News and Events

Mexico-Related Events

The Bildner Center’s Mexico Studies Group cordially invites you to the following event:

Mexico Colloquium: The War Against Swine Flu-- Who Loses?

Speaker: Philip Alcabes, Associate Professor, Hunter College, CUNY
Guest Moderator: Dr. Diego Armus, Professor of History, Swarthmore College
WHEN: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 5:00 PM
WHERE: The Graduate Center, Rooms C204/C205, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street

In this talk, Prof. Alcabes will examine world health policy, viewing the 2009 swine flu outbreak in the context of global environment, commerce, and economic stress – and asking how Latin America figures into U.S.- and Europe-centered disease control.
 
About the Speakers:
Philip Alcabes is currently Associate Professor in the Program in Urban Public Heath at Hunter College’s School of Health Sciences and in the doctoral public health program at the CUNY Graduate Schools. He is also a member of Hunter’s Council on Honors. In addition to his Hunter appointment he holds a visiting faculty appointment at the Yale School of Nursing.  Prof. Alcabes’s new book Dread: How Fear and Fantasy have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to Avian Flu(PublicAffairs, 2009) is a history of how people have thought about epidemics in the western world. Alcabes’s essays on the history, policy, and ethics of public health have appeared in The American Scholar, Virginia Quarterly Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as peer-reviewed journals. Previously, he conducted epidemiologic research on the epidemiology of AIDS and other community-acquired infections, social issues in the spread of epidemics, and methods for the statistical study of infectious diseases. Outside the university, Alcabes is a member of the scientific advisory board of the World Trade Center Registry project in NYC. He has consulted on public-health policy and AIDS-prevention projects in Eastern Europe for the Open Society Institute, World AIDS Foundation, and Fogarty International Foundation of the National Institutes of Health.
 
Diego Armus teaches courses on Latin American history at Swarthmore College. His current research centers on the history of diseases, public health, and habits in modern Latin American cities, particularly Buenos Aires. His most recent book is La Ciudad Impura. Salud, Tuberculosis y Cultura en Buenos Aires, 1870-1950 (Buenos Aires, 2007); its English version will be published by Duke University Press, tentatively entitled The Tuberculosis Years. Disease, Culture and Society in Buenos Aires, 1870-1950. He has also written or edited several books. Among them, Avatares de la Medicalización en América Latina (2005); From Malaria to AIDS (2003); Entre Médicos y Curanderos. Cultura, Historia y Enfermedad en la América Latina Moderna (2002) and Mundo Urbano y Cultura Popular.Estudios de Historia Social Argentina (1990).

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The Educational Needs and Strengths of Mexican Youth and Families

October 2-3, 2009

The Latina/o and Latin American Faculty Working Group at Teachers College will hold a conference on the educational experiences of Mexican youth and families in the tri-state area on October 2 and 3. The conference, which will take place at Teachers College, will explore the varied educational opportunities and experiences—from early childhood to adulthood—of Mexican immigrants throughout the region.

Among the featured speakers will be Kris Gutierrez, Professor and Provost's Chair University of Colorado at Boulder and President-Elect of the American Educational Research Association, who will deliver an address on “The Pedagogical Imagination and Mexican American Youth: Teaching toward Possibility.” Also scheduled to give a presentation is Stella Flores, Vanderbilt University on “State Dream Acts and Latino Immigrant Youth: Public Policy, College Access, and Geography.”

The conference will also feature a roundtable discussion on What 'We Can Learn about Mexican Americans and U.S. Education from International Comparisons'. Taking part in the discussion will be Richard Alba, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY; Margaret Gibson, Professor of Education and Anthropology, University of California at Santa Cruz; Carola Suárez-Orozco, Professor of Applied Psychology and Co-Director of Immigration Studies, New York University; and Maurice Crul, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam.

For programs updates and online free registration to attend the conference please visit www.tc.columbia.edu/latino-ed.

Conference Supporters

The Institute for Latin American Studies at Columbia University, the Working Group on Latin American Migration at New York Univeristy, the Office of Student Activities and
Programs at Teachers College, and the Office for Diversity and Community Affairs at Teachers College, Columbia University.