Lecture on Conflict in Argentina

Alejandra Vasallo, an Argentine historian and author, will give the 2008 Johnson Lecture in Modern Languages, "Gender, Class and Conflict in Argentina under Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner," at 4 p.m., Wednesday, April 16, in the Alumni Room, Old Main, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Vasallo, who also is the on-site assistant director for the Knox College Program in Buenos Aires, Argentina, will discuss gender, class and other issues in contemporary Argentine politics and society, within the context of the recent election of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as president of Argentina.

Vasallo has been Knox's on-site assistant director in Buenos Aires since the program's inception in 1997. She has taught at several Argentine institutions, including seven years as chair of the Foreign Language Department at the Universidad Nacional de Lujan. She won the Hugh Cleland Award for Innovative Teaching from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where she earned a master's degree and is currently completing a doctorate.

Vasallo's research interests include the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo -- an organization that originated with weekly demonstrations in a plaza in central Buenos Aires by women who said family members had been abducted by agents of the Argentine government from 1976 to 1983, known as the "Dirty War" period in Argentina. Her presentations and publications, including two books, span a wide range of time periods and topics, from the Republican women of Argentina in the 19th century to gender stereotypes in the teaching of foreign languages.

While at Knox, Vasallo also will meet with a political science class on gender and populism in Latin America, a gender studies class on feminist methodologies, and students interested in careers as translators.

The lecture is sponsored by the Joseph and Clara H.E. Johnson Distinguished Lectureship in Modern Languages and the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Knox College.

Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 45 states and 44 nations. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.