This event is over.
Event Details:
"Not Looking At, Looking With"
The day after his public lecture, Edgar Garcia of the Univesity of Chicago will join Stanford graduate students for a workshop discussion.
Abstract: The Popol Vuh is a K'iche' Maya story of creation that describes itself as "an instrument for seeing" (ilb'al). What does it mean to take that self-description literally—to look with this story of creation of the Americas and not just at it? In this workshop, we will look with the idea of looking with, with related emphasis on the problematics of disciplinary formations that teach us to look at works of indigenous literature, to see them only as content and not as the form-bearing works they are. The aim is to open indigenous epistemological frameworks with which to interpret present and evolving crises and changes, that is, to engage with them as form and not just content for understanding.
About the Speaker
Edgar Garcia is a poet and scholar of the hemispheric cultures of the Americas. He is the author of Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography (Fence Books, 2019), Signs of the Americas: A Poetics of Pictography, Hieroglyphs, and Khipu (University of Chicago Press, 2020), and Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis. He has also collaborated on such projects as the anthology American Literature in the World (Columbia University Press, 2017) and the artist book Infinite Regress (Bom Dia Books, 2021). Recently (2022–24) he was visiting editor-in-chief of the journal of innovative literary arts, Fence, where he edited special issues on such topics as “What’s the Problem with American Poetry Right Now?” and “The Gods.” At present, he is working on a few projects: a collection of adaptations and translations of the mid-sixteenth century, Nahuatl-language Cantares Mexicanos; a book about divination and migration titled “Migrant Lots”; and a collection of essays on the baroque and the Americas titled “Caravaggio’s Americas.”
He is an associate professor in the departments of English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.
This event is open to all Stanford graduate students and to others by invitation. Please note that space is limited. Contact SHC Events Manager Eric Ortiz (erortiz@stanford.edu) with any questions.