Season 6: "The Erika Verba Show"

Inside this Episode with Mitch Hampton

I read an enormous amount of books in a given year, partially for the great pleasure it creates in me and partly as my project of lifelong learning, itself probably identical in pleasure. Verba's work on Violeta Parra - one of the giants in Latin American music in general and  Chilean music in particular as well as a leading visual artist and scholar - was one of the books in this new year of 2025 that taught me an enormous amount, not only about music but History and other matters. 

I found my episode with Verba - someone who has deep and involved careers in music performance as much as scholarship - a delight from beginning to end and I hope our audience gets to learn more about the genius that was Violeta Parra.

Dr. Verba’s Bio

Ericka Verba is Director and Professor of Latin American Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research interests include the cultural Cold War, the role of music in social movements, and the intersection of gender and class politics in twentieth-century Latin America. She has received grants from the National Endowment from the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright, and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. She is a founding member of SCALAS (Southern California Association of Latin American Studies) and the recipient of the E. Bradford Burns Award for service to the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies. 

She is the author of the book Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra. Her interest in Violeta Parra dates back to her early teens in the 1970s when she became friends with a Chilean family of musicians and artists who taught Verba her first Violeta Parra songs and guided her political awakening to the brutality of the Pinochet dictatorship and the role of the US government in installing and supporting it. As a musician and founding member of the US-based New Song groups Sabiá and Desborde, she has been performing Parra’s music since 1976. In 1980, she wrote her undergraduate honors senior thesis on Parra’s autobiography in verse. In 1996, She was the musical director and arranger for a tribute concert to Violeta Parra, supported by an Artists in the Community grant from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and recorded and released as Desborde, Tribute Concert to Violeta Parra. As a professor of Latin American History since 2004, she has welded her research on the history of women in Chile with her interest in Parra to acquire a deeper understanding of the social context and gender dynamics that shaped Parra’s life. Suffice to say, Verba’s book represents the culmination of a decades-long curiosity about Violeta Parra and engagement with her work. 

#folkmusic #chile #guitar #communism #marxist-leninism #fascism #salvadorallende #1940s #1950s #1960s #alanlomax #peteseeger #painting #dance #sculpture #feminism #latinamerica #southamerica #nicanorparra #angelparra #violetawenttoheaven #biennalearte #louvrepalace #albertcamus #existentialism #jeanpaulsartre #picasso #earlbrowder #paulrobeson #woodyguthrie #l'escale #france #paris #argentina #folklorista #chileannewsong 

Links to her socials:

Website:https://erickaverba.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericka_verba/

More about her new book: 

THANKS TO LIFE 

A Biography of Violeta Parra 

"A stunning achievement. This comprehensive analysis of Parra's life provides an unparalleled opportunity to appreciate one of Latin America's greatest artists. Thanks to Life