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 Victoria Sanford

Writer, Public Anthropologist, Human Rights Advocate, Environmentalist, Mother

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New Release

Textures of Terror
The Murder of Claudina Isabel Velasquez and Her Father's Quest for Justice

Investigating the unsolved murder of a female law student and the pervasive violence against Guatemalan women that drives migration.

Interview with Barriozona Magazine:

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Kerry Kennedy

President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

In Textures of Terror, Victoria Sanford brilliantly unravels complex and widespread gender-based violence in Guatemala and how the very institutions created to combat it perpetuate violence and impunity. Above all, she tells the love story of a father's ceaseless quest for justice for the murder of his beloved daughter.

Stephen Kinzer

Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and world affairs columnist for the Boston Globe

How can anyone convey Guatemala's descent into ultra-violence following a US-backed coup decades ago? Sanford does it beautifully by telling a single poignant story and placing it against the country's dazzling political and cultural background. Harrowing but deeply insightful, Textures of Terror shows how ordinary people react and resist as a society decomposes.

Carolina Escobar Sarti

 National Director, La Alianza Guatemala

This book is simultaneously one book and many. One chronicles the murder of a young female law student. The others explore the layers of systemic horror that remind us that to be a woman in twenty-first-century Guatemala is to live in danger, in the shadow of violence, impunity, and historical oppression

The Signal | Feminicide, Impunity, and the United States in Guatemala, with Victoria Sanford

 Upcoming Appearances

Dr. Sanford is on sabbatical for the 2024-2025 academic year. 

Appearances

 Previous Appearances

March 19, 2024, Book Talk: Textures of Terror: The Murder of Claudina Isabel Velasquez and her Father's Quest for Justice

International Justice Lab

William and Mary College

3:00 PM (EST)

James Room, Sadler Center

March 18, 2024, Book Talk: Textures of Terror: The Murder of Claudina Isabel Velasquez and her Father's Quest for Justice 

Reiff Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution

Christopher Newport University

6:00 PM (EST)

McMurran 101

December 6, 2023, Presidential Lecture: Gender Violence & Migration: Co-Optation of the Guatemalan Judicial System and Post-Election Optics

Northern Arizona University

4:30 PM (UMT)

Kitt Recital Hall

November 03, 2023, A Book Reading and Discussion

Center for Latin American Studies & Center for International Security and Cooperation

Stanford University

Details to Follow

Appearances

November 01, 2023, A Book Reading and Discussion

American Association of University Women

Granary, Morgan Hill, CA

Details to Follow

October 23, 2023, Feminist Struggles/Voices in the World

Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies

14:00-17:30 (SAST)

JIAS and Zoom

October 17, 2023, A Book Reading and Discussion

Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University

Details to Follow

October 13, 2023, A Book Reading and Discussion

The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Details to Follow

October 11, 2023, A Book Reading and Discussion

New York University

Details to Follow

October 02, 2023, A Book Reading and Discussion

Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Details to Follow

September 27, 2023, 12:30 - 1:30 PM EDT

A Book Reading and Discussion with Dr. Christa Salamandra

Lehman College, Bronx, NY

RSVP by September 26th

Location: Library - Treehouse Conference Room 317

September 28, 2023, 12:30-1:30 PM EDT

Women on the Front Lines: Gender Violence, Corruption, and the Fight for Justice in Guatemala

A conversation with Lic. Ana López Sales for the 2023 Pew Memorial Lecture

Widener University

Location: KLC Recital Hall and Zoom

September 26, 2023, 4:00 PM EDT

New Books in Public Anthropology Virtual Café

Readings and Conversation with Nicole Fabricant, Ryo Morimoto, and Ieva Jusionyte

Hosted by the California Series in Public Anthropology and Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, Brown University

September 14, 2023, Washington Office on Latin America, Washington D.C.

August 19, 2023, Breaking the Silence on Gender Violence: The Invisible Voices of Guatemala

August 4, 2023, Zorayan Institute, Toronto

May 11, 2023, Red Interamericana Anti Femicidio

Conversation with Brigittine French and Claire Branigan

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Contact

VictoriaSanford@victoriasanford.info

Gender Violence and Migration

Film Inquiries

Susan Schulman Literary Agency

454 West 44th Street

New York, NY 10036

212-713-1633

susan@schulmanagency.com

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