A look back at Iberian and Latin American Week - Feb 2021

Posted on: 12 November 2021 by Ana Bela Almeida (on behalf of IBLAS) in 2021 posts

Following this semester’s Peers-Iberian and Latin American Week (#Peers-IBLAW21), let’s look back at February 2021’s week-long events celebrating Iberian and Latin American languages and cultures. As ever, they were wide-ranging and included a variety of activities from the very popular Galician language and culture taster to academic and literary talks and the workshop Un Museo para Mi. We had amazing contributions from our students, Hollie and Laura. Both were active in the Modern Languages Society and went above and beyond in designing and running the Teleparty watch along evening and the Quiz night, which were both tremendous fun.

As well as involving students, moving the Week online presented an invaluable opportunity to build a community that was both local and global with record numbers of participants from all over the world. One of the attendees mentioned that, “the most valuable element of this event for me was the opportunity to connect with participants in other countries.” We took this lesson with us in preparing this year’s programme. This time we are co-hosting the events across a variety of venues and places including, Mexico, New York, and Manchester.

Please enjoy the video of the session with writer Joaquín Mayordomo on his book Hijos del Uranio, which the Instituto Cervantes in Manchester has kindly made available to us. And for a taste of Brazilian sounds, enjoy our closing session, Samba Invertido, where musician Luca Argel guides us through a different kind of samba that highlights the cultural diversity of Brazilian cities and music. Many thanks to Luca for his generosity in sharing this clip.