Buffalo, NY — Dr. Richard Reitsma, director of the Borders & Migrations Initiative at Canisius University, recently participated in a series of international academic engagements in Mexico as part of the MigraMedia project, a European Union–funded research collaboration.
Working alongside scholars from Spain, Poland and Germany, Dr. Reitsma contributed to ongoing interdisciplinary efforts examining migration, media, and cultural representation across global contexts.
The visit began in Puebla, where Dr. Reitsma met with colleagues at the Jesuit Universidad Iberoamericana. There, he connected with Fr. Conrado Bonifacio Zepeda Miramonte, S.J., part of the directorship of the university’s Program on Migrations, to discuss shared research initiatives. He also met with Dr. Nathaly Rodríguez Sánchez from the Department of Social Sciences to explore the development of TED Talks and podcast content based on a forthcoming anthology that includes Dr. Reitsma’s essay on queer rights in Cuba.
While in Puebla, Dr. Reitsma also engaged with faculty involved in the Virtual Dual Immersion program, a collaborative initiative between institutions in the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU)—including Canisius University—and the Asociación de Universidades Confiadas a la Compañía de Jesús en América Latina (AUSJAL). The program provides students with peer-to-peer language immersion experiences in Spanish and English. He also met with Dr. Diana Jaramillo, director of the M.A. program in Applied Literature, to discuss future academic collaborations.
Dr. Reitsma then traveled to Mexico City, where he delivered a joint presentation with Dr. Ewa Antoszek of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. Their talk, titled “La Frontera de Polonia y la de EEUU y México en el cine y el arte,” examined representations of Polish and U.S.–Mexico border regions in film and art, as well as their ongoing international teaching and research collaborations. The presentation took place at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), where the broader MigraMedia project was also highlighted. Discussions included comparative research on migration between the U.S.–Mexico border and Europe–Africa regions, as well as the development of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).
The group concluded its visit in Toluca at the Autonomous University of Mexico State. There, Dr. Reitsma presented “Cine para jóvenes y las novelas gráficas de la frontera / Cinema and YA Graphic Novels of the Border” for the School of Social and Political Sciences. He also led a lecture and discussion titled “Cuerpos Eróticos y Cuerpos Políticos / The Body Erotic and the Body Politic” as part of academic programming in Cultural Narratives: Media, News, and Institutional Communication and the M.A. in Gender, Society, and Public Policy.
[PHOTO: Dr. Reitsma with colleagues in front of the distinctive mural Aula Magna Lic. Adolfo López Mateos, which is part of the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México in Toluca.]
In addition to these presentations, the group explored future opportunities for collaboration, including COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) initiatives and expanded academic exchanges.
Dr. Reitsma’s participation in the MigraMedia project reflects Canisius University’s ongoing commitment to global engagement, interdisciplinary scholarship and the advancement of research on migration and cultural studies.
