Flash Presentation by Eden Cazares
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nJ_zHXZGheeY-XlFzJ6L6XxTHaD9TOF0UQYrBJI3O4I/edit?usp=sharing
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Claudia D. Hernández Flash Presentation, Kaitlynn Mitchell
An excerpt from "Knitting Fog" and her poem "This is Why I Write" presentation:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-kezpnMJ2nZXAAs7iXqQuePMQKj2keAM/view?usp=sharing
Citation to journal article;
Hernández, C. (2013). ARTIST'S STATEMENT: A Latina/Chapina Artist Speaks Through Poetry and Photographs. Chicana/Latina Studies, 13(1), 9-23. Retrieved October 15, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43941375
Monday, October 12, 2020
Maria Sabina, Her Life and Chants. - The Untold Stories of Maria Sabina Flash Presentation - Keely Wolfer
Slide 1)
- Hey everyone, my name is Keely. In the interest of our theme this week, “Body, Mind, Espíritu, resilience”, I am going to talk about Maria Sabina. Bringing recognition to her the ways in which her healing practices and beliefs have become misrepresented and misunderstood over time is a form of resistance against the history of western consumerism and colonialism in relation to Indigenous culture.
Slide 2)
- María Sabina was an Indigenous women born and raised in Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico, a mountain village in Southern Mexico. She is known for her healing and spiritual connection to her sacred saint children, that being psilocybin mushrooms. Her first time engaging in taking the mushrooms, she was under 10 years old and eventually realized that she possessed a special gift that allows her to heal others with the mushrooms.
Slide 3)
- “Maria Sabina differentiates herself from sorcerers and other types of curers who bewitch and use hallucinogenic plants as source of personal power…” (tandfonline)
- By eating the mushrooms, and subsequently vomiting them, the malignant spirit is taken from the body.
- Maria Sabina explained that after ingesting the mushrooms with the ill-person she is attempting to heal, “The God that lives in them enters [her] body” (pg 93) She explains that once she arrives in the place she should be, everything is clean and everything is known; she hears voices that speak to her and this is how she connects with the bad spirits that have taken over the sick individual.
Slide 4)
- In the words of Maria Sabina, “These young people, blonde and dark-skinned, didn’t respect our customs. Never, as far as I remember, were the saint children eaten with such a lack of respect...They take the children at any time and in any place...from the moment the foreigners arrived to search for God, the saint children lost their purity. They lost their force; the foreginers spoiled them.” She says “Before Wasson, I felt that the saint children elevated me. I don’t feel like that anymore. The force has diminished.” (pg 86-91)
Slide 5)
- Wasson took a practice that was used humbly and selflessly, and turned the mushrooms into a individualistic, consumerized and psychedelic seeked out experience.
- Him and other Westerners would travel to visit Maria Sabina and they would enter her home without an invitation, they took many photographs of her including during her healing ceremonies and used and/or sold those photos when they were back home.
- To those who do not know the deep rooted untold stories of Maria Sabina and her Saint Children, she has been misrepresented as a “hippie”, a “druggie”, and her image has been understood through the interpretation of R. Gordon Wasson and other westerners who had the privilege of visiting her.
- The story of Maria Sabina exemplifies the ways in which a significant amount of drugs that modern western society either utilizes as an agent in pharmaceuticals or otherwise deems as illegal or unethical, have been taken from the practices of indigenous peoples against their consent or knowledge.
Monday, October 5, 2020
Beyond the Cliffs of Abiquiu by Jo Carrillo - Flash Presentation for Gabby McDaniel
In this week's discussion on "Living in the Borderlands," I've brought a poem to share by Jo Carrillo, an esteemed poet and feminist. Carrillo's work centers on the gentrification of Native lands, specifically her Native lands in Abiquiu. In her poem, "Beyond the Cliffs of Abiquiu" she presents themes of (1) uses of Native land for energy, (2) inequitable power structure of white people over Natives, and (3) white appropriation and homogeneity of "Indian" culture.
The first portion of her poem opens on the discussion of white gaze, describing the Native Americans of the area as "a rock." She continues on to reflect the cultural appropriation and homogeneity the indigenous people are subjected to on behalf of the tourists that come through, describing a design as names of 6 different tribes to demonstrate how they're all viewed as the same. Carrillo continues on to highlight the class stratification between the white tourists and the Native workers in the mines, used to further serve the people who abuse the lands. In her last stanzas, Carrillo discusses stereotyping of natives as all drunks before the final crescendo of all her previous topics put together. With her last stanza, she reminds readers of the village, as if it's all she has left to say after venting through all of her frustrations. A short reminder that these are people with homes and with a culture, not just a source of your "authentic Navajo Hopi Zuni Indian made real live artifacts."
This poem connects to the topic of this week's discussion through geography as the cliffs of Abiquiu are near the borderlands discussed in our readings. It's additionally relevant in the perspective of how Carrillo, the voice of the people living in Abiquiu, describes her experience as an indigenous person facing gentrification and class stratification. Carrillo highlights the feelings of the indigenous people of the borderlands.
Powerpoint link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RIHjdGlpgm_8w5D_UUKSBAQ4MdA6eBfT/view?usp=sharing
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