This symposium celebrates the scholarship and activism of José Rabasa, who will also be participating in the event. A founding member of the now disbanded Latin American subaltern studies group, Rabasa has intervened in many fields, including: (post) colonial and subaltern studies; Nahuatl poetry and painting; Indigenous studies; the history of voice; escritura salvaje (wild writing); and borderland studies, with foundational publications such as Inventing America: Spanish Historiography and the Formation of Eurocentrism (1993), Writing Violence on the Northern Frontier (2000), Without History; Subaltern Studies, the Zapatista Insurgency, and the Specter of History (2010), Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You: Elsewheres and Ethnosuicide in the Colonial MesoAmerican World (2011). His conceptualizations such as “writing violence,” “ethnosuicide,” “elsewheres,” and “without history” have gained currency beyond the boundaries of Latin American studies.

In addition to serving as a celebration of Rabasa’s ongoing work and activism, the event brings together scholars and activists in Princeton University, and universities and newspapers from Latin America for two days of presentations and intense conversation on a range of themes related to Rabasa’s work and its continued relevance. By opening a space for dialogue and discussion that bridges not only North and South, but also the divide between activism and academia, this symposium provides a timely opportunity for a collective examination of the relevance, ethics, and values of insurgent modes of knowledge.

Additionally, Laurence Cuelenaere’s photographs taken in San Cristóbal de Chiapas, Mexico will be on exhibit in Palmer House, to stimulate new perspectives in scholarship and activism in Latin America, by opening a dialogue between participants from across the hemisphere whose work is grounded in an interrogation of the ethics of representation.