Current Collaborative Projects

Projects that span colleges, communities, and countries to heal trauma through the arts and sciences.

The State of Iberoamerican Studies Series: Human Rights Across the Disciplines and Voice to Vision Project

This University of Minnesota Grand Challenges Research Art and Theater Interdisciplinary project, directed by Luis A. Ramos-García (Spanish and Portuguese studies) and David Feinberg (art), searches for new and original visual symbols, testimonies, and narratives that inspire memories of past events and traumatic situations across the world. Weaving performance art, civil war narratives and cultural studies, this project conducts artistic workshops and critical fora, bringing together Latin American artists, theater directors and human rights activists with University of Minnesota undergraduate students both in the United States and in Colombia.

Memory, Trauma, and Human Rights at the Crossroads of Art and Science

This project brings together team members from the University, community, and research institutions abroad to better understand the impacts of traumatic memory upon individuals and societies and to critically engage the issues of how we come to terms with and heal from trauma, seek accountability for human rights abuses that led to severe trauma, and mitigate future traumatization. We seek to explore the long-term effects of traumatic experiences as varied as war and dictatorship, terrorist attacks and state terrorism, genocide, captivity, and sexual abuse. We also seek to confront the complexities of testimonial narratives and of memory itself. Without memory, no testimony is possible, the right to truth may be denied, and the justice unobtainable. Principal Investigators are Brian Engdahl, William L. Anderson Chair in PTSD Research; Ofelia Ferrán, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies; and Ana Forcinito, Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair and Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Studies.