Anna Kazumi Stahl is a fiction writer and holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Stahl became Interim Site Director of NYU Buenos Aires in 2013, earning the Site Director title in May 2014. Prof. Stahl continues to teach Creative Writing at NYUBA and was the inaugural faculty mentor for an international edition of Gallatin’s Great World Texts program, partnering with a local public high school. In Argentina, Stahl is engaged with the MALBA museum’s literary/cultural programming and serves on the Board of Directors of the Fulbright Commission.
Prof. Stahl met with us to share her experience as NYU Buenos Aires director and about NYU Buenos Aires programs and opportunities for Gallatin students. This interview has been edited for length and clarity by Noran Morsi.
Aricel Brion: Would you be able to share a little bit of your experience and what led you to become the director at NYU Buenos Aires?
Anna Stahl: My story involves layers of intercultural encounter and exchange. Immigrant mom, immigrant grandparents on the other side. All these shifts from place to place, from one way of living to another, connecting across cultural gaps and finding that not only can you make it work, but it’s also enriching. That’s probably the core of what led to my living in Buenos Aires – an interest in that specific creative stimulus (even or maybe especially when uncomfortable) that living and working in a very different cultural context can deliver.
I came to Buenos Aires as a student and couldn’t speak Spanish at the time (so I identify with the students who are just starting Beginner’s I!). I returned to Buenos Aires three more times after that, got better at Spanish and at my research, and, when I finished my PhD (which is on minority and bi-cultural identities in literature), I had a choice: a book of stories I’d written in my foreigner’s Spanish got accepted for publication, so I could follow that path, or stick to the US job market. I took the leap.
It was during grad school that I realized that I had a vocation for undergraduate education. I love teaching creative writing with undergrads because everyone is open to cracking ideas open, exploring, questioning, dialoguing and re-thinking. This generation in particular takes on even uncomfortable questions and manages to hold them in a space of dialogue. It’s inspiring. I’ve never stopped learning from what the students bring into the room. .
Being the Site Director is like the epitome of that experience because I sense that the whole experience of being abroad –especially in a place that is very foreign to you and that really involves some paradigm-shifting to get acclimated to– is like a creative writing process, just about one’s self, like writing who you are with new stimuli, new perspectives. In surveys, over 90% of students say that during their time in Buenos Aires they learned more about others and over 80% say that experience has also taught them more about themselves.
AB: Speaking of your creative writing course, can you tell us more about the course and how it impacts students who may be grappling with their sense of belonging and identity in a new space?
AS: The Creative Writing course at NYU Buenos Aires is based on using the writing to explore the new cultural context one is in (Buenos Aires), and everyone experiences something different in a new environment. The readings are mostly Latin American (with English translations), to introduce students to where they’ve traveled to, but also to engage with a variety of voices and techniques and motivations for writing. Students create new work every week, and we share feedback. By semester’s end, everyone has a unique portfolio of work, a personal collection.
I started teaching creative writing before there was social media, so at first the biggest challenge was to support students in finding their own voices. That has changed. Now students walk in with this incredibly powerful vehicle that is their voice. So, the challenge to pose now is more about reaching outside oneself, seeking to connect with other voices and mindsets. It’s an exercise in empathy, but certainly demands a research component as well.
AB: [That sounds great!] How do you find that students acclimate to life in Buenos Aires?
AS: Students may need a minute to get used to being in a place where the Spanish is spoken a little differently and where the infrastructure and economic realities are those of a developing country, which means less of the typical comforts or ease than one might be used to in the US or Western Europe. Quickly, though, students find their way and discover Buenos Aires as an incredibly vibrant and versatile city. The Academic Center is located in Recoleta, a more affluent and tranquil area, but there are 47 (!) other barrios, most within minutes, and, as students explore more, they see BA in its signature eclecticism. The cityscapes have as much neo-classical French architecture as youthful, contemporary art style manifesting everywhere. The cultural scene is wonderfully dynamic with accessible options for all tastes, from opera at Teatro Colon to performances, percussion at Bomba del Tiempo, experimental theater, and of course tango, neo-tango, queer tango, jazz-tango – through it all, Buenos Aires has this creative edge and collaborative spirit everywhere.
As it’s the center of national and municipal governments, Buenos Aires is also a focal location where social debate and transformation is in plain view. This are emblematic sites for Argentine identity including the balcony where Evita spoke, to community mobilizations that led to significant transformations for human rights, same-sex marriage, the rights of indigenous peoples for their ancestral lands and cultural practices, and for the defense of women and transwomen in the face of gender-based abuse.
To a student coming from NYC, it may feel familiar in some ways because Buenos Aires is a megacity: the larger metro area is home to nearly 15 million. Regarding being at NYU Buenos Aires: given that it’s part of the NYU network, you don’t have the experience of being thrown into the deep end of the pool to just sink or swim. It has the advantage of guaranteeing the kind of support services NYU has built into their programs everywhere, but the disadvantage of not involving local students. Students are learning from local scholars and artists, that’s true. But how can students get off the “island” and connect more with local communities? Local engagement opportunities have been cultivated over time and across both the Academics and Student Life teams. So, our Lecturers have all innovated engagements with local experts, community activists, artists etc for students to connect in the local context with the pertinent actors. Each course has this dimension. In addition, for volunteering and internships, we work with a network of about 50 local NGOs and community-based organizations, from arts to health science to environmental activism, and these are available for students to connect to.
AB: I know students have an opportunity for local engagement through Gallatin’s Great World Texts program, can you tell us about that program?
AS: This is a great example – the Great World Texts program was so inspiring because of how it not only connected NYU students to public high school seniors, but also because it offers a way of innovating with the curriculum.
BA got its start with Great World Texts as the Global Dean at the time visited our site and brought the idea. At first it seemed counter-intuitive because this is a Spanish-speaking country. How would we do this English-language course with public high schools? In talking with Gallatin’s Deans and with the Creative Writing Director, we knew the values matched our mission in Argentina, and so we took the idea to the few specific public schools that prioritize English as a foreign language. English is significant here, as elsewhere around the globe, and knowing English well can help to expand a young person’s opportunities, including future job opportunities.
We had immediate success; more than one public school wanted to have this opportunity for their students, specifically getting to work with a native speaker, someone near their own age, and to work creatively the way GWT orients its final projects and presentations. And of course the opportunity is incredibly valuable for a student in this Gallatin-sponsored course – working with the local faculty advisor Betina Gonzalez who is an award-winning writer, plus becoming part of the public school environment in Argentina and contributing so directly to young peoples’ experience there. Gallatin’s Great World Texts program stands out as a high point of what studying abroad can achieve on all sides.
AB: You mentioned the Great World Texts program being implemented as a way of decolonizing the curriculum. Can you expand a bit about what that looks like in the NYU Buenos Aires classroom?
AS: The faculty are Argentine scholars and artists in the midst of their careers, and they work and teach with a remarkably collaborative academic culture. Well beyond just delivering course content, they bring also a generous will to share contacts from their own networks, people that they’re doing research with or performing with, and so on. Some of them are artists or curators, and take the students into these artists’ collectives, galleries, performance spaces. This advantage couldn’t have been designed by us: it’s the generosity of the Argentine scholars and artists who work with us.
Examples are myriad, but to mention a few: we’ve been in touch with the founders of the Ni Una Menos movement since it started, and one of the founders teaches with us. Another NYUBA lecturer is the director of the Gender and Queer Studies Archive here in Argentina. The Lectures of the anthropology course on indigenous identity connect with these communities, so students can meet them and learn directly from them about their movement for eco-agriculture, where they’re using ancestral knowledge from their indigenous roots to create a different model for sustainable agriculture.
AB: It sounds like there’s a great collaborative culture that helps lead students to these amazing opportunities. Do you have any advice for students that are thinking about studying away at NYU Buenos Aires?
AS: There’s the opportunity to apply to be a Global Equity Fellow through the Global Programs Office. The GEF comes to the site and takes up a leadership position in relation to IDBEA at the site and in the local context. In the day-to-day, week-to-week, it’s largely about community building activities, and also invites the creation or co-creation of an actual deliverable, which could be a resource related to a community they want to highlight that they’ve discovered. One of our most amazing Global Equity Fellows was from Gallatin. He was incredibly insightful, also because he brought a skill set, surely in some measure because he was a Gallatin student and got those skills in terms of how to put together a project, how to think through the interdisciplinary connections, how to get to the bigger questions at stake.