Three former presidents of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) will come to Cornell Nov. 8 to celebrate the university’s sesquicentennial with current LASA President Debra Castillo.

Jean Franco, president of LASA from 1989-91; Arturo Arias, president from 2001-03; and Sonia E. Alvarez, president from 2004-06, will present at a one-day symposium of the Lake Erie Latin American consortium, whose members include the Latin American Studies Program (LASP) at Cornell.

“The theme is ‘Emergencias,’ with the double valence on the word, to allow for emphasis on emergent practices as well as the challenging situations that often give rise to them,” said Castillo, the Emerson Hinchliff Professor of Hispanic Studies at Cornell, a professor of comparative literature, a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and director of LASP. She was elected LASA’s president in May 2013.

The symposium in G08 Uris Hall is open to the public and begins with a light breakfast at 9:30 a.m. followed by presentations, panel discussions and audience participation in Q&A sessions. Participants will attend a dinner with food by La Cocina Latina and a reception with music by Jorge T. Cuevas and the Caribe Jazz Allstars.

LASA is the largest professional association in the world for individuals and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America. With more than 9,500 members – 45 percent of them residing outside the United States – LASA brings together experts on Latin America from all disciplines and diverse occupational endeavors around the globe.

Franco became the first professor of Latin American literature in England when she was appointed by the University of Essex in 1968. She joined the Columbia University faculty in 1982 and is professor emerita. Franco has been decorated by the governments of Mexico, Chile and Venezuela for her work on Latin American literature and has received lifetime achievement awards from PEN and LASA. Her symposium presentation is “Normalistas and Their Significance in Post-Revolutionary Mexico.”

Arias will present on “Violence and Coloniality: Racialization and Viscerality in Latin America’s New Indigenous Narrative.” A Guatemalan novelist and critic, he has published seven novels and four academic books. He is a professor of 20th-century Spanish-American literature at the University of Texas, Austin, and has taught courses in Central American and indigenous literatures; social and critical theory; race, gender and sexuality in post-colonial societies; cultural studies; and ethnographic approaches.

Alvarez will present on “Civil Society’s ‘Other’: Brazil Before and After the June 2013 Protests.” The Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American Politics and Studies and director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she has authored or edited several volumes on feminism and social movements.  She has also written for the San Francisco International Film Festival, San Diego Latino Film Festival, the Mexican Museum and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Panel discussions will follow each presentation; panelists will include Wendy Wolford, Cornell professor of development sociology, and doctoral student Gustavo Llarull.

The symposium is sponsored by the Mellon Central New York Humanities Corridor and co-sponsored by the Latin American Studies Program and the Department of Comparative Literature at Cornell, the University of Rochester, Syracuse University, Nazareth College and the State Universities of New York at Buffalo and Binghamton.