The symposium on “Puerto Rico in the Wake of Crisis: Toward a Just (After)life of Disaster” brings together scholars, activists, and artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora. Before September 2017, Puerto Rico—one of the longest-held colonial possessions in the world—was facing a dire economic crisis and large-scale out-migration. With the hurricanes Irma and Maria, the island’s vulnerabilities were exposed for the entire world to see.

The symposium will feature a keynote event on Friday night with New York-based attorney and activist Elizabeth Yeampierre, an internationally recognized environmental and climate justice leader who is executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization, and co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance.

The event is organized by Mónica Jiménez, a professor in the University of Texas Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, and the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, with support from many other UT departments and centers.

Register online for this free, open event. The full schedule and information on speakers is online.

Location: University of Texas, Law School (Friday) and Gordon White Building (Saturday), Austin