Fall 2022
Connecting with the Dead: Day of the Dead Altars as Aesthetic Practices of Resistance
Connecting with the Dead: Day of the Dead Altars as Aesthetic Practices of Resistance
Speaker: Denise Meda Lambru
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
12:30-2 p.m.
Woody Tanger Auditorium
In recent years, Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S. have garnered significant attention. Now, alongside Halloween paraphernalia, stores sell colorful skulls, images of la Catrina, flower head crowns, and whimsical representations of death. The popularity of the holiday has also caught Hollywood's attention with films such as The Book of Life (2014), Spectre (2015), and Coco (2017.) While the holiday had experienced a rise in popularity, the histories and aesthetic sensibilities are largely overshadowed, such as denouncing the violence and harms marginalized peoples experience. Utilizing Tomás YbarraFrausto's "Rasquachismo" (1989) and Amalia Mesa-Bains' "Rasquache Domesticana" (1990), I highlight how Chicanx artists and communities have commemorated the dead and employed an aesthetic sense that sustains an interconnected space with the dead to critique dominant ideologies and bolster resistance to oppressive social norms.
Denise Meda Lambru (she/her/ella) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University. Her research engages Latinx philosophy, Mexican philosophy and Chicanx philosophy to theorize the relationship between Chicanx interpretations of death and community practices of resistance to legacies of colonialism. Additional areas of interest include Latin American philosophy, Latina/x feminisms, and social and political philosophy. Denise is a Louisville Institute Dissertation Fellow and Texas A&M GREAT Program award recipient and has also served as a fellow of the Texas A&M Race and Ethnic Studies Institute and was awarded the Glasscock Graduate Research Fellowship.
Sponsors
Department of Philosophy, in cooperation with the Brooklyn College Philosophy Society, American Studies, Department of Puerto Rican & Latino Studies, and The Ethyle R.Wolfe Institute for the Humanities
