Frances Negron-Muntaner Interviewed by WNYC’s The Takeaway Podcast

Professor Frances Negron-Muntaner, co-director of the Unpayable Debt working group, was interviewed on WNYC's The Takeaway podcast about the financial future of Puerto Rico under the Biden administration.

Unpayable Debt Working Group Co-director Profiled by Feminist Films in the Classroom

The Feminist Films in the Classroom’s piece, We Learn Together: A Conversation about Feminist Film Pedagogy with Frances Negrón-Muntaner and Elisabetta Diorio, is a biographical interview about Professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner's life, teachings, and films. Professor Negrón-Muntaner, CSSD Executive Committee member and co-director of the Unpayable Debt working group, talks about some of her films such as AIDS in the Barrio (1989) and Brincando el Charco (1994). The piece also includes interviews with former students who have followed in her footsteps and relfect the impact of Professor Negrón-Muntaner’s work.

Unpayable Debt Co-Director Featured in The Takeaway Podcast

Frances Negron Muntaner, former co-director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD) Unpayable Debt working group and current CSSD Executive Committee Member, is featured in The Takeaway Podcast. In this episode, Frances joins other Latinx journalists in a discussion on the efforts to diversify the newsroom and the open letter sent to the Lost Angeles Time leadership by their Latinx journalists.

To listen to this episode, click here. 

To learn more about the work of the Unpayable Debt Working Group, read here.

Unpayable Debt Co-director Featured in Podcasts The Takeaway and Hilando Fino

Frances Negron Muntaner, former co-director of the CSSD working group Unpayable Debt, was recently featured on WNYC’s podcast, The Takeaway, and Hilando Fino, a podcast produced by Cadena Radio of Universidad de Puerto Rico. In these episodes, “How West Side Story Culturally Defined the Puerto Rican Diaspora - For Better or for Worse” and “La isla que se vacía [The island that empties],” respectively, Muntaner discusses various aspects of the Puerto Rican diaspora. 

To listen to The Takeaway episode, click here.

To listen to the Hilando Fino episode, click here.

To learn more about the Unpayable Debt working group, click here.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner Interviewed by Columbia Magazine

In the winter issue of Columbia Magazine, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Executive Committee member of CSSD and former co-director of working group, Unpayable Debt, talks about the community currency project in Puerto Rico called Valor Y Cambio. The article, “A New Type of Social Currency,” highlights the goals of the project, namely “‘to get people talking about what they value in their communities, about what changes they’d like to see occur, and about how they might contribute to those changes.’”

To read the full article, click here.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner Interviewed on CUNY TV

Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Executive Committee member of CSSD and former co-director of working group, Unpayable Debt, discusses Valor Y Cambio, a community currency project in Puerto Rico, with Judith Escalona in last month’s episode of LATiNAS on CUNY TV. The program is a monthly magazine show that interviews Latinx women and their contributions to society. 

To watch the full interview, click here. 

Frances Negrón-Muntaner interviewed for “Public Thinker” Series

Frances Negrón-Muntaner, executive committee member of CSSD and former co-director of working group, Unpayable Debt, was recently interviewed by Public Books for their “Public Thinker” series. Negrón-Muntaner discusses Puerto Rico, the power of art and public discourse, and “decolonial joy.”

To read the profile, click here.

Unpayable Debt’s “Valor y Cambio” Project Wins NALIP Media Trailblazer Award

CSSD Executive Committee member and former Unpayable Debt working group co-director Frances Negrón-Muntaner received the National Association of Latino Independent Producers Media Trailblazer Award for her “Valor y Cambio” project. She will receive this award at NALIP’s Diverse Women in Media Forum 2019 on December 5.

Read more about “Valor y Cambio” at their official website here.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner Participates in 2019 Conference of Ford Fellows

The CSSD Executive Committee member and former Unpayable Debt working group co-director Frances Negrón-Muntaner was part the opening plenary panel of the 2019 Conference of Ford Fellows. Her talk was entitled “Decolonial Joy: Theorizing from Public Scholarship.” The annual conference “is a unique national conference of a select group of high-achieving scholars committed to diversifying the professoriate and using diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students."

See the full conference program here.

“Valor y Cambio” Wins Borimix 2019 Award and Features in Medium and Nexos

Frances Negrón-Muntaner, CSSD Executive Committee member and former Unpayable Debt working group co-director, announced on Twitter that her “Valor y Cambio” (Value and Change) project won the Borimix 2019 Award “for its contribution and support to arts and culture.” The project recently wrapped up its run in East Harlem and is headed back to Puerto  Rico.

“Valor y Cambio” was also featured in a Medium article, which delves into the socio-political context out of which the project was born, as well as the history of other alternative currencies.

Read yet another piece on “Valor y Cambio” on the Spanish-language Nexos.

'Valor y Cambio’ Art Installation and Alternative Currency Project Featured in Multiple Publications and TV Interview

The “Valor y Cambio” (Value and Change) project grew out of Frances Negrón-Muntaner’s Unpayable Debt working group, surveying spaces historically and contemporarily affected by debt, from her native Puerto Rico, to Detroit, Greece, and more. Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia and former Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.

The interactive installation, which will return to Puerto Rico after its recent stint in New York, allows participants to speak into an ATM that records their perspectives on what they value. It then dispenses an alternative currency, which was accepted at various local partner businesses during its time in New York. The currency (“the pesos of Puerto Rico”) is, in itself, also an art piece, featuring the stories of poets, athletes, doctors, activists, educators, and youth leaders.

Read more about “Valor y Cambio” in Repeating Islands and the Columbia Spectator. Watch a Spanish-language interview with Negrón-Muntaner on the Univison website.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner’s Art Installation and Alternative Currency Comes to East Harlem

CSSD Executive Committee member, and former Unpayable Debt working group co-director, Frances Negrón-Muntaner brings her interactive art installation to East Harlem for 10 days at the end of this September. Originally launched in Puerto Rico, the project was also shown in the Lower East Side before coming to El Barrio.

Born in response to the Puerto Rican debt crisis, and building on the work of the Unpayable Debt working group, the Valor y Cambio project proposes an alternative currency that, thanks to the participation of local establishments, is usable to buy products from food to museum tickets. Read more here, and visit the project’s website here.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner Gives Interviews and Writes Article on Political Dissent in Puerto Rico

Professor of English and Comparative Literature, CSSD Executive Committee member, and former Unpayable Debt working group co-director Frances Negrón-Muntaner (CSER) gave two interviews, one on WNYC’s The Takeaway and another on CNN en Español, about recent protests in Puerto Rico that led to the resignation of now-former governor Ricardo Rosselló. She also wrote a piece on frustrated expectations and newfound hope in the wake of the protests for Dissent Magazine.

Professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner Pens Article for Dissent Magazine

Frances Negron-Muntaner, Unpayable Debt working group co-director and professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, addresses the recent historic protests in Puerto Rico in an article for Dissent magazine. The article notes the international reach and inclusivity of the thirteen day protests that led to the resignation of Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rosselló. 

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is co-director of CSSD working group Unpayable Debt: Capital, Violence, and the New Global Economy  and creator of the Puerto Rican community currency project Valor y Cambio. 

To read her full article in Dissent magazine click here. 

Unpayable Debt Co-director Appears on Latino Rebels Podcast

On the eighth day of on-going protests in Puerto Rico Unpayable Debt co-director, Professor Frances Negron-Muntaner, discussed the overlap between her community currency project Valor y Cambio and what has come to be called the Puerto Rican Spring on the Latino Rebels Podcast.  

To hear the entire interview listen to the podcast here.

For more on Valor y Cambio click here. 

Frances Negron-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer, curator, scholar and professor at Columbia University, where she is also the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive.

Valor y Cambio Project Featured in Brooklyn Public Library Podcast

Frances Negron-Muntaner, co-director of CSSD working group Unpayable Debt and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, discussed the Valor y Cambio project on a recent episode of the Brooklyn Public Library podcast. In the show Frances talks about how the project was created following Hurricane Maria when proposals for a new library system were met a lack of enthusiasm.

In an effort to show that people in Puerto Rico both want and need community spaces and free access to information she launched the community project Valor y Cambio, which invited people to share stories about what they value. The initiative brought Puerto Ricans together and demonstrated the importance of community.

You can listen to the full podcast here.
For more on Valor y Cambio visit the website.

Frances Negron-Muntaner Wins Frank Bonilla Public Intellectual Award

Frances Negron-Muntaner, co-director of the CSSD working group Unpayable Debt and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, has been awarded the Frank Bonilla Public Intellectual Award by the Latin American Studies Association. She was recognized by the association for her many achievements including but not limited to her recent community based project “Valor y Cambio” as well as her autobiographical film Brincando el Charco.

Frances has been named one of the “100 most influential hispanics” by Hispanic Business Magazine and was recognized as a global expert by the United Nations’ Rapid Response Media Mechanism. She will receive the award in Boston on May 26th.

Puerto Rican Community Currency Project on Display in Manhattan

On Sunday May 26 ,2019 the ATM used in the Valor y Cambio project in Puerto Rico was shown at the 32nd Loisaida Festival in Manhattan. The Valor y Cambio project was created by Sarabel Santos Negron, multidisciplinary artist and educator and Frances Negron-Muntaner, co-director of CSSD working group Unpayable Debt and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia.

The Valor y Cambio project is a community currency project that lasted for 9 days in Puerto Rico with the goal of to generating more interest and discussion in socially just solutions to the island’s economic challenges. Residents would obtain decorated bills that could be used at local businesses in exchange for telling stories about themselves and their values. This past weekend 200 such bills were dispensed in Manhattan from the same ATM at the Loisaida festival.

You can read the full story here on Voices of NY.
For more on the Valor y Cambio community currency project click here.

Unpayable Debt working group co-director Delivers Keynote Lecture

Frances Negron-Muntaner, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia and co-Director of CSSD working group Unpayable Debt, delivered the keynote lecture at Pratt’s March 26 Digital Spatialities workshop. The event brought together scholars pursuing research on social media phenomena within the US and globally.

Frances’ keynote was entitled “The ‘Valor y Cambio’ Project: Practicing Art, Narrative and Just Economies in Puerto Rico,” and was inspired by her current community currency project in Puerto Rico, and her extensive experience as an activist, writer, filmmaker, curator, and educator.

You can read more about the workshop here.
For more on the social currency project “Valor y Cambio,” click here.
Check out photos from  the Unpayable Debt working group’s closing conference here.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner presents keynote lecture at 2019 GRACE Conference

On March 9th, 2019, co-director of CSSD working group Unpayable Debt: Capital, Violence, and the New Global Economy, Frances Negrón-Muntaner gave a keynote speech entitled "The Valor y Cambio" Project: Art, Narrative and Decolonial Joy” at the 2019 Gender and Cultures of Equality (GRACE) Conference in Holland. In addition to her keynote presentation, professor Negrón-Muntaner delivered two presentations at the conference, which aims to systematically investigate the cultural production of gender equalities within Europe.

Click here to view the full conference schedule.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer, curator, scholar and professor at Columbia University, where she is also the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive. For more on her Valor y Cambio social currency project click here.

The GRACE Conference celebrates the achievements of the GRACE Project’s work and provides opportunities to explore the themes of the GRACE research through a range of activities, including a series of public talks by GRACE researchers and other distinguished international scholars.