Contributed by Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos

What happens when graduate students from different departments come together to share their research, questions, and passions? ELIN’s Graduate Research Forum, held on March 1st, 2025, created just such a space — one filled with insightful presentations, lively discussion, and meaningful connections.

The forum featured a wide range of presentations—from archival work reclaiming 19th-century Afro-Brazilian literature to explorations of queer identity, space, and time in Egypt. Topics included debt, inheritance, and ecological justice in Mara Pastor’s Deuda Natal, the maternal voice in Nuyorican poetry, and historiopoetics in Levente no. Yolayorkdominicanoyork. Other research addressed Egyptian surrealists reclaiming degeneracy through the Vive l’Art Dégénéré manifesto, contradictions in state-indigenous relations in the Andes, and cannabis, labor, and empire in the Panama Canal Zone. Presentations also explored themes such as migration, colonial legacies in Peru, and the role of constitutional recognition of Indigenous cosmovisions in Latin America. This rich variety of research not only showcased the interdisciplinarity of the forum but also sparked meaningful conversations across regions, methodologies, and fields.

Presenters included both first-year students and those preparing to graduate this May, all eager to share their research and support one another along the academic journey. Faculty members from El Instituto, History, Political Science, Geography, and Anthropology attended the panels and provided thoughtful feedback on the students’ work.

The event concluded with a mid-afternoon lunch where participants continued their conversations and exchanged experiences. This forum served as an important space for building confidence, fostering academic community, and encouraging graduate students to share their research and engage with the work of their peers.

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