Princeton University Program in Latin American Studies

Announcing the Fall 2026 courses in Latin American Studies!

Learn more:
https://plas.princeton.edu/courses

SAVE THE DATES!

PLAS Spring 2026 Events - Part II

Learn more:
https://plas.princeton.edu/news-events/events

Más Flow Dance Company Presents: FC FLOW*
For the first time in Intime Theater.

Thursday 3/19: 8 PM
Friday 3/20: 6 PM & 10 PM
Saturday 3/21: 4 PM & 9 PM

Reserve your tickets:
https://tickets.princeton.edu/

*FC FLOW tickets are FREE for Princeton students with Passport for the Arts.

Symposium | Rights of Nature: Why Now?

Mar 20, 2026, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
219 Aaron Burr Hall

This event is open to the public.

Co-sponsored by the Program in Latin American Studies.

Learn more about this event:
https://anthropology.princeton.edu/events/rights-nature-why-now

2026 Stanley J. Stein Lecture | A Pretense of Ownership: The Attempted Enslavement of Rose Bazile (Port-au-Prince, Santiago de Cuba, New Orleans)

KEYNOTE
Rebecca J. Scott, Professor of History and Professor of Law, University of Michigan, Emerita

Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Aaron Burr Hall, Room 219

This event is open to the public.

Almost a decade after the Haitian Revolution led to the abolition of slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, Napoleon Bonaparte sent an expeditionary force to try to crush the Revolution and reverse emancipation. Though he failed on both counts, the destruction his assault unleashed turned thousands into refugees. Among those who fled in 1803 were a man born in southern France named Pierre Bazy, an African-born woman named Gertrude, and Gertrude’s child named Rose.

Upon arrival in Cuba and later in Louisiana, Pierre claimed to own Rose, and thus to control her labor, her behavior, and access to her body. Rose nonetheless found ways to live according to her own contrary claim to free status, and to document that freedom. Enraged, Pierre reported her to the New Orleans police as marronne (a runaway from slavery), leading to her arrest and jailing. Soon judges, lawyers, and dozens of witnesses had to address in court variants of the question: What is evidence of ownership, and what is evidence of freedom? Or, as we might put it: What could keep the legal fiction of property in a person afloat, and what might sink it?

Learn more:
https://plas.princeton.edu/events/2026/2026-stanley-j-stein-lecture-rebecca-scott-pretense-ownership-attempted-enslavement

The Importance of Podcasting for Journalism:
A Virtual Conversation with
Pulitzer Prize Winner María Hinojosa

Wednesday, March 4, 2026
2:55 pm – 4:15 pm
East Pyne, Room 010

This event is open to the public.

Learn more:
https://plas.princeton.edu/events/2026/mar%C3%ADa-hinojosa-importance-podcasting-journalism-virtual-conversation-pulitzer-prize

***CANCELED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER***

Please note the "Echoes from the Borderlands" performance scheduled for tomorrow, February 24, at the Princeton University Art Museum, has been CANCELED due to the recent winter storm. Our team is working to reschedule this event.

Stay tuned for more information as it become available:
https://plas.princeton.edu/events/2026/canceled-valeria-luiselli-ricardo-giraldo-leo-heiblum-performance-echoes-borderlands

Mark your calendars!

Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Echoes from the Borderlands
5:00 - 6:30 PM
Princeton University Art Museum | Grand Hall, Ground Floor
This event is open to the public.

Performers:
- Valeria Luiselli, Artist; Professor in Languages and Literature, Bard College
- Ricardo Giraldo, Artist and Director
- Leo Heiblum, Composer, Producer, and Sound Artist

This developmental performance will feature an excerpt of a 24-hour “sonic essay” that documents the histories of violence against land and bodies in the US-Mexico borderlands. Following the southern border of the United States, it begins in the pounding waves of the Pacific Ocean in the Tijuana /San Diego border, and moves eastward throughout 24 hours –from sunrise to sunrise– until it reaches the wetlands of the Texan coast. Through the merging of narratives, soundscapes, voices, melodies, rhythms, archival recordings, and sound constellations, the piece connects issues that have marked the borderlands, such as the genocide of native peoples, extractivism, nuclear testing, migration, femicide, vigilantism, human trafficking, and mass detention. However, these stories of plundering and exploitation are also met with stories of resilience and resistance.

Learn more:
https://plas.princeton.edu/events/2026/valeria-luiselli-ricardo-giraldo-leo-heiblum-performance-echoes-borderlands

SAVE THE DATES | PLAS Spring 2026 Events - Part I

Learn more:
https://plas.princeton.edu/news-events/events

NEW! Spring 2026 Course in Latin American Studies:

LAS 343 /ANT 324 Art and Activism in the Americas (SA)

Taught by Yana Stainova (Ph.D. Brown University), award winning anthropologist and PLAS Visiting Fellow this spring.

Learn more:
https://plas.princeton.edu/las-343-ant-324-art-and-activism-americas-sa