International Book Fairs, NBN Films, & More!
Featuring Diego Garzón-Forero on the International Book Fair of Bogotá and an interview with Maxwell Kennel
The International Book Fair of Bogotá
The International Book Fair of Bogotá (FilBo) took place from April 18th to May 2nd, 2023. Filbo is one of the most important book fairs in Latin America and for the Spanish language. This year, FilBo honored Mexico, making it the guest of honor, and received more than 600,000 visitors who enjoyed around 2,000 book-related activities.
New Books Network en español was present at this great South American book fair. Alex Gonzalez Casallas and I (Diego Garzón-Forero) talked about the project with various publishing houses in Colombia. We also distributed 500 fliers to publishers unaware of the project and kept in touch with those already familiar.
Book fairs are essential gatherings for listeners, publishers, booksellers, authors, and researchers. It was the first time New Books Network en español was at the fair. Publishers new to the project were willing to collaborate and provide titles for potential interviews. The future is promising for New Books Network at book fairs dedicated to celebrating the Spanish language!
Diego Garzón-Forero is an anthropologist, radio producer, author, social scientist, and host of the Antropología channel.
NBN en Español Colombia Playlist
The editors (Pamela Fuentes and Paula de la Cruz Fernández) of New Books Network en español have prepared a selected playlist of interviews in Spanish about Colombia’s history and culture. You can find more episodes on the Colombia channel.
Patrimonio arqueológico y pueblos indígenas del norte de Colombia
Los rostros de un Estado delegado. Religiosos indígenas y comerciantes en el Putumayo, 1845-1904
La urbanización del Río Tunjuelo. Desigualdad y cambio ambiental en Bogotá a mediados del siglo XX
Historias del Arte en Colombia. Identidades, materialidades, migraciones y geografías
Las fotografías y sus relatos. Una radiografía del sufrimiento femenino
New Books Network Films
We have launched a YouTube channel!
Here is AJ Woodhams, one of our NBN hosts on a great new book, Uncertain Ground by Phil Klay.
Scholarly Sources
Maxwell Kennel is Senior Research Associate in the Centre for Social Accountability at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University.
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: I’m in the middle of a few books. I can’t seem to read one book at a time, so right now I’m wading through George Steiner’s book on teaching called Lessons of the Masters, Olga Tokarczuk’s masterpiece The Books of Jacob, Hans Blumenberg’s brilliant study The Readability of the World, Gabriel Catren’s treatise Pleromatica, Ailton Krenak’s intervention Life is Not Useful, the anonymous Conspiracist Manifesto, and some translated selections from Quentin Meillassoux’s The Divine Inexistence.
Q: What is your favorite book or essay to assign to give to people and why?
A: It’s hard to choose a single favorite, so I’ll try for three: I love recommending and assigning Bertolt Brecht’s “Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth” (in Brecht on Art and Politics), Boris Groys’s “Google: Words Beyond Grammar” (in In the Flow), and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart” (in Strength to Love).
Q: Is there a book you read as a student that had a particularly profound impact on your trajectory as a scholar?
A: Absolutely. Jack Caputo’s book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida was impenetrable to me as a high school student, but after a full year of reading and rereading it, I finally managed to learn something about how that kind of academic writing works. I’m not as sympathetic with Caputo’s position on Derrida now, but the book was essential for me as I tried to make my way into the continental philosophy of religion.
Q: Which deceased writer would you most like to meet and why?
A: I would love to meet the Mennonite historian Robert Friedmann. He wrote a manuscript called Design for Living that reframed Anabaptist radicalism and Mennonite pacifism in philosophical, existentialist, and humanist terms (I edited an edition of it in 2017 with Wipf and Stock). I resonate a great deal with the book and I found Friedmann to be a mystifying figure with many conflicting and overlapping identities (Jewish, Reformed, Socialist, Mennonite, Quaker), and I’d love to ask him how he understood the tensions between his various identities (well before the term “intersectionality” arose!). If he was busy, I’d like to meet Grace Jantzen, author of the Death and the Displacement of Beauty trilogy, which is a hidden gem.
Q: What's the best book you've read in the past year?
A: Erica Lagalisse’s book Occult Features of Anarchism. It’s one of the best pieces of writing on conspiracism I’ve ever read, and it was published before COVID-19. I picked up the French translation too because it’s just such a fascinating book.
Q: Have you seen any films, documentaries, or museum exhibitions that left an impression on you recently?
A: The film adaptation of Miriam Toews’ book Women Talking left a deep impression on me earlier this year – most especially the character of August Epp. I’m really looking forward to a panel on it at the Mennonite Scholars and Friends meeting at the American Academy of Religion conference this coming November.
Q: What do you plan on reading next?
A: I’ll try to finish the books I mentioned above, and after that I want to get back to Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope, Rahel Jaeggi’s Critique of Forms of Life, Tristan Garcia’s Form and Object, and a long list of exciting articles on social accountability and medical education.
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