Please join us in Auerbach 320 or online this Wednesday, April 3, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., for our next meeting of the University of Hartford Philosophy Club as Bethsaida Nieves presents on aspects of colonial and neo-colonial underdevelopment in Puerto Rico.
To join the meeting online, click here (you may be prompted to download the Webex app in order to join). If you have trouble joining, call Brian Skelly at 413.273.2273.
Bethsaida Nieves’ presentation will discuss the predictions and calculations of difference that have defined the Puerto Rican child as one that needed to be reformed during the first years of U.S. colonial rule. The primary objective of this presentation is to examine the discontinuities within the history of discourses that “constructed” the Puerto Rican student as the object of reflection and action. Secondly, this presentation analyzes the ways in which institutional practices gave legitimacy to those conceptualizations of difference and to what counted as valuable knowledge. Thirdly, this presentation examines the ways in which these discourses of difference provided educators with information about whom the Puerto Rican child was, is, or could become. These assemblages of discourses made difference intelligible and informed how people governed themselves and governed others. In Puerto Rico’s case, sustained avoidance became a tactic for governing, which has kept Puerto Rico in a state of suspended sovereignty since the turn of the twentieth century.
Bethsaida Nieves is a Visiting Assistant Professor at UConn’s El Instituto. Her research focuses on the social epistemology of race, schooling, and educational reforms. Specifically, she examines the racialization of school data by educators and policymakers in Puerto Rico at the turn of the twentieth century.
An ongoing weekly tradition at the University since 2001, the University of Hartford Philosophy Club is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
Please be a part of us as we continue this great tradition both in the classroom online!
For more information, please contact Brian Skelly at bskelly@hartford.edu.