José Antonio Lucero (Chair, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Associate Professor of International Studies, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington), “The Majestic Misery of the Jungle: Filmmaking, Nature, and Indigenous Agency in Bolivia and Peru”
Thursday, October 16, 2014, at 12:30pm
Buchanan C403.
The talk compares the cultural politics of two “nature films”: Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Marc Forster’s Quantum of Solace (2008).
The contrasting portrayals of the non-human natural world in these films and the controversies surrounding their production suggest similar anxieties over the relationships between capital, natural resources, and indigenous peoples. Prof. Lucero argues that these films are best understood not simply as examples of Native Others caught in the gaze of colonialism but rather as sites for struggles over visual sovereignty and the production of indigenous political subjectivities and projects.
If you wish to receive a copy of the paper before hand, please RSVP: Rebecca.monnerat@ubc.ca.