The University of Essex’s first Latin American Day Symposium will take place in the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall on Friday 28 November.

Lorena Ruiz, a Mexican PhD student in the Essex Business School, is President of the University’s Latin American Society and Latin American Women’s Society. She is organising the event, from 3.30pm to 8.30pm, to celebrate the cultural and economic importance of Latin America.

Lorena explains: ‘We have scholars from different universities and Latin American diplomats talking about the cultural, political, economic and ideological issues of Latin America.’

‘The event aims to promote the importance of Latin American countries and to position Latin America as a rich variety of countries linked, in the majority of cases, by linguistic, political and cultural similarities.‘

The event will be opened by Ignacio Duran, Minister for Cultural Affairs in the Mexican Embassy, with a speech on the cultural importance of Latin America.

Other speakers include the Department of Art History and Theory’s Professor Val Fraser who is also Director of the University’s Latin American Centre, Grace Livingstone (a well known writer on Latin America) and Professor Nick Von Tunzelman from Sussex University. The event will end with presentations by Essex students undertaking PhDs on subjects related to Latin America.

Members of the University and the general public are welcome. For further information and book a place, please contact Lorena Ruiz on e-mail: lruizg@essex.ac.uk

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Notes to editors:
The Latin American Day Symposium runs from 3.30pm to 8.30pm on Friday 28 November in the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall at the Colchester Campus. For further information and book a place, please contact Lorena Ruiz on e-mail: lruizg@essex.ac.uk