Event: Donna DeCesare, associate professor of photography in the School of Journalism, is a featured presenter at the conference “Image, Memory and the Paradox of Peace: 15 Years After the El Salvador Peace Accords.” Part of the way we remember the events of the Salvadoran civil war is through images captured by committed and sometimes even heroic photographers who covered massacre sites, popular protests, funerals, military maneuvers and the general human grief (and, at moments, hope) that marked the era.
The conference, which DeCesare co-organized, is produced by The Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice and will bring together key photojournalists, academics and activists — past and present — to discuss the Salvadoran civil war, not merely as an episode of history, but also as a legacy whose effects linger in the country to this day. Presentations will be in English and Spanish (simultaneous translation provided).
The College of Communication is a sponsor of this event along with the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, The Harry Ransom Center, the Rothko Chapel (Houston, Texas) and the University of Texas at Austin Department of History.
When: April 17-18, 2008 (see schedule of events for conference itinerary and specific times)
Where: The Harry Ransom Center and the Eidman Courtroom in the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. Maps of the campus are available online.
Background: In January 1992, the Government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) signed Peace Accords in Chapultepec, México, ending a painful chapter in the country’s history in which more than 75,000 Salvadorans perished (a number proportionately equivalent to 3.2 million US citizens) and millions more were exiled across the continent, primarily settling in the United States. Since the 1980s, this Salvadoran diaspora has made Los Angeles, Calif., the second-largest Salvadoran city in the world (after only San Salvador), while deepening linkages between El Salvador and the U.S. that are undeniably asymmetrical. More information about the conference is available on the “Image, Memory and the Paradox of Peace” Web site.
In addition to teaching in the School of Journalism, DeCesare is a faculty affiliate of the University of Texas at Austin Latin American Studies program and an advisory board member of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. She is widely known for her groundbreaking photographic reportage on the spread of Los Angeles gangs in Central America. Her photographs and testimonies from children in Guatemala and Colombia who are former child soldiers, survivors of sexual abuse, or who live with the stigma of HIV, helped UNICEF to develop protocols for photographing children at risk. She also is a member of the Executive Board of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.
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Contact:
Donna DeCesare
(512) 471-1980