📅 February 5, 2026
⏰ 4:00–5:30 PM
📍 EMU Cedar Room (231)
Join the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) for a winter term Research Colloquium featuring CLLAS-funded research by Guillem Belmar Viernes (Linguistics), Omar Barahona (Spanish), and Giovanni Francischelli (Communication and Media Studies).
This colloquium brings together interdisciplinary scholarship that examines how language, media, and cultural production shape power, memory, and resistance across Latinx and Latin American contexts.
Dr. Belmar Viernes will present work from his long-standing collaboration with speakers of Sa’an Savi ñu Ñuu Xnuviko (Mixtepec Mixtec), an Indigenous language of Oaxaca, Mexico. His project transforms recorded oral narratives into illustrated storybooks, audiobooks, and a trilingual digital platform, supporting language maintenance and cultural transmission in both Mixtepec and Mixtec diaspora communities in the United States.
Omar Barahona’s research addresses 1960s and 1970s Latin American nonfiction film in relation with agrarian movements and land struggle. This presentation offers an overview of militant filmmaking practices in the Mexican countryside during the 1970s and examine how these films engaged peasant and Indigenous communities through testimonial and community-based modes of documentary production and representation.
Giovanni Francischelli will discuss his research on right-wing media ecosystems in Brazil, analyzing how documentary film and digital platforms—especially YouTube—are used to circulate misinformation and political ideology. His work offers critical insight into contemporary media strategies that contribute to cultural polarization.
Each presentation will be followed by discussion and audience Q&A. This event is free and open to the public. Students, faculty, staff, and community members are warmly invited to attend.