Since 2007-8, debt, credit and financial crisis have taken up important positions in North Atlantic university research agendas. The financial crisis of 2007-8 was prefigured, however, by almost forty years of deep, catastrophe financial crises in the Global South, in particular in Latin America. This talk, drawing on research from a recently completely book manuscript, argues for the need to center finance and crisis as categories of Latin American cultural and political economy. Using a comparative approach focused on Mexico and Brazil, this talk will examine the history of financial accumulation in Mexico and Brazil after 1973, the central issues in theorizing finance for social theory, and how the rise of finance has impacted state formation.
Brian Whitener is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of South Alabama. Recent projects include Face Down (Timeless Infinite Light, 2016), De gente común: Arte, política y rebeldía social, edited with Lorena Méndez and Fernando Fuentes (Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, 2013), and as a participant in the translations: Genocide in the Neighborhood(ChainLinks, 2009), The Unreal, Silver-Plated Book (Departamento de Ficción, 2011), and The Empire of Neomemory (ChainLinks, 2013). He has recently completed a book manuscript on financialization and culture in Mexico and Brazil.
Moderated by Patricio Navia. Patricio Navia is a Clinical (Full) Professor of Liberal Studies and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. He is also a (full) Professor of Political Science at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile. Ph.D. in Politics from New York University, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Political Sciences and Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New School University, Universidad de Salamanca, Universidad de Chile and NYU Buenos Aires, and a visiting fellow at the University of Miami. He has published scholarly articles and book chapters on democratization, electoral rules and democratic institutions in Latin America. As founding director of Observatorio Electoral at Universidad Diego Portales, he has co-edited Democracia Municipal (2012), El sismo electoral de 2009. Cambio y continuidad en las preferencias políticas de los chilenos (2010) and El genoma electoral chileno. Dibujando el mapa genético de las preferencias políticas en Chile (2009). His books Diccionario de la política chilena(with Alfredo Joignant and Francisco Javier Díaz), El díscolo. Conversaciones con Marco Enríquez-Ominami (2009), Que gane el más mejor: Mérito y Competencia en el Chile de hoy (with Eduardo Engel, 2006) and Las grandes alamedas: El Chile post Pinochet (2004) have been best sellers in Chile. He is a columnist in El Líbero in Chile, Buenos Aires Herald, and Infolatam.com. He has previously penned columns for La Tercera, Capital and Poder magazines in Chile, Perfil in Argentina and regularly writes for the Infolatam website.
Co sponsored by NYU English Department