February 9-11, 2012
To mark the 500th anniversary of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León’s landing on the shores of Florida, the University of Miami Center for Humanities will host “Florida at the Crossroads: Five Hundred Years of Encounters, Conflicts, and Exchanges” on February 9-11, 2012. Twenty-six scholars from the State of Florida, around the United States, and Spain will offer a thought-provoking dialogue revisiting the past, heeding the present, and envisioning the future of Florida as a crossroads of peoples, quests, and exchanges. Conference activities are open to the public free of charge and will take place on the UM Coral Gables campus.
The conference is supported by a generous grant from the Florida Humanities Council awarded to the Center for the Humanities and to project director Dr. Viviana Díaz Balsera, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at UM. The event will open on Thursday February 9, 2012, with a keynote address by distinguished colonialist Dr. Raquel Chang-Rodríguez (Graduate Center and City College, City University of New York) on the chronicles describing the early European contact with the indigenous population of La Florida. On Friday February 10, and Saturday February 11, scholars from anthropology, archeology, art history, geography, history, Latin American studies, literature, political science, sociology, Spanish literature, and urban studies will discuss Florida’s past, present, and future. Friday evening, renowned expert on immigration and ethnicity Alex Stepick (Florida International University) will give the second keynote address “Florida: Still on the Edge?” The conference will close Saturday evening with a dramatic reading of “Hail, God of Seeds!” by seventeenth-century Spanish colonial poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, set to period music performed by instrumentalists and choral ensemble.
Admission to all conference activities is free and open to the public. Registration is required. For further information on the events and to register, visit http://humanities.miami.edu/symposia/florida500.
The College of Arts and Sciences Center for the Humanities at the University of Miami is dedicated to supporting humanities, arts, and interpretive social science research and teaching, as well as to presenting public programs to enrich Miami’s intellectual culture. For further information, call 305-284-1580, or visit www.humanities.miami.edu.
The grant from the Florida Humanities Council is part of their Viva Florida 500 program, commemorating the 500th year of Spain’s relationship with Florida. For more information, visit www.floridahumanities.org.
# # #
The University of Miami’s mission is to educate and nurture students, to create knowledge, and to provide service to our community and beyond. Committed to excellence and proud of our diversity of our University family, we strive to develop future leaders of our nation and the world. www.miami.edu.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Thursday, February 9, 2012
STORER AUDITORIUM
7:00 p.m. (Reception Following)
“On the Trail of Texts from Early Spanish Florida”
– Keynote Speaker: Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, Distinguished Professor of Spanish at the Graduate Center and City College, City University of New York
Friday, February 10, 2012
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
8:30-9:00 a.m. – Continental Breakfast
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
9:00-10:30 a.m. – Panel 1: Encounters and Exchanges
Moderator: Traci Ardren, UM
“Prelude to La Florida: The Material World of Ponce de León, and His Contemporaries in America, 1493-1513”
– Kathleen Deagan, Florida Museum of Natural History
“When Worlds Collided: Juan Ponce de León and the Florida Indians”
– Jerald T. Milanich, Florida Museum of Natural History
“Deserted and of Little Benefit? The La Florida of Explorers and Conquerors, 1500-1600”
– Paul E. Hoffman, Louisiana State University
Q&A
10:30-10:45 a.m. Break
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. – Panel 2: Conflicts
Moderator: Robin Bachin, UM
“‘A Land Renowned for War’: Florida as a Maritime Marchland: 1565-1715”
Amy T. Bushnell, Brown University
“The Most Contending Corner: The Empires and the Indians, 1710-1820”
Eva Botella-Ordinas, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and
Josep Maria Fradera, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
“The Experience of a Loss: Spain, Florida, and the US in the 19th Century”
Carmen de la Guardia Herrero, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Q&A
12:15-1:45 pm Lunch
1:45-3:00 p.m. Breakout Sessions
“The Curious Case of the Conflicting Accounts of the Sack of St. Augustine in 1668”
Amy T. Bushnell, Brown University
“Early Florida Cartography”
Susan Danforth, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
“Modern by Tradition: Innovations within Seminole Material Culture”
Andrew Frank, Florida State University
“Spanish Women in St. Augustine, 1565-1763”
Yolanda Gamboa, Florida Atlantic University
3:00-3:15 p.m. Break
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
3:15-4:30 p.m. – Roundtable
Moderator: Arva Moore Parks, Coral Gables Museum
Eva Botella-Ordinas, Amy T. Bushnell, Carmen de la Guardia Herrero, Kathleen Deagan, Paul E. Hoffman, Jerald T. Milanich
STORER AUDITORIUM
4:30-5:30 p.m. Refreshments
STORER AUDITORIUM
6:00 p.m.
“Florida: Still on the Edge?”- Keynote Speaker: Alex Stepick, Professor of Global and Sociocultural Studies; Director, Immigration & Ethnicity Institute; and Acting Director, Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy, Florida International University
Saturday, February 11, 2012
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
9:00-9:30 a.m. – Continental Breakfast
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
9:30-11:00 a.m. – Panel 3: Haven
Moderator: Kate Ramsey, UM
“’Giving Liberty to All…’: Spanish Florida as a Black Sanctuary”
Jane Landers, Vanderbilt University
“The Cuban Transformation of Miami and the Transformation of the Cuban Community in Miami”
Susan Eckstein, Boston University
“The Haitian Diaspora in Florida”
Michel Laguerre, University of California-Berkeley
Q&A
11:00-11:15 a.m. Break
11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m. – Breakout Sessions
“Golden Age Theater and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz”
Anne J. Cruz, University of Miami
“Florida Highwaymen Artists”
Gary Monroe, Daytona State College
“Food and Culture in Florida”
Andrew T. Huse, University of South Florida
“National Trends in History Education: How Do Miami-Dade Public Schools Compare?”
Robert Brazofsky, Miami Dade Public Schools
12:30-1:45 p.m. Lunch
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
1:45-3:15 p.m. – Panel 4: Transformations
Moderator: Alex Lichtenstein, Indiana University
“Spanish International Cooperation in the Americas and South Florida: Reencounter or Reconquista?”
George Yúdice, University of Miami
“Miami: Mistress of the Americas”
Jan Nijman, University of Amsterdam/University of Miami
“Florida: A Regional Culture in the Making”
Raymond Arsenault, University of South Florida-St. Petersburg
Q&A
3:15-3:30 p.m. Break
CAS GALLERY/WESLEY HOUSE
3:30-5:00 p.m. – Panel 5: Gateways to the Future
“Florida and Spain: Ironies and Prospects of a Secular Relationship”
Alejandro Portes, Princeton University/University of Miami
“Florida, Media, and Culture”
Alberto Ibargüen, President and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
“Florida’s Future: Horizons in Health and Education”
Donna Shalala, President, University of Miami
CLARKE RECITAL HALL PATIO
5:15-6:45 p.m. Reception (sponsored by Spain-Florida Foundation 500 years)
CLARKE RECITAL HALL
7:00 p.m.
“Hail, God of Seeds!”
Joe Adler, GableStage, Stage Director
Karen Kennedy, UM Frost Chorale, Music Director
Dramatic reading of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz “Hail, God of Seeds!” set to period music by Vicente Chavarría.