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Emerging Scholar Lecture to Feature Emma Velez

Elmira, NY (11/01/2018) — Emma Velez, Ph.D. candidate from The Pennsylvania State University in philosophy and women's, gender, and sexuality studies, will highlight this year's fall Emerging Scholar Lecture on Thursday. November 8, from 4:00-5:30 p.m., in the Gannett-Tripp Library Lecture Hall.

In her lecture, "Why the Decolonial Imaginary is Important for Feminist Philosophy," Velez covers several topic areas. According to Velez she "draws attention to the way in which our social imaginaries are implicated in logics of oppression such as sexism, racism, and colonialism. Utilizing Emma Pérez's theorization of the concept of the decolonial imaginary, I argue that in order to subvert the colonial imaginary that has dominated Western philosophy we must first learn to inhabit the rupturing space of the decolonial imaginary. It is for this reason that I root my philosophical discussion of the interventions of decolonial feminism through figures from the Mexican /Chicanx imaginary: Las Tres Madres (La Virgen de Guadalupe, La Malinche, and La Llorona). I appeal to Las Tres Madres because of their omnipresence in the social imaginaries and everyday lives of many Latinxs. Departing from the conventional narratives about these three mythological women, I attempt to take them up differently to show what they have to teach us about engaging in a decolonial praxis. In particular, I argue that the figure of La Llorona, "the wailing woman," can help us to identify ethical imperatives that face us in our contemporary moment such as femicide and violence directed at migrant communities."

Additionally, will meet with interested students in Starbucks from 10:20 -11:20 a.m. on Friday, November 9, for coffee and an informal discussion on Velez's experience as a graduate student and her research.

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Emma Velez, a philosophy and women's, gender, and sexuality studies Ph.D. candidate at Penn State, will provide the fall Emerging Scholar Lecture on Thursday, November 8, from 4:00-5:30 p.m., in the Elmira College - Gannett-Tripp Library Lecture Hall.

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