The experience in Rio was marvelous. I taught the graduate class "Recreating the Nation" in Spanish. A few students spoke Spanish well, all could understand it via Portunhol, and some used English as well. I didn't learn a great deal of Portuguese, but it was a wonderful experience. The students were so much more sophisticated intellectually and politically than I am used to, I could barely believe it. Puts my daily norms into perspective. Then we had a superb conference on the obligation to be happy--a marvelous critique of the psy-function from numerous perspectives. Again, to be amongst people for whom socialism is not a bad name; who all work in various languages; who all break down the barrier--when it exists--between the social sciences and the humanities--was extraordinary. As usual, people gave me copies of their books, invited me back, and so on. This is not special to me--it's about the way they operate as intellectuals.
I went via Miami to Mexico next, where I consulted with Promexico, which has a tripartite group on cultural policy and film, and gave another talk at the Cineteca Nacional on the history of cultural policy and how to reach the US-based hispano-hablante public with films from Latin America via TV and the internet. I also gave interviews to my favorite paper after the Guardian (La Jornada) and Concaculta's TV coverage.
Now I'm headed home after an amazing week. Why can't we do these things in California?
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