Session I: Who Gets to Speak?: Imperialism, Authoritarianism, and Local Mobilizations
9:40am-10:05am: “Beyond Imperialism: Rethinking Latin Americanism through the Venezuelan Authoritarian Drift”
Lecture by Dr. Magdalena Lopez, University of Notre Dame & Centro de Estudos Internacionais, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
This presentation questions the US-centric framework that still shapes left-wing readings of Venezuela's authoritarian drift. That framework shifts attention away from the chavista-madurista state itself and onto an external “enemy”: imperialism. Drawing on my previous work on the Latin American left, I show that this shift is not accidental. It stems from two ideas that have long defined the field: anti-Americanism and the notion of Latin America as a utopian alternative to the West. Read more here.
10:05am-10:30am: “Venezuela after the Bombs: Between Imperialism, Authoritarianism and Mobilizations”
Lecture by Dr. Yoletty Bracho, Université de Montréal
Since January 2026, Venezuela has become the model for the new “successful” imperialist intervention. Indeed, the Chavista authoritarian government has been reinforced by the support of US intervention while transforming itself to accommodate to this new situation. In this context, social mobilization has been visible in different forms: workers’ unions, human rights and diverse leftwing organizations are currently going through important transformations to build new forms of solidarity from below. Read more here.
10:30am -10:55am: Q & A moderated by Dr. Andrés Eduardo Pérez-Rojas
Session II: Gender Violence, Political Violence and Women’s Everyday Resistance
11:10am-11:35am: “Political and Legal Context of Gender-Based Violence in Venezuela, with an Emphasis on Political Violence Against Women in Politics”
Lecture by Venus Marina Faddoul Barrios, Esq., 100% Estrógeno NGO
This talk starts from the premise that Venezuela’s patriarchal structure has historically conditioned women into feminized roles of caregiving and servitude—a system that persists despite legal and political advances and has even worsened as a result of the Complex Humanitarian Emergency that the nation has experienced for the past ten years. The presentation will address the increase in women’s political participation from the Punto Fijo Pact (1961) to the present day, alongside the normalization and expansion of political violence against women, with an analysis of practical cases. Read more here.
11:35am-12:00pm: “The Landscape of Violence in Venezuela: Women's Everyday Responses to Armed Actors in the Maduro Era”
Lecture by Dr. Verónica Zubillaga, Tulane University
In this talk, I will focus, first, on the Maduro government’s security policies and the extreme lethal violence they inflicted on the population of Caracas's working-class neighborhoods. Second, drawing on comparative ethnography in two neighborhoods, I will discuss the coping strategies employed by women and mothers in the presence of armed actors—both state and non-state—in their communities and daily lives. Read more here.
12:00pm-12:25 pm: Q & A moderated by Dr. Carlos Colmenares Gil
12:25pm-1:20pm: Lunch Break
Session III: Images of Dissent and Urgency: Screening of 22 de mayo (1969) by Cine Urgente
1:30pm - 2:30pm:
Film screening and Q&A with Dr. Noraedén Mora Méndez
Location: IU Libraries Moving Image Archive (basement of Herman B. Wells Library)
Film synopsis:
22 May 1969. A resident of the hills crosses Caracas with his portable radio. The montage interweaves these images with those of the COPEI attack on the Central University of Venezuela and the student resistance movement. The film was made in a collaborative manner by Jacobo Borges, from the Cine Urgente group, and local residents.
Session IV: Round table: Venezuela as a Problem Hoy & Closure
3:00pm - 4:00pm:
Dr. Yoletty Bracho, Dr. Magdalena Lopez, Venus Marina Faddoul Barrios, Esq., and Dr. Verónica Zubillaga, moderated by Dr. Noraedén Mora Méndez