Dead, and film screening of La Llorona with a Q&A to open discussions on human rights, the visibility of minority groups, and the commercialisation of Latin American traditions.
Detailed description of events
The proposed event series seeks to bring contemporary Latin American issues to a wide audience through its interactive and interdisciplinary nature. Inclusive and accessible sessions will encourage extra-curricular engagement with undergraduate Hispanic Studies topics and engage with secondary education language learners: given our close involvement with the Routes into Languages programme we will invite our school partners to the events.
These activities will also be of particular interest to languages stakeholders and community groups in London, such as Mujer Diáspora and Casa Latinoamericana, as well as the general public. The events offered play to the strengths of the dynamic research interests of LASAW and the themes will be presented as united by the Spanish language but accessible to all.
