SYNOPSIS: Stories and storytelling have been a distinctive and compelling feature of the Zapatista movement since its appearance in 1994. The impulse behind a recent translation of Zapatista stories by an activist translators’ collective will frame the presentation. A brief conceptual summary of the history of the movement will follow, with an emphasis on the 30th anniversary celebration in December and January, and the spate of communiqués that preceded it, announcing a new turn in the Zapatista struggle.

BIO:

Margaret Cerullo is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Feminist Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She has been involved in one way or another with the Zapatista movement since its public emergence in January of 1994, including organizing field study courses in Chiapas for the last 20 years. She is a member of the Lightning Collective that produced the book Stories for Dreaming An-Other World (PM Press). She attended the recent commemoration of the Zapatistas 30th/40th anniversary (including 10 years underground before emerging publicly in 1994) in Chiapas.