Friday, April 21
Institute for Public Knowledge
New York University
20 Cooper Square, Room 222
New York, NY
 
Narratives of Debt is a one-day conference presented by CSSD's working group on Unpayable Debt and the Oikos working group at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge. The conference focuses on the ways that people and groups have grappled with and against various forms of indebtedness. The morning session will feature speakers working on the ongoing Puerto Rican debt crisis from a number of disciplinary perspectives. The afternoon session will focus on how different kinds of debt are folded into relations of intimacy, kinship, and everyday interactions.
 
10AM-Noon: The Puerto Rican Debt Crisis
Yarimar Bonilla (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers)
Puerto Rico’s American Dream: Contemporary Narratives of Debt and Crisis
 
Huascar Robles (Journalist and Documentary Photographer)
The Echoes of Silence: Development, Debt, and Santurce
 
Sarah Molinari (Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center)
Contesting “Debt” Relations: Narratives and Activism During Puerto Rico’s Crisis
 
Miguel Luciano (Independent Artist)
Ride or Die
 
Moderated by: Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Professor and Co-Director of Unpayable Debt Working Group, Columbia)
 
2PM-4PM: Debt and Intimacy
Michael Ralph (Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU)
Commercial Affiliations
 
Gustav Peebles (Associate Professor of Anthropology, The New School)
Debtors’ Sanctuaries and the Sovereign Exception
 
Liv Yarrow (Professor of Classics, Brooklyn College, CUNY)
Private Debt and Public Foreign Policy, 51-50 BCE
 
Amina El-Annan (Assistant Professor of English, Baruch College, CUNY)
Dreamworlds of Debt
 
Moderated by: Sarah Muir (Director, International Studies Program, City College, CUNY and Co-Director of Unpayable Debt Working Group, Columbia)