This past Wednesday December 6th (2023) in our doctoral seminar, third year PhD students Valentina Pucci, José Gabriel Alegría and Samuel Espíndola presented their dissertation projects they had worked in the Dissertation Prospectus seminar, directed by Prof. Kathleen Vernon. The topics of research ranged from early modern religious iconography in colonial Andes and Europe, homosexual liberation movements in Argentina in the 1960s and the representation of residues and wasted space in contemporary poetry and visual arts of the Southern Cone and Brazil. See the slides below for the title of each project.
The three presentations were followed by questions and comments by different faculty. Samuel, José Gabriel and Valentina were able to expand on their research and received valuable feedback. In many ways, the three presentation were great examples of departmental fields or lines of inquiry and research. Professor Javier Uriarte, director of graduate studies, commented on the importance of this open conversation in the process of defining and writing the dissertation:
“This event represents a breakthrough moment for our PhD students. This is the result of a semester-long profound engagement with their project. 3rd-year students take the dissertation prospectus workshop in their 5th semester. Throughout the semester they discuss their ideas with colleagues and professors, and thus engage in a thorough editing and rethinking of the proposal. At the end of the semester they are ready to present these ideas to the entire department in a conference-style event. They are expected to offer an articulated version of the project and discuss its central arguments, structure and methodology with students and professors. After the feedback they receive they are expected to continue working with their advisors and submit the final version to their committee at the end of the 6th semester.”
After the three presentations, Prof. Paul Firbas introduced invited guest Dr. Francisco Mamani Fuentes (Thoma Foundation), who presented a talk on colonial architecture. Dr. Mamani, a recent dual graduate in esthetics, history and art theory from the École Normale Supérieure (France) and history from the University of Granada (Spain), shared his archival research on colonial building in the Andes, focusing on the human agency behind the “carpinteria de lo blanco” (construction carpentry) in multiethnic cities like Quito, Lima or Cuzco. He also shared his experiences as a recent PhD graduate, and described the challenges of post-doc and fellowship applications.
Finally, after the presentations, we had the great joy of listening to our first year PhD student and renowned artist Alessio Arena, who performed with his guitar a few of his more popular songs, like his “El hombre que quiso ser canción”, a homage to poet García Lorca that he recorded in 2019 featuring Miguel Poveda (official video here). ¡Mil gracias, grazie mille, querido Alessio, y felicitaciones a todos!