PILAS Conference 2025
“Contesting Precarity, Envisioning New Relationalities"
8th & 9th April 2025
University of Bristol, England
Submissions are now closed. Click here for the original Call for Papers.
Scroll below for information about the Conference.
Keynote speaker
Carlos F. Grigsby
Carlos is a Nicaraguan-born poet and scholar. His research focuses on Spanish American Literature within world literature, literary translation and Central America. He is a lecturer in Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol. He is the author of Rediscovering Rubén Darío through Translation (Bloomsbury, 2024) as well as of two poetry collections in Spanish, the last of which is Rilke y los perros (Visor, 2022).
Visit Carlos' institutional page here.
Talk theme
Based on my own research and career, I'll be talking about doing scholarly research as a form of academic activism, particularly regarding bringing perspectives from the so-called "Global South" to bear on canons and conversations in Anglo-European academia.
Keynote speaker
Alejandro De Coss Corzo
Alejandro De Coss Corzo is Lecturer in Urban Geography at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the relations between infrastructure, urban political ecology, and the formation of state power in Mexico City. More specifically, Alejandro has analysed the role that infrastructural labour plays in the operation, maintenance and repair of hydraulic infrastructures, showing how this work is key reproducing and adapting power relations at an urban scale. His research has appeared in leading journals in human geography, such as Environment and Planning D, Antipode, and Progress in Human Geography.
Visit Alejandro's institutional page here.
Talk theme
Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in Mexico City, my talk will explore what it means to think infrastructural labour as method and practice and what this tells us about critical urban theory today.
Film screening
Araya
(Margot Benacerraf, 1959)
Released in 1959, Margot Benacerraf’s Araya remains a landmark of Latin American cinema, continuing to inspire filmmakers and scholars alike. Filmed at the dawn of Venezuela’s industrialisation, Araya captures a pivotal moment in the nation’s history, when the centuries-old extraction of salt—once known as “white gold”—was eclipsed by the rise of oil, Venezuela’s “black gold.” The film offers a striking portrait of a country on the brink of profound economic, cultural, political, and even geographical transformation, while exposing both the continuities and ruptures between colonial and neocolonial extraction.
The PILAS committee is proud to present this screening as part of this year’s conference, honouring Benacerraf’s invaluable contributions to Latin American cinema, a year after her passing in May 2024. After the screening, film restorer Andrés Prypchan will join us for a Q&A.
For more background on Araya, click here for notes on the film written by our very own Francisco Llinás Casa.
Exhibition
Andrés Prypchan
As a prelude to the screening of Araya on the second day of PILAS, we are proud to present fellow postgraduate student Andrés Prypchan’s restoration work of Margot Benacerraf’s 1959 feature, comprising 22 minutes of previously unseen footage. Andrés’ restoration brings a new life to 23 out of the 250 cans of Araya's discards. Created at the dawn of Venezuela’s oil-driven industrialisation, Araya exposed the continuities of colonial and neocolonial extraction in 1950s Venezuela. Over 65 years later, the restoration invites us to rethink the importance of the film's legacy, particularly in the context of Venezuela’s ongoing economic, political and migration crises.
The PILAS committee is honoured to exhibit Andrés’ restoration work as part of this year’s conference. We will also be hosting a Q&A after our screening of Araya, where Andrés will delve into the technical aspects of his restoration work.
Exhibition
Ronald Pizzoferrato
As part of PILAS 2025, we are proud to exhibit the work of Venezuelan artist and fellow postgraduate student Ronald Pizzoferrato, the creator of this year’s conference poster image.
Ronald Pizzoferrato (b. Caracas, 1988) is an artist and freelance photographer based in Switzerland. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of Bern’s Studies in the Arts (SINTA), and his work has been featured in multiple exhibitions and academic publications. His practice reflects on and documents the social and cultural reality of his native Venezuela.
We are pleased to showcase a selection of images from The Path of the Objects, a visual examination of Venezuela’s migration crisis. This project emerges from Pizzoferrato’s experiences while accompanying Venezuelan migrants in their journey through South, Central and North America.
Workshop
Research methods &
library resources
Laurence Byrne
We’re delighted to have Laurence, Head Curator of Latin American & Caribbean collections at the British Library’s Eccles Institute, lead a workshop on research methods and library resources. The workshop will cover the basics of how to access the wide variety of primary and secondary source materials available to postgraduate students. It will also be a space for open discussion on the ethics of research and the changing politics of accessibility regarding archives between the UK and Latin America.
Follow updates from the Eccles Institute for the Americas & Oceana here.
Important information
Location
University of Bristol Arts Complex
7 Woodland Rd,
Bristol
BS8 1TB
Programme
A full conference programme and list of abstracts will be made available here soon.
Contact
Image: Karen Siegel, Doris Siegel