Colleen Kattau

Dr. Colleen Kattau specializes in Latin American Literature and Culture, and is dedicated to creating a student-centered learning environment. Her areas of interest and research include nueva canción or ‘new song’, social movements as they relate to Latin American culture, and translation. She has published articles on the new song movement and on women writers, and has created multimedia presentations on art and activism. She is active in a sister city partnership between Central New York and Cajibio, Colombia where both communities work together to face similar problems and environmental challenges brought on by corporate incursion. Colleen is also a singer-songwriter and has produced several compilation benefit CDs including Singing Clear: Clean Earth, Air, Water round Here. She will perform songs informed by the movement for alternative energy and to stop hydraulic fracturing and fracked gas storage in NY State and beyond.

Music has always been an important part of social change activism. In the US think of labor struggles, the civil rights movement, women’s rights movements, the United Farm Workers movement, anti-war protests, the movement to close the SOA, immigration struggles, and so many others. I will offer two or three songs from the organizing efforts to stop fractured gas storage in Seneca Lake and from the larger movement to make NY State frack free and wholly powered by renewable energy. In these movements everyone sings— so be ready to sing along!