CSG Newsletter March/April 2023

The women of the CSG rally together in Washington Square Park in support of women's rights on March 8, 2023, International Women's Day

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We are delighted to present the first edition of the Colombian Studies Group Newsletter.

During the first meeting of the 2022-2023 academic year, Juan Corredor-Garcia, the current director of the CSG at The Graduate Center, asked: "What do you want from the CSG? How do you want to connect? What kind of events do you want?" The responses were incredibly diverse. From that preliminary conversation, a variety of new initiatives were born. One was this newsletter.

As Andrés and I batted ideas back and forth, we soon realized that we had very different opinions about what we wanted this newsletter to be. Fabio Andrés saw it as a serious, academic journal, in which we talk about our research. I wanted it to be a social newsletter through which we could get to know one another, not merely as colleagues whom we greet in meetings or in passing on the elevator or subway, but as friends and community. I wanted this newsletter to help fill in the social voids generated by the isolation of the pandemic and an increasingly virtual academic world. However, we both emphatically agreed that the newsletter should discuss the development of the CSG as an organization: its history and its future.

This final product you hold in your hand is a compromise. Through an interview with Jorge Alvis, former co-director of the CSG at CUNY Graduate Center, Phoenix investigates from where the CSG has come, how it has transformed, and what we want from the group in the future. Juan and Andrés review all that the CSG has accomplished this year, the first year back in-person following the Covid-19 pandemic, and we thank each and every one of you for your contribution to the incredible range of events and publications. Natalia reflects on the meaning of life and death in a world scarred by the pandemic and the continued violence of war and disappearance. Finally, Andrés initiates the opinion section to promote debate on any particular topic in the Colombian agenda, starting in this issue with some comments on coca crops in the country.

We celebrate the amazing diversity of interests and talents that comprise the CSG with our spotlights on Aura Angélica Hernández-Cárdenas, Benjamin GuillardGarrido, and Melody Andrea Feo Sverko. In short, this newsletter is a smorgasbord of academic work and reflection. We hope that it makes you think, makes you smile, and, most importantly, reminds you that you are not alone.

CSG Newsletter March/April 2023

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