CENTRO’s Afternoon Tertulia presents the (digital) occasion “Velorio: Narratives of Catastrophe” on Tuesday, March 29, 2022, from 4:00 to five:00pm (EST). This occasion focuses on the latest publication of Xavier Navarro Aquino’s debut novel, Velorio [see previous post New Book: Velorio]. Navarro Aquino (College of Notre Dame) might be in dialog with Marisel Moreno (College of Notre Dame) and Maritza Stanchich (College of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras).
Description: Set within the wake of Hurricane Maria, Xavier Navarro Aquino’s seering debut novel [Velorio] follows a gaggle of survivors looking for hope on an island torn aside by each a pure catastrophe and human violence. Velorio—which means “wake”—is a narrative of power, resilience, and hope; a story of peril and risk buoyed by the deeply held perception in a folks’s capacity to unite in opposition to these corrupted by energy.
Xavier Navarro Aquino was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Named a “Author to Watch” by Publishers Weekly for Fall 2021, his fiction has appeared in Tin Home journal, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and Guernica. His poetry has appeared in The Caribbean Author and is anthologized in Thicker Than Water: New writing from the Caribbean by Peekash Press. He has been awarded scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Convention, a Tennessee Williams scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Convention, a MacDowell Fellowship, and an American Council of Realized Societies Rising Voices Fellowship at Dartmouth Faculty. He holds an M.A. in English Caribbean Research from the College of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, and a Ph.D. in English from the College of Nebraska–Lincoln. Presently, Navarro Aquino is an Assistant Professor of English on the College of Notre Dame the place he teaches within the MFA program and in Notre Dame’s Initiative on Race and Resilience.
Marisel Moreno is the Rev. John A. O’Brien Affiliate Professor within the Division of Romance Languages and Literatures on the College of Notre Dame, the place she teaches US Latina/o/x Literature. She’s the writer of Household Issues: Puerto Rican Ladies Authors on the Island and the Mainland (College of Virginia Press, 2012) and Crossing Waters: Undocumented Migration in Hispanophone Caribbean and Latinx Literature and Artwork, forthcoming with the College of Texas Press in June 2022. She is the recipient of the Indiana Governor’s Award for Service-Studying (2011), the Sheedy Excellence in Instructing Award (2016), and the Rev. William A. Toohey, C.S.C. Award for Social Justice (2019). Moreno’s instructing and analysis pursuits concentrate on AfroLatinx and Latinx Caribbean literature and cultural manufacturing. Her articles have been revealed in Hispanic Assessment, Latino Research, Research in American Fiction, Afro-Hispanic Assessment, CENTRO, The Latino(a) Analysis Assessment, and MELUS, amongst others. She has co-created and co-organized, with Thomas F. Anderson, the digital humanities undertaking Listening to Puerto Rico. She additionally co-curated, with Anderson, the exhibit Artwork on the Service of the Folks: Posters and Books from Puerto Rico’s Division of Neighborhood Training (DIVEDCO), for the Snite Museum at Notre Dame (2012). The exhibit traveled to California Lutheran College (2017), the Nationwide Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Tradition (8/2018-1/2020), and was on digital show on the Galería de Arte at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico (2020), for which a web site was created.
Maritza Stanchich, Ph.D., is Professor of English at College of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, the place she teaches Puerto Rican diaspora, Latinx, Caribbean and American literatures on the BA, MA and doctoral ranges. Her essays on William Faulkner in a circum-Caribbean context, Puerto Rican diaspora literature, and the disaster at College of Puerto Rico, have been revealed in peer-reviewed journals and books, together with the journals Sargasso, Mississippi Quarterly, Latino Research, Cultural Dynamics, and the collections Prospero’s Isles: The Presence of the Caribbean within the American Imaginary (2004), Writing Of(f) the Hyphen: New Important Views on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora (2008), Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement (2010), Acknowledged Legislator: Important Essays on the Poetry of Martín Espada (2014), Essays on Tato Laviera: The AmeRícan Poet (2014), Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (2020). She additionally served within the UPR-RP Tutorial Senate, throughout occasions of historic unrest. An award-winning journalist, her columns for The Huffington Put up, The New York Instances and The Guardian helped deliver worldwide consideration to Puerto Rico’s disaster, beginning in 2010. An extended-time activist, she has additionally labored for educational unionization at College of California and with the Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios (APPU). Raised in New Jersey, of Croatian and Peruvian descent, she has lived and labored in Puerto Rico for greater than 20 years.
For extra data, see https://centropr.nationbuilder.com/afternoon_tertulia_velorio?mc_cid=a4f054bef3&mc_eid=c0402e4dcb