The legacy of renowned ASU professor and Latin American scholar David William Foster will be celebrated with an upcoming lecture and a new collection coming soon to the ASU Library.
The ASU Library received a donation of 4,000 books and papers from Foster’s personal collections. This donation creates the largest collection of cultural studies in the Southern Cone (predominantly Argentina, Chile and Uruguay) in the American Southwest.
“Professor Foster was a great supporter of the ASU Library. We are grateful for the gift of these books and papers from David William Foster's personal library to the Latin America Collection,” said Seonaid Valiant, curator of the Latin Americana collection and interim curator for Rare Books and Manuscripts at the ASU Library. “This donation allows researchers to access materials from South American writers and to understand their perspectives on the history of race and gender and their presentation in literature, photography and cinema.”
Arizona State University’s Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, David William Foster (1940-2020) arrived at ASU in 1966, only eight years after the college became a public university. Foster became an ASU Regents Professor of Spanish and Women and Gender Studies — the highest faculty honor at ASU — in 1991 and continued to teach at ASU until his passing in 2020. Foster contributed to many fields, from Brazilian studies to Jewish studies, held teaching appointments in several countries, and supported generations of students.
In celebration of Foster and the collection, the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC) created the David William Foster Memorial Lecture series, which will be hosted by the ASU Library this year. The series highlights the scholars who are currently carrying forth Foster’s legacy by working on issues of gender, race, photography and literature.
This year’s lecture takes place on Tuesday, Oct. 17 from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Design and the Arts Library on the ASU Tempe campus. Feminist immigrant educator, researcher, writer and activist Ángeles Donoso Macaya is the featured speaker.
Macaya’s presentation, “Documentary Reverberations: Towards a Feminist Critique of Photos by/of ‘women’” will attempt to critically consider the theoretical and methodological problems that emerge when engaging jointly the notions of “visuality,” “women” and “Archive."
Originally from Santiago, Chile and based in New York City, Macaya’s focus is the expanding field of photography in contemporary Chile. She explores the visual archive of the women's and feminist movement against the dictatorship, an archive which continues to reverberate today in different ways. Learn about the little-known photographic records made by renowned photographer Paz Errázuriz during the 1980s and the intimate archive formulated by photographer Carla Yovane.
Macaya teaches Latin American Visual Studies in the PhD Program in Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at The CUNY Graduate Center, and is also a Professor of Spanish at the Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY. Her research centers on Latin American photography theory and history, counter-archival production, human rights activism, documentary film, (trans)feminisms in the Southern Cone and public humanities scholarship.
“Ángeles Donoso Macaya’s work combines the important elements of gender, photography, and theory to examine the lives of Chilean people” said Valiant. “The David William Foster Memorial Lecture committee, headed by Ligia Bezerra, is excited to partner with the School of International Cultures and Letters and the ASU Library to bring her to our campus to meet our community. We invite students, faculty and community to join us to learn more.”
Interested attendees can learn more about the event on ASU Events. Please RSVP to seonaid.valiant@asu.edu by Monday, Oct. 16.