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Crises of Faith, Crises of Nationalism: History and Identity in a Postmodern Mexico

Film - Feature | March 20 | 5 p.m. | 223 Moses Hall

Speaker/Performer: Jean Lauer, University of Texas at Austin

Sponsor: Religion, Politics and Globalization Program (RPGP))

To the extent that official histories are recognized and maintained through institutions and people, they provide a means to organize the past and come to terms with the ways that events shape the present. The fact that certain histories take priority over others in Mexico is not unique in and of itself—any uniqueness is evident through the ways that repressed histories resurface in postcolonial and postmodern contexts particular to Mexico. In this presentation, the stability of official versions of national and religious identity formation in Mexico is in question, as well as the ways those versions purport to organize social participation. The films Santitos (Dir. Alejandro Springall, 1998) and The Crime of Padre Amaro (El crimen del Padre Amaro, Dir. Carlos Carrera, 2003) provide two different yet complimentary representations that function to articulate a history of resistance to Church and State rhetoric—a resistance that traces its roots to the earliest encounters between the “Old World” and the “New”—which return to inform powerful critiques of and responses to current changes within those Mexican institutions.

Event Contact: 510-642-7747