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NYU Buenos Aires to Host Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee

On Monday, May 8, NYU Buenos Aires will host the Nobel Prize winning novelist J. M. Coetzee. He will read from his new novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The Schooldays of Jesus is Coetzee´s sequel to The Childhood of Jesus, that situates refugees in an imagined landscape where Spanish is spoken. Mr. Coetzee will also join students and community members for a reception and be available to sign copies of his books.

NYU Abu Dhabi Alum Speaks to NYU Buenos Aires Class on Security Analysis

Invited by NYU Buenos Aires professor Nicolas Comini, former NYU Abu Dhabi student Nicole Lopez del Carril participated in a class at NYU Buenos Aires entitled “Inter-American Relations: Latin America & the US.”

Nicole, who is Argentine- American, studied Social Research and Public Policy in NYU Abu Dhabi and currently works at Novetta Solutions, a security analysis company, as a Strategic Media Analyst. Since the class was discussing topics related to her professional experience, she agreed to join them. The session explored the different processes of regionalization and internationalization in Latin America. Further, because one of the main dimensions of these processes revolves around the security variables in the region’s link with the United States, her experience in security analysis contributed greatly to the students’ understanding of this complex subject.

Nicole shared her perspectives on the topic, and explained how her work analyzing news of conflict issues and reporting the information to different clients influences decision-making both in the private sector and in government. After listening to Nicole, students shared their thoughts on the matter, asked questions, and participated in a lively discussion.

NYU Buenos Aires Professor Mariano Lopez Seoane Discusses Teaching a Networked Course on Queer Cultures and More

Photo by Sebastian Freire

Today we are in conversation with NYU Alum and NYU Buenos Aires Professor Mariano Lopez Seoane, who has been teaching at Buenos Aires since the site was established in 2008 and who helped pioneer NYU’s first networked course, taught in both New York and Buenos Aires.

How did you come to teach at NYU Buenos Aires? I understand you pursued graduate studies and earned your PhD at NYU. Did your connection to the university influence your interest in teaching at NYU Buenos Aires?

Yes, totally. I got PhD at NYU in the Spanish and Portuguese Department. I had moved back to Buenos Aires for a while just to do research for my dissertation and while I was there doing research, a professor of mine from NYU contacted me and told me that NYU was opening a Study Abroad Center in Buenos Aires. He asked whether I had an interest in teaching. I had had such a wonderful experience at NYU that I was immediately intrigued. At that time, I was actually deciding between going back to the United States or staying in Argentina. Teaching at NYU Buenos Aires seemed to me the perfect opportunity: a combination of both things – staying in my home country but working in a foreign environment. So it was an excellent opportunity for me.

I had to go back to New York to defend my dissertation, but then I returned to Buenos Aires for good and immediately started working at NYU Buenos Aires. That first year, I was asked by a former professor to develop a course that would highlight some interesting aspects of the culture of Buenos Aires, which I did. It was a very successful course, popular among students. A year later, another NYU professor contacted me from the Spanish Department. She noted that the initial course was successful and asked me to develop another course. This course was to focus not only on Buenos Aires, but on Latin America in general. So I designed another course that was an introduction to Latin American culture. I have been teaching at NYU Buenos Aires continuously since 2008 when I developed the first course.

This spring will be your third time teaching the first NYU networked course, “Queer Cultures & Democracy” which started in the spring of 2015 and involves students in New York and Buenos Aires. Can you describe how this course came to be offered and how it is structured across the two locations?

Over the years, I developed connections with colleagues in New York. In particular, I was in contact with Gabriel Giorgi, a NYU professor and friend who is also interested in queer cultures. We started to do a series of small conferences, first in Buenos Aires, focusing on queer issues in Latin America, and then one in New York, focusing on what was going on there. Many students participated and so we thought, “Why not do a course?” We created this course together focusing on queer culture and queer theory, trying to compare and contrast what happens in New York and Buenos Aires. We have been teaching the course for the past two years.

The course, “Queer Cultures & Democracy”, highlights the important role of different queer cultures in strengthening our democracies. It provides a sense of the differences between North America and Latin America. However, we specifically focus on New York and Buenos Aires, not the US and Argentina. We really take advantage of our locations and ground the coursework in our cities. There is a strong research component to the course, so students need to go visit and look into archives, visit significant sites, conduct interviews. Students are required to draw from experiences in the field in each city.

We really try to make the most of being in two locations. We meet at the same time even with different time zones. The class is arranged so that the first part of the class is more like a lecture. We grapple with difficult concepts in gender theory and queer theory, and that portion of the class we do separately. Then there is a moment in which we want to discuss something with the entire class. This takes place during the second part of the class. For example, if some students are sharing the results of the research they have done – let’s say going and speaking to queer activists and connecting those conversations to theory – then we use technology to discuss that together. We have screens in both classrooms so we can participate in one conversation. So students in Buenos Aires can report on what they experienced and share their ideas with their classmates in both Buenos Aires and New York.

We also come together in other ways. For instance, if we watch a film and want to do a discussion, we connect and have a collective conversation. We also encourage students to write their final papers as a collaboration between sites. We try to facilitate this where possible. If we know of one student from New York interested in transgender rights, for instance, we try to find someone in Buenos Aires interested in the same topic and we encourage them to write together.

This kind of networked course is difficult to organize, but it is worth the effort. The students like it. It works in many ways. Sometimes students in New York have no interest in Latin America and then after the course, they want to come. Sometimes students in Buenos Aires discover things about the city in which they live, New York, that they didn’t know. We once swapped – Gabriel came to Buenos Aires for a month and I was in New York for a month – which was interesting and useful for the students and for the course. We both had a better understanding of the issues in the other city, and actually got to experience certain things – going to the archives, for example – firsthand.

What have been the greatest learning experiences of this course, both for you and for the students? How does the networked approach influence the course? How does teaching literally across cultures and countries in a course about cultures and democracy enrich the classroom conversations?

What has been most interesting for students, and what both we and the students have learned in the course is that we get a sense of how queer cultures and queer activism have been central in deepening and strengthening our democracies. We have more democratic societies because of the existence of these minorities and their struggles – for recognition, for rights – have made our societies and democracies more vibrant and strong. Not all students in the course define themselves as queer, so there are some students who have perhaps never had exposure to these issues. They leave the classroom with a sense of the centrality of queer issues to democracy. The networked nature of the course also encourages all of us – students and professors – to think with more intent on the comparison and contrast between the two sites. We know we are going to have group discussions and it is important that people have something to say. So the comparing and contrasting is developed in conversations. This becomes useful because students understand that it is something they need to think about all the time. This is an aspect of studying abroad in general – through coming to know another culture, you get a better understanding of your own culture – but in this course it is intensified.

From the perspective of someone who studies Latin America, I would add that there is an additional aspect of this course which is interesting. It is very typical that we see our own history or people from abroad see our own history in Latin America as a series of moments when we copied someone else, usually Europe or the United States. We see this in talking about independence, the constitution, and more. This idea of the US and Europe as models for Latin America, which they have been, is very common. But on the specific issue of queer cultures Latin America shows a unique vitality. There has been vibrancy among the activists and artists here such that sometimes things happen here before they do in the US. For example, Argentina had a same sex marriage law in 2010. The US didn’t have that possibility until 2015. This is very interesting because it is a topic in which traditional narratives about how Latin America works are challenged or subverted.

Photo by Sebastian Freire

I understand you have also been involved in launching the first Master’s degree program in Gender and Queer Studies in Argentina. Can you tell us more about that?

Argentina, specifically Buenos Aires, has many institutions with researchers or professors that are interested in these issues or teach these issues, but there was no institutional space where you could study, for example, a masters program on this topic. So if you wanted to do a PhD with a focus on queer studies, you could do it but you had to find the courses and professors yourself. So I worked with some other professors and Daniel Link, a public intellectual, to develop a program. We created a core program in this topic, from an interdisciplinary perspective – topics range from public health and politics to courses that deal with the history of cinema from a queer perspective, the history of the arts from a queer perspective, the history of activism from a queer perspective. We basically gathered all of the people working on gender and sexuality in different institutions and put them in the same place. The Master’s Program is at a national university, UNTREF . The university said we could have thirty students, and we received applications from more than sixty students, indicating that there was clearly a need. Classes are starting in March. The Master’s Program is connected to thinking about new policies on these topics and also connected to activism. We consider it a successful initiative thus far.

In addition to your research and work on LGBTQ issues, I understand you also research literature and are an accomplished translator. Can you share a bit about your work as a translator and about the kinds of literature you are drawn to?

Most of my translations have been on theory. I have translated Fredric Jameson, a cultural critic, and the books of philosopher Susan Buck-Morss. I have also translated the work of Avital Ronell, philosopher and literary critic at NYU.

My Phd was on Latin American literature. I am mostly interested in contemporary Latin American literature dealing with the problems most associated with Latin America – political violence, narco-violence and how it affects our communities, gender and sexuality. I am drawn to works that deal with these topics in an interesting and imaginative way. I am not looking for reports on these topics, but literature that offers something more while dealing with these topics. Works I appreciate may have an interesting use of language or literary images. Literature and the arts have to offer something extra. It cannot only be about the topic, what matters is what they do with it – offering us a different perspective that we haven’t thought about, for example.

What has been most rewarding for you about teaching at NYU Buenos Aires?

It’s a very welcoming and supportive atmosphere for working. As a scholar and professor, you feel welcomed and appreciated. You feel as though you can come up with ideas and projects and that they are welcomed – for example, proposing a new course, or changing a course. NYU Buenos Aires is a space in which you can be creative in your own field. You don’t need to follow what was done in the past or what is being done now. You can think of new possibilities and they are considered and often accepted. This is something I love about NYU. For me it is good to have the connection to NYU, my alma matter, of course, but being part of an international network is amazing. I believe that scholarship and teaching should be international and need to have a cosmopolitan horizon. In order to teach effectively, you need to understand what is happening in other parts of the world and to connect with others in your field. Collaborating with other researchers is already a given at NYU. This greatly enriches you as a scholar and researcher. If you work at a national university, it can be hard to get in touch with and collaborate with people from other places. At NYU it is a given. I am in constant dialogue with people in other places – NY, of course, but also at times Berlin or Madrid.

Do you think that time abroad is valuable for students’ academic and personal development? If so, how do you think that value manifests?

I think it is central. The students tell me all the time that coming to Buenos Aires has changed their lives. They say that time here is key to understanding their own culture in different ways, seeing things about the US and how they can be a part of their community and society that they couldn’t see before. I know this because I have studied abroad myself for five years. It changed my life and perspective completely. This is true whether you are abroad for many years, or for only a semester or a year. You denaturalize your own culture and life, recognize that there are other ways to do things and maybe other cultures have something to teach you.

This is important in many disciplines. It is important for the humanities of course, the humanities being the dialogue between cultures, but it is not only important for the humanities. It is also important in law, economic science, public health, and other fields. Seeing how things work in different contexts is also enriching. I also believe in the idea of experiential learning – here while experiencing a different culture you have classes to reflect what is going on with you in this different culture, and the courses use what is happening to you as a student to assist in your growth.

I also think that for people in the US going to a country in the developing world, here in Latin America or in Africa at our site in Ghana, is especially interesting. While of course you learn a great deal from going to a place in Europe, the contrast when in the developing world is starker for all kinds of reasons. It is a very specific type of difference and students are exposed to situations where not everything is taken for granted, where things are not working as they should be, where the political system is vastly different. In these places, students get a sense of how the world works and understand that the world is not limited to the so-called “North”.

How January Term is Redefining Education

This is a post from NYU Abu Dhabi. Although January Term originated with NYU Abu Dhabi, now other students in NYU’s global network, notably those from NYU Shanghai, have the opportunity to experience a January Term.

Education at NYU Abu Dhabi is not just about learning facts from textbooks and passing multiple choice exams. It’s an immersive experience for NYUAD students, who, each January Term choose hands-on classes in cities from Al Ain to Buenos Aires that challenge their perceptions of the past and enrich their visions of the future.

There are dozens of courses offered in J-Term that get students out of the classroom to learn about the world as it was before, and experience the world as it really is today, like Jazz or the Financial Crisis taught in New York City, Emirati Arabic in Al Ain, Museum History in Berlin, and these seven examples that span the globe. Note: course descriptions have been edited.

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Oasis Coast and Mountain

Faculty: Steven C. Caton and Donald M. Scott
Course location: UAE and Oman

A course that challenges students’ perceptions of Arabian landscapes as being mainly desert by showing them three distinct habitat zones: desert oasis, maritime ports, and mountain farms all within 250 kilometers of each other across the UAE and Oman.

Students learn through observational site visits, direct encounters and interactions with local peoples and places through walking tours, interviews, photography and sketching.

Imagining the Renaissance City

Faculty: Jane Tylus
Course location: NYU Florence

Northern and central Italy’s bustling towns inspired many of today’s modern cities and also pioneered recognizably modern artistic, cultural, and engineering practices. Florence was a powerhouse of culture and industry and Siena the ‘Wall Street of Europe’ with the skyline to match.

Students spend three weeks getting to know these towns intimately. Explore downtown Florence, Siena, and the Tuscan countryside. Walk from the town of Fiesole (with its Etruscan ruins and Roman theater), to Monte Ceceri (from whose summit a student of Leonardo da Vinci’s tried to fly; good start, sad ending). Visit seats of government and Renaissance orphanages, climb towers for bird’s-eye views, prowl a crypt recently excavated under Siena’s cathedral, visit churches on hills overlooking Florence and the cells of monks, and walk the trail of the stonecutters to see where Michelangelo found his stone.

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Coastal Urbanization

Faculty: John Burt
Course location: Sydney

Over 80 percent of the Australian population lives within 100 kilometers of a coast and virtually all major Australian cities occur on coastlines. As a result, Australia’s coastal environments have been substantially modified to suit human needs.

Using Sydney’s terrestrial, marine, and built environments as a natural laboratory for field research, students collect environmental data throughout the city and use geographic information systems (GIS) to examine the spatial patterns of human impacts to Sydney’s environment and compare their results with patterns observed in other coastal cities.

Prague

Faculty: Professor Michael Beckerman
Course location: Prague

Prague should have been destroyed during the Second World War, like other major cities in Europe, but somehow it wasn’t. Its remarkable survival allows us to explore Central European history and culture in the context of a completely preserved inner urban core dating back to the Middle Ages.

Class time includes walking tours around Prague, trips to museums, castles, theaters, classical concerts including Mozart’s Magic Flute and Janacek’s From the House of the Dead, and several excursions outside the city to the Eastern Province of Moravia, birthplace of Mahler and Freud, and to the UNESCO Heritage site of Cesky Krumlov.

Democracy and its Critics

Faculty: Philip Mitsis
Course location: Abu Dhabi / Athens

An examination of one of history’s most radical and influential democracies, ancient Athens.

Students assume historical roles in key decision-making institutions and debate questions about democratic procedures, the extension of voting rights, religion and free speech, foreign policy, etc., often in the very locations where these ancient debates occurred.

The Idea of the Portrait

Faculty: Shamoon Zamir
Course location: London

The course draws upon the rich resources of London’s museums and galleries to examine a wide range of portraits and self-portraits in painting and photography from different periods of history and from different cultures.

Students visit The National Gallery, British Museum, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, the Queen’s Collection, the Courtauld Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Creative Cities

Faculty: Arlene Davila
Course location: Buenos Aires

Latin America has been undergoing rapid urbanization and is increasingly recognized as a continent made up of “countries of cities,” yet the dominant Latin American image has been on indigenous or traditional communities, which are always imagined as rural and authentic, rather than modern and urbanized.

Buenos Aires provides an urban laboratory to explore culture in urban development, urban tourism, and the marketing and internationalization of tango. Guided tours and guest speakers enrich students’ appreciation of contemporary Buenos Aires.

Original post by Andy Gregory, NYUAD Public Affairs, available here.

A Conversation with NYU Buenos Aires Students Valerio Farris and Marsha Ho about Breathing Room

Spring semester 2016 in Buenos Aires Valerio Farris and Marsha Ho served as facilitators at Breathing Room, a drop-in group made by students for students to have a safe space to talk and share their experiences while studying away. You can read more about the establishment of Breathing Room in an earlier post. They share their experiences in this conversation.

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1. What are your class years, school affiliation, and majors? How long have you studied in Buenos Aires and why did decide to do so?

M: I’m a rising senior with Liberal Studies and my major is Global Liberal Studies. I’ve been in Buenos Aires for 2 semesters and staying the year is actually a feature of my major but I like to think even if it wasn’t, I would’ve stayed by choice.

V: I’m a rising senior studying Media, Culture, and Communication in Steinhardt. I arrived in Argentina in September and spent the whole of my junior year studying at the Buenos Aires campus.

IMG_17832. What are your roles at Breathing Room and how did you come to be involved? Can you describe the aims and achievements of Breathing Room as you have envisioned and experienced them?

M: Valerio and I are basically facilitators of Breathing Room, we get the food ready, start the conversation, try and make everyone feel included and welcome. I became involved last semester when it was first started by the Silver School of Social Work Masters students by simply attending and really enjoying the space they had set up. For me, the main aim of Breathing Room was always to just be a safe space for students, by students where we could just be ourselves, talk about what we needed to talk about and have this place be ours.

V: What Marsha and I do is basically provide the support for Breathing Room to grow. After being approached last semester by two social work students, and Breathing Room’s founders, we were tasked with making sure the program got on its own two feet this semester. But after that, it really took off on its own. The students who come week after week to fill the space with their words and their thoughts are really the reason it has been such a success. We make the flyer and bring the food, but once the room fills with students every week and the conversation picks up that’s when Breathing Room really comes to life.

3. Can you explain how you approached your work with Breathing Room? How did you organize or structure the process in the Breathing Room meetings?

M: It was really organic and surprising to me really! Monika and Nohelia just approached me one day asking if I would be interested in filling their shoes when they left and I was just like, yes of course! When we started facilitating it, Valerio and I would just find some time to talk about what we wanted to bring up in the session but we were also always really open to talking about whatever the group wanted to discuss.

V: I agree with Marsha, organic is a word we really stuck to this semester with our approach to BR. Because neither of us came from a background in social work, nor were we graduate students, we wanted to really make sure everyone felt like they were on the same level. We would enter the room with some semblance of what we wanted to discuss but also made sure to let the conversation flow in whatever direction it needed to. Usually we started with a topic or theme that was relevant to current events or something that was going on around campus and from there conversations would spring forth. We often ended up discussing something completely different that what we originally intended.

4. How many students on average took advantage of the programming to go there?  Was there a core group that came regularly, or were most students one-time visitors? If there was a core group, how many students were involved?

M: On average, there were about 7 each week and there definitely was a core group who came consistently. The core group had about 3 or 4 people that we would always see each week.

5. Was there an external unique event or local or world circumstance that prompted more use of Breathing Room?

M: There were events like the US elections and spring break which were definitely topics we talked about a lot in Breathing Room but none that particularly called for more sessions.

V: Because Marsha and I were second semester students we drew a lot upon things we knew students grappled with upon coming to Argentina. We tried to focus on ways that our personal identities (race, gender, sexual orientation) played out in a new setting. You’re dealing with a whole host of stimuli when coming to a new place to study and we wanted Breathing Room to be a place where you could hash things out that maybe you don’t get the opportunity to in a classroom or in a homestay setting.

6. What theme was most recurring?

M: Hmmm, this is a tough one. I think we did talk about identity quite a few times and how being in a different city causes us to ask questions about ourselves and who we are/who we think we are. We also brought up politics, both US and Argentine, and those conversations were always interesting.

7. I understand that Breathing Room is not a clinical space. Did you ever need to interact with pertinent site staff — Assistant Director of Student Life, the Wellness Counselor, or Site Director in cases where a clinical or administrative response was called for? If such interactions occurred, how did that unfold?

M: No, never.

V: No we didn’t, but we knew from the beginning that if we needed to that was always an option. We got a lot of support form the site’s administration but they also let us take the project in a direction that we saw fit. I think I speak for both of us when I say that the freedom allowed to us from the school was greatly appreciated and very necessary for the growth of something like Breathing Room.

8. What would you do to improve Breathing Room at NYU Buenos Aires?

M: Due to difficult scheduling, Breathing Room was kind of at a weird time this semester and I think it would be nice if NYUBA could set aside a time for it, the same way they do with Tuesday Lectures so that more people can attend if they want to!

9.Do you think you could successfully bring Breathing Room to NYC or your home base? Have you thought about doing so?

M: I definitely think Breathing Room would be really great on the New York campus and I have thought about it but because the audience is also so much bigger and varied, the logistics of making it happen to the same effect and level of intimacy might be difficult. However, it’s not out of the question!

V: I think that Breathing Room would be a great idea anywhere. I think it’s so important, however, to think about BR in the context of study abroad campuses where the resources for students to discuss amongst themselves might not be as varied or abundant as they would be in a place like New York or Shanghai or Abu Dhabi. Studying abroad is such an enriching, but taxing, experience and while each site has its own wellness counselor, I think BR provides something for students that is completely unique. It’s a time for us to melt away the world outside and bounce ideas and opinions off of one another. When you’re living in a new place there’s so much for you to think about, so much to keep track of, but BR really became a place to leave all of that at the door, step inside and take a deep breath.

NYU Buenos Aires gets “Breathing Room”!

Breathing Room: a drop-in group made by students for students to have a safe space to talk and share their experiences while studying away.

In Fall 2015 NYU launched a Master´s level study semester program at the NYU Buenos Aires global site. Two second-year MSW students from this pioneer program of NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, Nohelia Diplan and Monika Estrada Guzman, also set in motion last fall a student-led safe zone called the Breathing Room – an inclusive convocation to all students for “a drop-in group made by students for students to have a safe space to talk and share their experiences” during their study away in Buenos Aires.

From Left: Nohelia Diplan NYU SSW 16’, Site Director Anna Kazumi Stahl, Monika Estrada Guzman NYU SSW 16’

From Left: Nohelia Diplan NYU SSW 16’, Site Director Anna Kazumi Stahl, Monika Estrada Guzman NYU SSW 16’

The idea emerged in April 2015 after both students attended a Safe Zone Training and Break Out Sessions facilitated at NYUBA by Selima Jumarali (Assistant Director of the Center for Multicultural Education and Programs [CMEP]) during her special visit to the NYUBA site. The issue of social identity and diversity, and specifically how to help students manage a new culture’s codes around these concerns, is a something that NYUBA site leadership is continually seeking more resources for, among which the CMEP “Global Diversity Training and Professional Development Grant” was deeply valued and delivered new, positive tools for all, staff and students alike. Afterwards, MSW students Monika and Nohelia chose to use the new acquired experience from Selima’s workshops to step forward themselves and see if students would respond to a student-offered Safe Zone that they believed would be vital to their semester. Their idea met with enthusiastic support from NYUBA Site Director Anna Kazumi Stahl, NYUBA Wellness Counselor Sarah Akhter, NYUBA Asst Dir for Student Life Paula Di Marzo, and SSSW program leader Gisselle Pardo, who all stayed in contact with Monika and Nohelia from their specific roles, as the student group got set into motion.

The vision was to stimulate an encouraging space for students to voice different issues being experienced abroad and to face them through expression amongst peers while abroad. Monika and Nohelia did not intend to create a faux therapy session which they said, “would drive an emotionally and psychologically taxing experience.” Instead, they aspired to create a group sharing experience that was not group psychotherapy but rather an egalitarian space in which to create meaningful conversation. With both the space’s characteristics well-defined and the supportive contact with pertinent site staff, Nohelia and Monika set out to create the Breathing Room.

Immediately, they saw that students had a need to talk and voice their experiences and that the Breathing Room was an impetus to unite students around expressing their needs and struggles while away. After the first session, a “topic box” was created for participants to propose topics and unveil these issues in this safe environment. Topics ranged from culture shock, to diversity, to maintaining a healthy life style while abroad, to staying in contact back home, to race and identity issues and women’s issues in different cultural contexts.

At the very first gathering, a favorable turn-out of students gave NYUBA’s “Breathing Room” space for pairing up and sharing experiences organically and directly between the students. Monika claims that this particularity set the foundation for a democratic characteristic. The immediate connection among the participants set an egalitarian dynamic that flourished throughout the semester developing a structure free of hierarchies. Without infringing on this equal platform, both Nohelia and Monika also mentioned they were able to implement course skills acquired from their Social Work education, especially in the area of empowering and advocating for those without a voice– in this case students.

Nohelia and Monika, acting as facilitators, were pleased with the ownership demonstrated by participating students throughout the course of the semester. This ownership and union amongst the students created the desired safe space for all, it also sufficed as a catalyst for both Nohelia and Monika to begin thinking of the future of the Breathing Room.

From Left: Nohelia Diplan, Marsha Ho GLS 17', Monika Estrada Guzman

From Left: Nohelia Diplan, Marsha Ho GLS 17′, Monika Estrada Guzman

The future of the Breathing Room lays in the hands of the students, of course, and both Nohelia and Monika had this crystal clear from the beginning. Noting strong interest in a few underclassmen, both Nohelia and Monika began developing relationships with two undergraduate students, Marsho Ho and Valerio Farris, who will be on site again this coming fall semester in 2016 to take on the role as facilitators.

Furthermore, both Nohelia and Monica have been dialoguing and working closely with the Wellness Counselor Dr. Sarah Akhter, Student Life Assistant Director Paula Di Marzo, Gisselle Pardo, LCSW, MPH (Leader of the McSilver Institute´s global education programs) and Director Dr. Anna Kazumi Stahl– exchanging their experiences with each as they developed a manual for future students. What´s more, both students hope to have an opportunity to hold a few informative meetings with Students back in New York before their departure, encouraging students to be active by sharing their experience with the Breathing Room this past semester.

NYU Buenos Aires as a community has been enriched immensely by the Breathing Room and look expectantly ahead as the study away programs here at the site will forever hold a new facet due to the intrepid ambition demonstrated in action by Nohelia Diplan and Monika Estrada Guzman.

Juan Raffo – NYU Buenos Aires Professor of Latin American Music – wins prestigious Music prize.

RaffoNYU Buenos Aires Professor Juan “Pollo” Raffo received one of the most respected awards for Instrumental Music and Fusion this past November 10th, 2015 from the Konex Foundation. This year was the fourth time the Konex Foundation has recognized artists of Popular Music for their activity and work over the past decade. Again, for the second time, Professor Raffo has receieved the award. In 1995 Juan “Pollo” Raffo, Pollo bieng his nickname since early adolescence, received his first Premio Konex Diploma of Merit in the category for Outstanding Jazz Group (1985-1995) with his band Monos con Navajas (Monkeys with Straight-Razors). This year the foundation granted Raffo the Merit diploma for instrumental and fusion music as an individual. Already honored by the prestigious merit diploma, Professor Raffo was also awarded the Premio Konex de Platino. The Platinum Konex Award distinguishes him from the others in his category.

Professor Raffo shared that the quintessence of the awards is the composition of the selection comitee. The judges are either previous award winners and active artists or journalists specialized in popular music. This structure encourages nominations and selections to avoid any possibility of contaminationg the awards and selections with alterior interests. One of the most sobering responses for Professor Raffo upon receiving the two awards was the personal congratulations he received from fellow musicians, composers, students, teachers, and former students from the music and academic community.

Composer, musician, pianist, and arranger of music; Professor Raffo realized his draw to teaching after studying under professors at the Berklee school of Music who were active musicians outside of the classroom and brought that dynamic into the classroom. Sindce the age of thirty he has been teaching in some shape or form, and since 2008 Professor Raffo has been facing the challenge of teaching music to non-music majors at NYU Buenos Aires.

In his course, Music of Latin America, the objective is to present students a point of view of a musician through the medium of music itself. This is undoubtly Professor Raffo´s forte. His classes can often be heard in the academic site– whether it be the class venturing to syncopate additonal beats over a 3/2 clave or picking up a rhythym to a traditional Argentine Chacarera.

He claims composition as a trade that is fifty percent intuition and fifty perent rationality. Moreover, he contends that this is conveyed in his classroom as his teaching style depends a lot on the pulse of the collective group of students. Part of the challenge with ecclectic groups that include Students from all over the globe, is finding the pulse. Fortunately, he believes that Music is a trade that is very accessible to even non-music majors which is synthesized in the many facets of his class and its participatory style, therefore acting as an efficient tool to finding the pulse.

The element of participation is key to Professor Raffo´s classes as students engage in the instruments by playing and listening. Not limited to only that, this semester students have written their own lyrics to popular Argentinian folklore music, Zamba. This semester the students also had the privilege to hear Juan “Pollo” Raffo perform live at Centro Cultural Kirchner.

Professor Raffo was quoted in the newspaper La Nación in 2013 in regards to his teaching, “I always say that a student is a colleague with less experiences.” Students at NYU Buenos Aires, as co-hosts to Juan “Pollo” Raffor in the classroom, are exposed to Latin American music in a way that challenges music to blossom in new ways and up its creativity as its spectators, at least the ones who have Professor Raffo for a semester, develop a potent awareness of Latin American Music.

NYU Buenos Aires hosts Hemispheric Institute’s conference on religion and politics in the Americas

The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, a collaborative, multilingual and interdisciplinary network of institutions, artists, scholars and activists throughout the Americas came to Buenos Aires last June for an academic experience that included meeting with local organizations to broaden perspectives on topics related to the Institute’s work: religion, society and politics.
This two-day workshop and symposium, held at the Argentine National Congress and NYU Buenos Aires Academic Center, was an initiative of the Hemispheric Institute on religion and politics in the Americas, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Some of the most respected academic personalities in United Stated and Canada, such as Ann Pellegrini and Lois Lorentzen, and important organizations including American Civil Liberties Union, CDD-Argentina participated in the event.
Their symposium at NYU Buenos Aires “Religión en la esfera pública–Ley, derechos y la lucha por el cuerpo” gathered members from different organizations to discuss subjects, such as religion, social mobilization, abortion and strategic litigation.
conference particpants
conference participants

Master’s level study semester program launches in Buenos Aires

students in Buenos Aires
This fall, classes began for the Silver School of Social Work’s first full-semester, graduate-level study abroad program – fusing education, research, and practice – in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The program, which the McSilver Institute helped design and implement, enables second year MSW candidates to take the same required courses they are offered at NYU’s Washington Square campus and to do their field placements with the McSilver Institute’s community-based partners in Argentina.
Gisselle Pardo, LCSW, MPH, who leads the McSilver Institute’s global educational programs, explained, “Students have their field placements at a variety of agencies in Buenos Aires, ranging from one of the city’s oldest and largest public hospitals to a program that uses art as a therapeutic tool for children in poverty-impact communities, to a feminist grassroots organization supporting women and children living in Villa Paris.
Silver School MSW student Monika Estrada Guzman said, “As soon as I heard about the program, I got really excited about the opportunity to learn what social work is from a global perspective – how it’s defined and how it’s seen – and, as a Latina, to develop more of a clinical vocabulary in Spanish.”
Ms. Pardo added, “Within Latin America, Argentina has a complex and rich history around social movements, activism around social justice, and fighting for human rights. Students in the program are learning how this history impacted policy, practice, and communities, and they are getting an opportunity to work with organizations that are still doing a great deal of social justice activism today. Buenos Aires is also a cosmopolitan city, like New York, so it is somewhat familiar to our students but it also challenges them be in different context and culture.”

NYU Buenos Aires and NYU Washington, DC co-host Program on Social Justice and Religion

DC-BA VC Event
In collaboration with NYU Global Spiritual Life, NYU Buenos Aires and NYU Washington, D.C. co-hosted a panel discussion on the theme “Social Justice and Religion in the Age of Pope Francis” on September 30, 2015. The event brought together community activists, religious leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders to discuss themes of social justice and interfaith collaboration.
This event, which was held simultaneously at NYU Buenos Aires and NYU Washington, D.C., emphasized the importance of inter-faith conversations about social justice and religion, with focus on the social and religious landscape Pope Francis brings to the global sphere and fosters both in word and action. The event was scheduled to build off of the Pope’s visit to the United States from September 22-27, 2015. The Pope’s itinerary and his actions revealed a balance between statesmanship, religious ceremony, and social action. This was explored during the dialogue and came as no surprise to those familiar with his time in Argentina.
The majority of Pope Francis’s work as Archbishop in Buenos Aires was not only to promote religious values but also to prioritize hands on fieldwork himself in the poverty-ridden areas around the city. In this sense, the priests that worked then and still work today among the poor and marginalized are a cause for continued dedication and constant preoccupation. Pope Francis has also given tangible and clear evidence that sharing a space of reflection and communication with other religious traditions around the world is of vital importance for an existential and political equilibrium.
In addition to the connecting global sites, attention to students was very much included in planning this event. The panel discussion was a co-curricular activity for two distinct NYU Buenos Aires courses. The cross-site engagement enriched not only the experience for students, faculty, and panelists, but also was a positive academic outcome reflecting NYU’s global nature. Politics and policy, activism and social justice are very much part of the identity of both NYU Buenos Aires and NYU Washington, D.C.
NYU Washington, D.C. and NYU Buenos Aires intended that the panel stimulate both faculty and students through its discussion, and thus invited a lively and diverse group of participants. The moderator for the cross-site event was Victoria Kiechel, architect and urban planning expert, who teaches “Globalizing Social Activism: Sustainable Development in Urban Areas” at NYU Washington, D.C.
In Buenos Aires, the panelists included a prominent journalist, Marina Artusa, who often reports on the activities of Pope Francis. She was joined by Rabbi Ernesto Yattah, Dean of the Abraham Joshua Heschel Rabbinical School at the Seminario Rabínico Lationamericano Marshall T. Meyer, where he also teaches Bible and Jewish Philosophy. In addition to his academic work, Rabbi Yattah works as a volunteer in community settings and as a core participant in the City of Buenos Aires’ Inter-religious Dialogue initiatives. A key member of the panel in Buenos Aires was Father Gustavo Oscar Carrara, a Catholic priest dedicated specifically to communities in situations of poverty and marginalization. He and others like him are known here as “The Shantytown Priests.” This choice of service in and for people in the slums reflects the commitment forged by Argentine priests in 1970s when Argentina was under dictatorship. Both as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and as Pope, Francis recognizes and mentors the “shantytown priests.” Father Gustavo Carrara’s parish is Buenos Aires shantytown number 1-11-14, where nearly 40,000 people live in miserable conditions. His work there has forged a hub for community building, education and solace in a zone that typifies the challenges today’s societies face in many places around the world.
In Washington, D.C., the panelists were John Gehring, the Catholic Program Director for Faith in Public Life. Mr. Gehring has recently authored a book: The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope’s Challenge to the American Catholic Church. He was joined by Saif Inam, the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Policy Analyst in the Washington, DC, office. Inam engages members of Congress and their staff on legislation and current affairs, organizes briefings on various domestic and foreign policy issues for the Capitol Hill community, and creates memos and policy papers for policy-makers.
On the evening of September 30th, spanning the hemisphere of the Americas by talking across Washington DC and Buenos Aires, this distinguished group of panelists engaged in an illuminating discussion on social justice and religion, where DC-based moderator Victoria Kiechel, enabled a broadly inclusive hemispheric mode and stimulated agile exchange across the locations. Father Gustavo Oscar Carrara, in Buenos Aires, especially echoed Pope Francis’s unremitting invitation to social consciousness and public-spiritedness towards the most marginalized of our global society. This provided a refined dialogue throughout the discourse between the panelists, including a strong conclusion with questions and answers from the students present at each site.
The discussions at the event focused on themes of social justice and interfaith collaboration in the same ways Pope Francis has prompted today’s world to consider the same issues. Moreover, these important topics were explored in a manner that highlights the importance of NYU’s vibrant global network. NYU Buenos Aires Site Director Anna Kazumi Stahl described the cross-site experience as “galvanizing and rewarding,” noting that “it truly felt like [a collaboration] that spoke to the heart of the university’s using its global network – in that it purposefully connected two very different parts of the world in ways that showcased all sectors having a voice.”
9-30 event DC-BA panel panelists BA + students
Even if you missed the panel, you can watch the conversation any time online. The full video may be accessed through either global site’s webpage. For example, click on DC’s link here. Or click on BA’s link here.