Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar: What Does Columbus Day Mean Now? or Why Hispanic Heritage Month Matters

Professor Rolena Adorno, Sterling Professor of Spanish at Yale
Thursday, September 22, 5:30 p.m., Bryant 209

National holidays can be controversial, and none is more so than Columbus Day. Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15) offers a welcome alternative in educational and cultural institutions around the country. Adorno’s lecture will cover briefly the history of Columbian commemorations in the United States (as well as observances in Spain and Latin America) and, at greater length, the development of Hispanic Heritage Month. The interpretation of the figure of Christopher Columbus and his peers in contemporary Latin American novels will round out her presentation.

Adorno’s research centers on Latin American literature of the Spanish colonial period. Her books explore the uneasy encounters between Spanish and Amerindian cultures, the debates about the rights of conquest and colonization, the emergence of literary voices, and the resonance of the Spanish colonial heritage in Latin American literature today.

Sponsored by the the University of Mississippi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the College of Liberal Arts, the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History, and the Department of Modern Languages