Guatemala in the 20th century: A Brief Introduction
In the summer of 1996 at the age of 18, Dr. Lisa DiGiovanni traveled to Guatemala to study Spanish, backpack through the region’s rainforests, and learn about its Mayan history. While she had those experiences in places like Tikal and Antigua, Dr. DiGiovanni also discovered the more recent history. That year marked the end of the genocidal repression of Mayan Indians by the Guatemalan military in which 80,000 people were killed or disappeared between the mid-1960s and the mid-1990s. The bloody conflict emerged from the overthrow of the democratically elected leftist president Jacobo Arbenz in a CIA-backed military coup in 1954 to protect the economic interest of Guatemalan elites and wealthy U.S. business investors. In this talk Dr. DiGiovanni will give a broad overview that will prepare listeners for the 2025 Genocide Awareness Lecture to be held on April 2.
About the speaker: Dr. Lisa DiGiovanni's interdisciplinary research and teaching centers on representations of war, dictatorial violence and genocide in 20th - 21st century Spain and Latin America. She deals with narrative (novels, short stories, graphic novels) and films (fiction and documentary) that render visible the multiple traumas related to state repression and militaristic culture. Beyond her videographic scholarship work, Dr. DiGiovanni is also the author of Unsettling Nostalgia in Spain and Chile: Longing for Resistance in Literature and Film, numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, and book chapters. Her work is published in both English and Spanish. Dr. DiGiovanni is bilingual and holds a split appointment in the KSC Department of Holocaust and Genocide Studies as well as the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures. Her full bio can be found here.
This virtual event is part of a series on Guatemala being offered by the Cohen Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College during spring 2025. The event is free and open to all; however, you must register in order to join.
Registration is available here.
This event is part of the Cohen Center calendar.
To request accommodations for a disability, please contact the coordinator at least two weeks prior to the event.
