The Cajitas Project: Exploring Identity Through Material Expression
Date and Time
Friday, September 21, 2018
This event occurred in the past
- Friday, September 21, 2018 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Location
Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Humanities Center, 200
5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110Cost
Free
Details
The Cajitas Project is a collaboration between Dr. Alberto Lopéz Pulido (Ethnic Studies), Dr. Louis Komjathy (Religious Studies), and their students. During spring semester of 2018 in ETHN 240D: Introduction to Latino and Chicano Studies and THRS 394: Comparative Mysticism, students explored their personal ethno-cultural and spiritual identities, with particular attention to relationality and place, through the creation of their own cajita. In this lecture, Drs. Pulido and Komjathy will discuss the project as an expression of engaged and innovative pedagogy. They will reflect on the challenges and opportunities of such work, including practical advice on utilizing this approach to teaching and learning.
Cajitas (“sacred boxes”) usually are small wooden boxes filled with significant personal and sacred belongings as well as family “artifacts” carried by Mexican migrants during travels, including movement across real and symbolic borders and borderlands during the mid to late 20th century. These boxes offer an orientation (a sense of place and belonging) as people in motion traverse new and unfamiliar spaces. Always in movement, the boxes contain anything from personal family items (e.g., family pictures, dishes, documents) to religious saints.
Post Contact
Humanities Center
humanitiescenter@sandiego.edu