The Art of Conversation, inspired by "Machines of Loving Grace," a poem by Richard Brautigan, will focus on Romanticism and our alienation from nature due to technology. Giving TED-style talks will be artist Daniel Martin Diaz discussing his "Sacred Heart Machine" works; Kep Taiz, a rocking chair designer; Dr. Allison Dushane, discussing the Romantic period of art, literature and music; and Dr. Joaquin Ruiz speaking about Biosphere II.

Click here to see the event poster.

“Give me your poor?” How has the American view of immigration changed over time? Part One of this double bill features the song cycle Vignettes: Ellis Island by Alan Louis Smith which chronicles American immigration in the early 20th century through the stories of 20 refugees taken from interviews in the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Faculty will speak about their immigration experiences. Moderated by Dr. Javier Duran.

For more information, contact the University of Arizona BookStores, Student Union Memorial Center at 520-621-2426.

“Desvariaciones de la Canción Mexicana/Un-variations of Mexican Song.” In Part Two, pianist Héctor Acosta and singer-actress Verania Luzero from the Universidad de Sonora perform some of the most popular songs from Mexico, tinged with blues and jazz, to tell a humorous tale of a Mexican immigrant looking for the American dream and his culture shock as his everyday life transforms into a Mexican-American blend.

For more information, contact the University of Arizona BookStores, Student Union Memorial Center at 520-621-2426.

Africana Studies professor Bryan Carter will demonstrate how literature, the arts and performance are enjoyed by residents of Second Life. During this tour the audience will hear live music performed by jazz artists from a variety of physical locations, explore art created by talented artists in both real and Second Life and learn how literature is experienced differently by students enrolled in classes taught within the environment. Come on out—you may discover that one life is just not enough...

Geert Lovink, founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, is a Dutch- Australian media theorist and critic. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne and in 2003 was at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland. In 2004 Lovink was appointed as Research Professor at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam. He is the founder of Internet projects such as nettime and fibreculture. In 2005-06 he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin Institute for Advanced Study where he finished his third volume on critical Internet culture, Zero Comments (2007). Since then he published the book Networks Without a Cause (2012). Other book titles by Geert Lovink are The Art of Free Cooperation (2007), The Principle of Notworking (2005), and My First Recession (2003).

Join photographer Alejandra Platt-Torres, Dr. Maribel Alvarez, associate research professor in English and associate research social scientist at the Southwest Center, and Dr. Otto Santa Ana, associate professor of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA, in a conversation moderated by Confluencenter director Dr. Javier Duran. They will discuss how the photographic works give a unique perspective on the subject of border culture and the issues surrounding migration.

Dr. Otto Santa Ana will present the key findings of his new book, Juan in a Hundred. He reviews a full year of contemporary news stories about Latinos. He reveals significant journalistic limitations that are hidden by the networks’ (ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN) high production values. To capture the full semiotic range of televised network reporting about Latinos, he has expanded earlier work about cognitive metaphor analysis (of newspapers) by blending recent cognitive science with humanist scholarship. His work explains why news viewers form misunderstandings about Latinos from the news they watch. He offers a range of recommendations, from modest to radical, to address these limitations.

Ghanaian-American pianist William Chapman Nyaho discusses and performs works by composers from Africa and the African diaspora. The Trinity Missionary Baptist Church Gospel Choir will sing from 6 to 7 p.m.  Part of Confluencenter’s Creative Collaborations with pianist and Regents’ Professor Paula Fan (School of Music) and guest scholars and performers in a musical exploration addressing the grand challenges facing the world. In collaboration with UApresents The Underground Railroad, with Kathleen Battle, 3/22, 8 p.m. at Centennial Hall.

For more information, contact the University of Arizona BookStores, Student Union Memorial Center at 520-621-2426.

Confluencenter is proud to be a sponsor of Tucson Cine Mexico

March 21-24

Movies and documentaries by some of Mexico’s finest filmmakers and up-and-coming artists will be screened at the Harkins Theatres and the Fox Tucson Theatres.  All the presentations are free and open to the public. Visit www.tucsoncinemexico.org for more information.

This panel examines how indigenous people in Mexico have been represented in Mexican film by considering stereotypical representations and how they have been mobilized for nation-building purposes. In particular, the panel will discuss the double discourse of making indigenous people visible on the screen to wider audiences while at the same time relegating the actual lived experiences to the margins of society or to a grand mythified past. Clips from films will highlight discussion points. This panel will also move forward and highlight some recent videos made by indigenous people, creating their own self image, and asks what it means in contemporary Mexican discourse.

Panelists include: Carlos Gutierrez, Director, Cinema Tropical, New York; Elena Fortes, Director, Ambulante, Mexico; Laura Gutierrez (Facilitator), Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, UA Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
Sponsored by Tucson Cine Mexico

Follow the links below to see the Tucson Cine Mexico 2013 Trailer.

English version

Spanish version

The last survivor of an era of ballrooms that served Tucson’s Latino community, El Casino Ballroom has been a cultural Mecca for the whole community. Documentary filmmaker Dan Buckley talks about this historic Tucson landmark and decades of concerts and events that took place there.

Visit us at our booth (#213 in front of the administration building). We’ll have T-shirts and other memorabilia, and there will be a panel Discussion on Ground|Water: The Art, Science and Design of a Dry River at 10 a.m. on Saturday at the Kachina Room in the Student Union. A book signing will follow.

Mexican photographer Alejandra Platt-Torres shares her powerful images of the people, the border, and the landscape between Arizona and Sonora in a new exhibit at Arizona State Museum (ASM) co-presented by the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry on the University of Arizona campus. A World Separated by Borders runs at ASM from March 8 to October 19, 2013.
The show is supported by Agri Packing Supply, Consulate of Mexico in Tucson, Gobierno del Estado de Sonora, Jumex, Los Descendientes del Presidio de Tucsón, The Offshore Group, and Tucson Mexico Sister Cities.

Tom Zoellner’s book A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State and Life in America is not just the story of the tragedy of January 8, 2011 and what led up to it and what transpired afterward. It gives a detailed history and analysis of Tucson. He has worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and The Arizona Republic, and as a contributing editor for Men’s Health magazine. A Tucson native, he is an Associate Professor of English at Chapman University and lives in Los Angeles.

Zoellner will have a question and answer period following his talk about the book. This lecture will interest journalism, sociology and history students alike.

"Air/Water/Mexico" speakers Stacie Widdifield, UA School of Art; and Jeffrey Bannister, Southwest Center and School of Geography.

Contact the University of Arizona Museum of Art for more information.

"The Rillito River Project" book signing and panel discussion about bats and Tucson's Bat Night with Gregg Garfin and Ellen Skotheim, UA School of Natural Resources & the Environment; Yar Petryszyn, Rillito River Project; moderator: Ellen McMahon, UA School of Art and author of Ground Water|An Ode to a Dry River.

Contact the Contact the University of Arizona Museum of Art for more information.

Explore the sociological commentary that was and is cabaret with Dr. David Chisholm (German) and Dr. Paula Fan (Music), featuring twentieth century German cabaret songs and William Bolcom's wry musical glimpses of contemporary human relationships drawn from his three volumes of Cabaret Songs. In collaboration with UApresents Come to the Cabaret! on March 23.

For more information, contact the University of Arizona BookStores, Student Union Memorial Center at 520-621-2426.

Dr. Susan Stryker, associate professor of Gender and Women's Studies and director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, will present excerpts from her newest film, Christine in the Cutting Room. It’s about the remarkable life of Christine Jorgensen, who underwent a sex change in 1952, and became an international celebrity, actress and filmmaker. No ordinary documentary, it’s a multi-media project with electronica club music and video wallpaper. Click here to see the movie trailer. (In collaboration with UApresents’ Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo on Apr. 20.)

Confluencenter will be holding a Grant Writing Faculty Workshop.

Conducted by Confluencenter's Research Coordinator Susan Penfield

with Development Director Yvonne Ervin and Confluencenter Faculty Grant Recipients:

Ellen McMahon, Peter Beudert and Stacie Widdifield. 

Concepts that will be covered:

1) Specific guidance for the development of Confluence Grants for the Spring 2013 Competition. 

2) Strategies for moving the ideas for interdisciplinary research to external funding agencies.

3) Overall issues related to grant development. 

Faculty from across campus are welcome to attend, especially those who are interested in collaborative initiatives with Fine Arts faculty. 

Space is Limited, please RSVP to Maria Telles at

telles@email.arizona.edu or 520-621-5137

Dr. Jonathan Xavier Inda earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the anthropology of globalization, the politics of immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race, science, and medicine, and Latino populations in the U.S. Dr. Inda is Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The targeting of criminal offenders for removal has become one of the central priorities of contemporary immigration enforcement in the United States. Scholars have rightly highlighted the importance of a series of laws passed during the 1990s, in particular the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Criminal Responsibility Act, in laying the foundations for this targeting of immigrants. These laws increased the penalties for breaching U.S. immigration laws and expanded the class of noncitizens who could be deported for committing crimes.

In this talk, Dr. Inda draws attention to an earlier immigration law that has played a key, but less studied, role in laying the groundwork for the contemporary policing and removal of immigrants: the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). IRCA is well known for its part in criminalizing the hiring of undocumented workers, increasing the resources of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to patrol the nation’s borders, and providing undocumented immigrants with a path toward legalization. But the law also contained a small provision that required the U.S. Attorney General to deport noncitizens convicted of removable offenses as expeditiously as possible. This provision dealing with the removal of “criminal aliens” has turned out to be highly significant. In many ways, it has helped to dramatically shape the nature of contemporary immigration enforcement. IRCA basically helped set in motion the contemporary practice of targeting “criminal aliens” for deportation. In turn, this practice has morphed into a mechanism for policing immigrant “illegality” more generally. 

Click here to see the event flyer. 

Hip-hop is understood as a culture that includes many forms of expression: dance, rap music (emceeing and DJing), slam poetry, fashion, film, and graffiti art. Since its beginning in the Bronx in the 1970s, hip-hop has not only become such a ubiquitous cultural expression but also turned out to be a phenomenal cultural force that has influenced and managed to shape local, national, regional, and global issues.

Thus, as researchers and educators, our view of hip-hop culture goes beyond the stereotypical gangster and drug cultures to incorporate this expressive medium's relationships and presences across different academic disciplines such as art, music, dance, language/poetry, religion, gender, culture, history, politics, marketing, fashion, sociology, management as well as film, radio, television and performance studies. Besides its commercial clout, hip-hop's role in challenging stereotypes, destabilizing and unsettling the meaning of blackness and bridging cultural divides in the USA and abroad, merits a place in serious academic discussions of how contemporary societies function.

Susan Hardy Aiken, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor of English, teaches and writes in the fields of 19th- and 20th-century British and American literature and culture, women and literature, gender theory and poetry. Along with pianist, Dr. Paula Fan, she will explore the evolution of the American poetic voice and the role of poetry in our lives. Baritone Seth Kershisnik will sing Tom Cipullo’s All-American song cycle “Another Reason I Don’t Keep A Gun in the House” to poetry by Billy Collins, former U. S. Poet Laureate, and other selections from the Great American Art Songbook.

French Professor Alain-Philippe Durand, the author of a book on rap music and hip-hop culture in France, will explore this phenomenal cultural force that has influenced local, national, regional and global issues and discuss hip-hop's role in challenging stereotypes and bridging cultural divides. This will be a preview of the international symposium The Poetics and Politics of Hip-Hop Cultures to be held Feb. 7-8 at the UA.

Professor of Spanish Dr. Chuck Tatum, the author of this 2011 book, will enlighten the audience on how the expressive culture of lowriding fits within the broader context of Chicano culture and how it reflects the social, artistic and political dimensions of America's fastest-growing ethnic group. With striking photos, he will demonstrate the unique aesthetics of lowrider vehicles, the mechanics of building a lowrider vehicle, and lowrider culture in the media. He will also trace how lowrider culture has recently expanded beyond the urban streets and into the massive exhibit halls of lowrider shows, exposing lowrider culture to even more enthusiasts. 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. Free admission, happy hour prices and free snacks at the Playground Bar & Lounge, 278 E. Congress. Click here to see the event flyer.

Professor of English Dr. Peter E. Medine introduces lyric meditations on the devastating effects of World Wars I and II on human relationships, and on individual efforts to come to terms with those effects. These musical explorations of the universal themes of love, loss, and war ultimately suggest the possibility of affirmation, if not redemption in an age of unparalleled anxiety and destruction. Featuring baritone Seth Kershisnik, tenor Dennis Tamblyn and Daniel Katzen, Horn.

For more information, contact the University of Arizona BookStores, Student Union Memorial Center at 520-621-2426.

Ground|Water: The Art, Design and Science of a Dry River Book Release Party— A work of art in itself, this publication brings together a diverse community of artists and scientists interested in understanding and raising public awareness about local water and its relationship to global climate. This 112-page, full color, 9” x 9” volume, with letterpress printed hard cover, features collaborations with the Rillito River Project, a Tucson-based arts group, as well as photographs, graphic design, architectural proposals, artist books, essays and poems by University faculty and students. This ode to a dry river is an experiment in making something desecrated and overlooked both beautiful and understandable and carries a strong message about community and responsibility.  This is the first in Confluencenter’s Beyond Boundaries series on UA Press. Edited by Ellen McMahon (School of Art), Ander Monson (Creative Writing faculty) and Beth Weinstein (College of Architecture).

See a video of Anders Monson speaking about the Ground|Water publication process.

Join University of Arizona Regents’ Professors Paula Fan (Music) and John Olsen (Anthropology) in an interdisciplinary dialogue about what it means to be “human.” John will provide a discussion and hands-on presentation of prehistoric artifacts. From the piano, Paula will discuss the evolution of music as a tool for communication to music as art. Expect some lively discussion as they explore the complementary themes which define the human experience. Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at 6 p.m. at the Arizona Inn, 2200 East Elm Street. The evening begins with hosted cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with the professors, is followed by a salon-style discussion and ends with a gourmet dinner of wild sea bass and beef tenderloin. To maintain an intimate atmosphere, the number of guests will be limited. Tickets are $275 and are available by calling 621-4587.

To see more information or to register for this event, please click here.

Open House
Concert of Light Classics with a Solar-Powered Piano Trio
Brown Bag Lunch

The Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry- where research is united with creative expression- shares an outdoor performance of light classical music and a special musical treat for children.

Speaker: Paula Fan, professor of music, and AzRise Solar Storytellers

November 1 Dia de los Muertos Celebration with an altar exhibit, music, dance, a processional and prize-winning author, Luis Urrea, speaking and signing his books. Urrea, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother, Urrea has won numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. The Devil's Highway, his 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. This event is free. People or groups who are interested in creating an altar for this event should send an email to Yvonne Ervin, ervin@email.arizona.edu.

UA Student Union: 4 p.m. party at the BookStore; 5:00 processional to the South Ballroom for Urrea’s reading/lecture.

Karen Seat, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, specializes in the history of American evangelicalism. With a grant from the University of Arizona’s Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry (2011-2012), Professor Seat has traveled the country interviewing politically active conservative evangelicals as they have been gearing up for the 2012 presidential election. Professor Seat will discuss conservative evangelicals' engagement with politics in American history, with a particular focus on the complex relationship they have had with Catholics and Mormons in building political alliances.

Suggested parking: Second St. Garage

See this flyer for more info about the Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture Lecture Series (2012-2013).

Iranian-American composer Richard Danielpour (Manhattan School and Curtis Institute of Music) and Dr. Anne Betteridge (Middle Eastern Studies) will present musical and historical commentary highlighting the inventiveness and resilience of Persian women beginning with the ancient story of the Persian consort who avoided being beheaded by spinning stories over 1001 nights. Dr. Danielpour will present excerpts from a full symphonic work, Darkness in the Ancient Valley, the composer's heartfelt tribute to Iran's long-suffering people, and his trio, Remembering Neda, honoring Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman killed in 2009, who became a symbol of hope unrealized in Iran. The Tucson Symphony Orchestra is performing two of Danielpour’s compositions in October. With Kristin Dauphinais, mezzo soprano, Paula Redinger flute and Anne Gratz, cello.

For more information, contact the University of Arizona BookStores, Student Union Memorial Center at 520-621-2426.

A gala event on the grounds of a private estate on Campbell Avenue. The Solar Storytellers—a solar-powered electric piano, violin and cello with Dr. Paula Fan—will entertain partygoers with light classics and enlighten them about the workings of solar power. Dr. Roger Angel of the Steward Observatory (as featured on NPR) will speak about how he is working with the technology he developed for the world's most precise astronomical mirrors to create affordable solar energy. Meanwhile, Confluencenter Director Dr. Javier Duran and special guests will explore the culture of Mexican cuisine . . . with delicious results.  Space is limited and reservations are required for this free event: 621-4587.

With guests Purple Bamboo, yangqin artist Huiqing Cheng and ethnomusicologist Dr. Janet Sturman. While the Shaolin tradition of martial arts has captured the imagination of the West, prominently displayed in countless Buddhist temples are four imposing figures, one of whom, Chi Guo Tian Wang, Watcher of the Lands, always carries a lute. Drs. Fan and Sturman will discuss the “celestial sounds” of the traditional instruments played by the members of the Purple Bamboo Asian Music Ensemble. Confucius Institute, 11 a.m., 1215 E. Helen St. To promote the UApresents Shaolin Warriors, Oct. 21.

A lecture by Diane Goldstein, Professor and Chair of the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Author of Once Upon A Virus: AIDS Legends and Vernacular Risk Perception (Utah State University Press, 2004).

Dr. Goldstein has been extensively involved in AIDS priority-setting and policy-making initiatives over the last twenty five years, including a three year appointment to the Canadian National Planning and Priorities Forum for HIV/AIDS. She is currently President of the American Folklore Society.

Professor Goldstein's talk will explore the story-making activities that have surrounded the AIDS epidemic, focusing on the potential implications of legend discourse for public health. Told cross-culturally, AIDS legends recount HIV-filled needles in movie theatre seats, pinpricks in drugstore shelf condoms, semen in fast food, and HIV-positive sexual predators. Though fascinating, intriguing, and often frightening, these narratives do more than merely entertain. They warn and inform, articulate notions of risk, provide political commentary on public health actions, and offer insight into the relationship between cultural and health truths. As part of community discourse about the nature of disease, legends provide powerful information about cultural understandings of the virus. AIDS narratives, however, do not simply articulate perceptions of disease realities; they also create those realities. Told within scientific and official sectors as well as lay communities, legends play a significant role in medical, legal, and educational responses to the disease and its management.

Presented with the support of Arizona Humanities Center and Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry/UA.

Ken McAllister (UA) & Judd Ruggill (ASU), co-curators of the Learning Games Initiative Research Archive, one of the largest video game collections in the world, will uncrate and highlight a few of the Archive's more unusual artifacts. From arcade machines sponsored by the CIA to video game sex toys to a game controller with nearly fifty buttons, Ruggill and McAllister will traverse the perverse of gaming's half-century history, putting some of it in context and leaving the rest for garbologists to sort out. 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. Free admission, happy hour prices and free snacks at the Playground Bar & Lounge, 278 E. Congress.

"The Hydro-Aesthetics of the Mexico City Water System: From the Cája de Agua to the Cárcamo, 1900-1952," and an exhibition of student research from the Waterworks graduate seminar (Spring 2012).

You are invited to an informal presentation by Dr. Jeffrey Banister (Southwest Center and Department of Geography) and Dr. Stacie Widdifield (Art History, School of Art and Affiliated Faculty, Latin American Studies)  about a project being developed with U.S. and Mexican scholars that analyzes the visual/artistic aspects of the Mexico City water system in Chapultepec Park and Xochimilco. Graduate students in Art HIstory, Studio Art, and History also will be on hand to discuss their research from a related Art History seminar: Waterworks, held in Spring 2012.

3-4:30 pm Friday, October 5, 2012 at the Lionel Rombach Gallery, School of Art. Light refreshments will be served.

(Photo by Flickr user "ojoqtv.")

Joseph Pugliese, Associate Professor in the Department of Media, Music, Communication, and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University (Sydney), is a founding member of the Somatechnics Research Network. His research and teaching are oriented toward issues of social justice. He deploys critical and cultural theories in order to examine and address the relationship between knowledge and power, issues concerned with discrimination and injustice, state violence, institutional racism and regimes of colonialism and empire. He examines these issues in the context of everyday cultural practices, institutions of power such as the law and the state, and the interface of bodies and technologies. His current research includes a critical analysis of regimes of torture and state violence in the context of the CIA Black Sites and the U.S. military's use of predator drone technologies in the ongoing “war on terror.”

In this lecture, he will reflect on the complex relations between two modalities of state violence: the contemporary waging of the United States’ international war on terror/al-Qaeda and the ongoing colonial expropriation and militarization of Native American lands.  He will examine this system of relations through the figure of topology. As the “science of nearness and rifts,” Michel Serres identifies topology as that figure that “folds” space-time and produces simultaneous rifts and nearness. The topology of the fold captures the complex spatio-temporal dimensions that connect different geopolitical sites and wars. What emerges, he will argue, is a transnational matrix of imperial state violence that inextricably binds diverse subjects (Native Americans and Afghans) and seemingly unrelated geographical sites (Western Shoshone country/Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada and the Afghan tribal lands) and borders (US/Mexico). At the heart of this matrix of state violence, he concludes, are contested sovereignties.

Dr. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Distinguished Professor of History at UCLA and Doshi Endowed Chair in Early Modern India, will speak on intersections between the early modern empires of France and India. The author or editor of more than 25 books, Dr. Subrahmanyam is the founding Director of UCLA's Center for India and South Asia. He has held an endowed chair in Indian History and Culture at the University of Oxford, served as Directeur d'études in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and taught comparative economic history at the Delhi School of Economics.

September 18 at 4:30 in the UA Art Museum Retablo Room (reception will follow). See the flyer for Dr. Subrahmanyam's presentation.

Art professor Jackson Boelts will speak about his role as designer, educator, visual artist and facilitator, punctuated by examples of his artwork dramatically depicted on Playground's multiple video screens. His works range from realistic to nonfigurative: his watercolor landscapes are photorealistic in direct contrast with his abstract watercolor, photograhy and digital DNA sequences and his Shield Series depicts large, watercolor, shield-shaped images as metaphors for the personas we affect. Download the flyer for The Community, Watercolor and DNA here.

Performances, Classes, Panels, and Exhibits by:

The Black Took Collective, Amaranth Borsuk, Julie Carr & K.J. Holmes, Jeff Clark, Brent Cunningham, Johanna Drucker, Christine Hume, Douglas Kearney, Ander Monson, Julie Patton, Claudia Rankine, Cecilia Vicuña, Danielle Vogel, Dan Waber, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

Screenings of Work by:

Eula Biss & John Bresland, Brandon Downing, John Gallaher, Forrest Gander, Kate Greenstreet, Deborah Poe, Sawako Nakayasu, Robyn Schiff & Nick Twemlow, Zachary Schomburg, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

Events will take place at the Poetry Center and The Rogue Theatre. Art exhibits, art installations, and library exhibits will be on display concurrently with the symposium.

Visit the Poetry Off the Page website

On April 30^th Confluencenter is a co-sponsor of An Evening with Javier Sicilia from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Room 150 of the UA’s Harvill Building, 1103 E. Second St. Since the murder of his son a year ago, the Mexican poet has become the most prominent voice against President Calderon’s militarized war against the Mexican drug cartels. He will provide a powerful testimony, with a unique perspective, at this free event.

“Ask a Mexican” columnist Gustavo Arellano will present his new book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America at a talk in the Student Union Kiva Room from noon to 1 p.m. on April 16. He will explore the history and culture of Mexican food in the US from the 1880s, to the 1990s when salsa overtook ketchup as this country’s favorite condiment, to the present with billions of dollars in annual sales of Mexican food. Download the flyer for Arellano's talk.

Please join us for the inaugural celebration of the Binational Migration Institute as an official unit with within the Department of Mexican American Studies. Building on five years of collaborative faculty and student research on the impacts of immigration enforcement policy on our communities, we look forward to the challenges of the future.

“Multilingual, 2.0?” an International Symposium on Multilingualism, will be held at the UA’s Center for Creative Photography April 13-15. Coming from disciplines as diverse as computational linguistics, anthropology, second language acquisition, comparative literature and translation studies, a body of prominent scholars from around the world will come together in Tucson for a public discussion about what it means to live in more than one language in the 21st century, including all of the emotions, politics, identities, practices, pleasures, and dangers that doing so can involve. More information is available at http://multilingual.arizona.edu.

Confluencenter is proud to sponsor the AZ100 Indie Film, an ongoing project designed to showcase the creative work of Arizona filmmakers, with the ultimate goal of establishing an independent film archive. AZ100 Indie Film is a project of the Arizona Media Arts Center (AZMAC) which fosters the appreciation, production and understanding of independent media expression. The films include 33 features and 67 shorts by 93 filmmakers. A selection of these films also will be shown at the Arizona International Film Festival at The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress and Crossroads Festival, 4811 East Grant Road, April 13-29. A weekend-long film festival is planned for the summer. For more information, visit http://www.filmfestivalarizona.com.

The 6th International Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics will be held April 12-14 at the Tucson Marriot University Park, 880 E. Second St. Sponsored by the UA Department of Spanish and Portuguese, it will gather scholars who focus on the sociolinguistics of several monolingual and bilingual zones around the Spanish-speaking world, with special emphasis on the contact of Spanish and English among bilinguals in the US, and on the linguistic consequences of this contact on the formation of US Spanish.

6th International Workshop website

This lecture will explore contemporary “brownness” not simply as a realist or empirical account of Latino/a or migrant experience, but rather as a way of encountering the entire world. Muñoz does so through a discussion of Wildness, a riveting new film by Los Angeles artist Wu Tsang that documents radical queer performance at East L.A.’s Silver Platter--a longstanding Latino gay bar that caters to resident and immigrant communities, and features old-school drag performers as well as young genderqueer artists.

José Esteban Muñoz is Professor of Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, where he teaches courses in comparative ethnic studies, queer theory and critical theory. He is the author or editor of several highly regarded works, including Pop Out: Queer Warhol (1996), Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999), Cruising Utopia: The Here and Now of Queer Futurity (2009) and the forthcoming The Sense of Brown.

See more info about this and other events hosted by the Institute for LGBT Studies.

Marie Darrieussecq was was born in 1969 in the Basque Country in France. She graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris and wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on auto-fiction. At the same time, she wrote her first novel Truismes in six weeks (1996, translated in 1997 under the title Pig Tales) which met with immediate worldwide success. Since then, she has published 15 more books with Editions. P.O.L., six of which have been translated into English. Marie Darrieussecq is today a notable figure in the distinguished younger generation of French writers. Contact info: Prof. Alain-Philippe Durand (adurand@email.arizona.edu); 520-621-5664.

Download the flyer for Darrieusecq's talk.

The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona, in collaboration with the Confluence Center for Creative Inquiry and the Department of Linguistics, is pleased to present “An Evening with Noam Chomsky: Education for Whom and for What?"” 

Join Noam Chomsky — a world-renowned linguist, intellectual and political activist — as he discusses the current state of higher education and answers questions from the audience.

Date:   Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Time:  7:00 pm, doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Location: Centennial Hall, The University of Arizona
Cost:  this event is free and open to the public

About The Lecture

How do we characterize the contemporary state of the American education system? What happens to the quality of education when public universities become more privatized? Are public universities in danger of being converted into facilities that produce graduates-as-commodities for the job market? What is the role of activism in education?  These are questions that Chomsky has been concerned with in recent years. With unprecedented tuition increases and budget struggles occurring across American campuses, these are questions that are more relevant than ever.

The Chomsky lecture kicks off an annual lecture series by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences — “The People College.”

“In addition to our ‘SBS week,’ which includes a weeklong program on a topic, SBS is now offering an annual lecture by a prominent speaker,” said John Paul Jones III, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. “Noam Chomsky is not only a giant in the fields of linguistics and cognitive science, but is also a provocative and influential public figure.”

“The Confluence community is really excited about this event,” said director Javier D. Durán. “Noam Chomsky’s life-long trajectory as a scholar of language and as a committed public intellectual resonates highly with Confluence’s core values which emphasize creativity, innovation, collaboration and public engagement. We are delighted to co-sponsor his visit to Tucson.”

Academic Lecture: Noam Chomsky will also be giving an academic lecture titled “What is Special About Language?” on Feb. 7 at 4 p.m. in the Student Union Memorial Center, North Ballroom. Although the lecture is oriented to students and faculty, it is open to the public. Doors open at 3 p.m.

Video: "What is Special about Language?"