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Photo by Ron Stevens. |
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BIOGRAPHY
Brian Nelson has over seventeen years of experience in Latin America and has lived in Costa Rica, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. His work on the region has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The Southern Humanities Review, The Encyclopædia Britannica, and was the subject of a PEW Case Study for Georgetown University. He has an MFA from the University of Arizona as well as degrees in International Studies and Economics. In 2002 he was awarded a Fulbright grant in Creative Writing to Venezuela. Formerly at the Center for American and World Cultures at Miami University, he currently teaches for Johns Hopkins University.
GUEST LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS
Mr. Nelson is available to speak on a wide range of issues concerning Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and U.S.-Venezuelan relations. While he uses many facts and statistics in his presentations, Mr. Nelson also does a great deal of storytelling—using the experiences of Venezuelans he has worked with and interviewed as well as his own personal experiences from his many trips to Latin America.
Here are a few of the popular topics he has lectured on:
1. “The Coup”—using film, photographs, and testimony Mr. Nelson shows a very different kind of coup—one where both the Chávez government and the opposition committed criminal acts.
2. “Beauty Queens, Oligarchs, and Boligarchs”—Class struggle in Venezuela, the plight of the poor, and the quest to exorcise Venezuela of its excessive materialism.
3. “Corruption and the Curse of Oil”—A look at why the most resource-rich country in Latin America is also the most corrupt.
4. Chávez in Historic Context— How the collapse of Venezuela’s capitalist system helped sweep Chávez into office, how the international banking system contributed to that collapse, and how Chávez was mentored by the leaders of Venezuela’s guerilla movement of the 1960s.
5. “Expanding the Revolution”—the implications of Chávez’s perpetual re-election for Venezuela and the United States as well as how his alliance with Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Cuba might reshape Latin America.
For more information on setting up a visit, you can contact Mr. Nelson directly (brian.a.nelson200@gmail.com).
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