2021 Lecture Series

APRIL 20, 2021 - 1:00PM TO 2:30PM CST

Vicente Sánchez-Biosca is a Professor of Communication and Visual Culture at the University of Valencia (Spain) and was Chair Holder of the King Juan Carlos Center of NYU in 2013. A visiting scholar at the university of Montreal (1992-1996), Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle) (2010-2015), among others, he leads two major research projects on perpetrators and perpetration of mass crimes, focusing particularly on the crime scenes. His last books include: Cine de historia, cine de memoria. La representación y sus límies (2006); Cine y guerra civil española. Del mito a la memoria (2006); El pasado es el destino. Propaganda y cine del bando nacional en la guerra civil (with RR Tranche, 2011); and Miradas criminales, ojos de victima imágenes de la aflicción en Camboya (2017). His forthcoming book is entitled La muerte en los ojos. Qué perpetran las imágenes de perpetradoes (Alianza editorial, 2021).

About the lecture: In late July 1936, during the first days that followed the military uprising in Spain, two symbolic events shocked the world: the first occurred in Barcelona, as anarchists took over the convent of the Salesas, opened the nun’s coffins interred in the cave and displayed them before the astonished eyes of all who were present at the church’s hall; the second took place next to Getafe (Madrid) in what was considered as the geographic center of the Spanish peninsula, a hill presided over by the impressive statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, enshrined by king Alphonse XIII in 1919 to protect all of Spain. A group of militiamen occupied the hill and, aiming with their rifles at the monument, photographed themselves as they opened fire.

Although bloodless in a period of extreme cruelty and human casualties, these two acts of desecration were immediately re-appropriated by the enemy’s propaganda apparatuses and had an enormous impact on public opinion, causing perhaps more harm to the Republican prestige than any other campaign. Nazi and Italian Fascist propaganda did not fail to resort to them for their own struggle. What is peculiar about these two photographed and filmed scenes is their everlasting effect over the years: not only were they referred to by Francoism until the end of the regime as a warning, but they were also invoked in more recent times when the right wing ideologs contested the Socialist government’s ‘historical memory’ project around 2007.

This paper delves into the complex iconic and symbolic sources of those events, as well as closely examining their migration and repurposing in different visual, ideological and political frameworks from 1936 until recently.

Sponsored by Spanish and Portuguese Studies, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, CLA Office of the Dean, and Institute for Advanced Study

MARCH 5, 2021 - 2:00PM TO 3:30PM CST

Dr. Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD is a Professor of Law, McKnight Presidential Fellow, and faculty member in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Shen Neurolaw Lab, whose Lab motto is, “Every story is a brain story.” In fall 2020 he is a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School, teaching Criminal Law. He is also Executive Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior, an Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience at the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School. Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, Dr. Shen received his B.A. from the University of Chicago, his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Shen is building the new field of law and neuroscience, and conducts empirical, legal, and ethical research to examine how insights from neuroscience can make the legal system more just and effective. This includes a new project on neuroscience, memory, trauma, and asylum justice at the MGH Center for Law, Brain & Behavior. Dr. Shen has co-authored 3 books, including the first Law and Neuroscience casebook (Aspen, with Jones and Schall), with a 4th book currently under review. He also teaches and writes on artificial intelligence and the law.

About the talk: The success of an asylum claim relies, to a large degree, on the perceived credibility of an asylum seeker’s memory. Often the credibility assessments of judges and asylum officers turn on the consistency (or lack thereof) in an asylum seeker’s story. Asylum applicants will often recount their stories at multiple points in the legal journey, including immediately upon entry into the U.S.; in a subsequent written affidavit; and before an asylum officer or immigration judge. If inconsistencies or inaccuracies emerge, the asylum adjudicator often infers that the asylum seeker intends to deliberately mislead him or her. In this presentation, Dr. Shen will discuss a foundational, yet failed assumption, animating U.S. asylum law’s approach to credibility---that honest human memory is free of inconsistencies, and that those with histories of trauma are capable of error free autobiographical recall. Dr. Shen will discuss how memory science counsels a more nuanced approach to credibility, and how changes in asylum seekers’ narratives over time may not be due to deliberate deception but rather to the nature of human memory itself.

Sponsored by Spanish and Portuguese, CLA Office of the Dean, Human Rights Program, and Institute for Advanced Study

MARCH 2, 2021 - 11:15AM TO 12:45PM CST

Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD is a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress. His work integrates developmental, neurobiological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment. Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development, memory, and the psychobiology of trauma. He has published over 150 peer reviewed scientific articles on such diverse topics as neuroimaging, self-injury, memory, neurofeedback, Developmental Trauma, yoga, theater and EMDR. He is founder of the Trauma Research Foundation in Boston, MA; past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. He regularly teaches at universities and hospitals around the world. His most recent 2014 New York Times Science best seller, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Treatment of Trauma transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies.

About the lecture: During the past decade an enormous amount has been learned about the neurobiology of trauma and the nature of memory in trauma survivors. Drawing from his ground-breaking work The Body Keeps The Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk will explore the clinical implications of these discoveries and a range of new approaches based on the research. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest where memories are stored in the brain and the possible mechanisms for the recovery of traumatic memories. While ordinary memory is an active and constructive process, traumatic memories are stored as dissociated sensory and perceptual fragments of the experience. Depending on the age at which the trauma occurs and the social support systems of the victim, memories are constructed differently. We will cover the profound effects of trauma on cognition, affect regulation, and on the development of “self” and interactions with others. You will learn how trauma and disruptions in attachment bonds affect the development of identity, and how this is expressed socially as difficulties in affect modulation, destructive behavior against self and others and in negotiating intimacy. We will cover how childhood trauma affects the development of self-esteem, the capacity to identify and negotiate personal needs, and the ability to relate effectively with others. Since traumatic imprints are stored in subcortical brain areas and are largely divorced from verbal recall, the somatic experiencing of trauma-related sensations and affects is a central focus. You will learn how neurofeedback, yoga, theater, IFS and EMDR can help resolve the traumatic past and discuss the integration of these approaches during different stages of treatment.

Sponsored by Spanish and Portuguese Studies, Department of Neuroscience, CLA Office of the Dean, and Institute for Advanced Study

FEBRUARY 5, 2021 - 11:30AM TO 1:00PM CST

Dr. Sara A. Ramírez is an Assistant Professor of English at Texas State University. Ramírez earned her doctorate degree in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. Ramírez teaches courses on Chicanx literature and cultural productions, Chicana feminist theory, and an author-specific course focused on the works of Gloria Anzaldua. Her research areas include Anzaldúan thought, Chicana/x self-making, Chicana/x representations of trauma, and feminist editorial praxis. She is also co-publisher for the historical Third Woman Press: Feminist of Color Publishing. Ramírez has co-edited and written introductions for the last two volumes of El Mundo Zurdo, a multi-genre collection of pieces on the life and work of Chicana scholar Gloria Anzaldúa. Additionally, she has published in the peer-reviewed journal Diálogo. She is currently at work on her first book manuscript that uses a decolonial feminist lens to treat historical and intergenerational traumas experienced by Chicana/xs.

Sponsored by Spanish and Portuguese Studies; CLA Office of the Dean; Race, Indigeneity, Gender & Sexuality Studies; Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies; Department of Chicano and Latino Studies; Institute for Advanced Study