An Evening with Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet

An Evening with Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet


Currently a professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Rita Dove is coming to give a lecture at ASU’s Tempe campus. Called “An Evening with Rita Dove,” this event will be the highlight of ASU’s second annual Humanities Week. This is a series of special events that celebrate how students and faculty are exploring human adventure across culture, time, and space.

Born in 1952, Rita Dove has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and others. She has written extensively; her most notable works include her poetry collections Thomas and Beulah (which won the Pulitzer Prize), Playlist for the Apocalypse, and Collected Poems 1974 – 2004. Although many of her awards relate to her poetry, Dove has also written essays, songs, a play, and a novel.

Dove’s lecture is free and open to the public; it will take place on Tuesday, October 18, at 7:00pm in the Roskind Great Hall. Go here to learn more and register!

CISA’s Humanities Lecture Series

Join the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts for their Humanities Lecture Series for spring 2021.

The Humanities Lecture Series is organized in order to provide “us with opportunities to analyze, discuss, and interpret current research and events. We look forward to public discussions that help us understand and appreciate various points of view on political, social, and cultural issues.”

The first lecture, next Wednesday evening, features CISA instructor Mike Pfister and Leah Marche, co-founders of JazzMEETSPoetry, who will discuss “Policing Art: The Arts and Humanities during Times of Unrest.”

To learn more about the Humanities Lecture Series click here.

Environmental Humanities Initiative Distinguished Lecture

Environmental Humanities Initiative Distinguished Lecture

WITH A READING GROUP SERIES AND GRADUATE COURSE OPTION

Join the IHR/GIOS for our (now rescheduled) 2020 Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI) Distinguished Lecture, “From Garden Warriors to Gastrodiplomacy,” with Elizabeth Hoover (video recorded lecture and live Zoom Q and A), November 5, 2020, 4-5:30 pm.

Professor Hoover will explore Native American community based farming and gardening projects; the ways in which people are defining and enacting concepts like food sovereignty and seed sovereignty; the role of Native chefs in the food movement; and the fight against the fossil fuel industry to protect heritage foods.

Hoover is an associate professor in the Environmental Science and Policy Management department at the University of California Berkeley whose work focuses on food sovereignty and environmental justice for Native communities. Her first book “The River is In Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community” (University of Minnesota Press, 2107), is an ethnographic exploration of Akwesasne Mohawks’ response to Superfund contamination and environmental health research. Her second book project-in-progress, “From Garden Warriors to Good Seeds; Indigenizing the Local Food Movement,” explores Native American community-based farming and gardening projects. She also recently co-edited a book “Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States with Devon Mihesuah” (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). 

This event is cosponsored by the IHR’s Environmental Humanities Initiative, The Global Futures Laboratory, The Human Sciences Collaboratory, American Indian Studies, The Global Institute of Sustainability, The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

Register for the lecture.

Reading Group / One Credit Graduate Course

Prior to the lecture Joni Adamson and Joan McGregor will lead three reading group sessions that aim to explore the work of Elizabeth Hoover and other writers and researchers who focus on the concepts of food justice and food sovereignty. Attendees will gain an enriched understanding of climate justice and food sovereignty activism and research focused on indigenous food cultures, knowledges and agricultural sciences. 

The group will also explore the concept of “global syndemic” or the notion that simultaneous and connected epidemics, including malnutrition, racism, structural inequities, catalyzed by over five centuries of colonization and accelerating neoliberal development, and resource extraction are linked to the current COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbate the underlying conditions — diabetes, asthma, violent policing—that are making the virus more deadly to some. 

Readings will be interdisciplinary and diverse so we learn from the expertise of disciplines both inside and outside of the humanities. With Andrew W. Mellon funding, we will also be collaborating with the University of Pretoria, and reading group members will have the opportunity to interact with our colleagues in South Africa. 

Reading group members have the option of earning one graduate credit in a course co-taught by Joni Adamson (Joni.Adamson@asu.edu, English) and Joan McGregor (j.mcgregor@asu.edu, Philosophy). Students may register for any section cross-listed section of the course ENG/HUL/SFS/SOS/PHI 598 and earn one credit by attending the reading group and completing the readings and some writing assignments. The course will be capped at 20. Please direct any questions about the course to Professors Adamson and McGregor.

·      Reading Group: Environmental Humanities Wrap-up, 11/12, 3 PM MST

#ArtLitPhx: Writing Sci-fi & Cli-Fi with Malik Toms

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Event Description:

Unnatural Disasters: Writing Sci-Fi and Cli-Fi in a Changing World with Malik Toms

Dates: Mondays, December 3 – 10, 2018, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Type: Generative Workshop, Lecture
Genre and Forms: Fiction, Science Fiction
Cost: $149 Regular, $135 ASU, $109 Student

To learn more and register, visit http://piper.asu.edu/classes/malik-toms/unnatural-disasters

About the Class
We sit on the edge of possibility. From Roddenberry’s sliding doors and tablet PCs to Atwood’s dystopian floods, our stories point the way to possible futures. This is a class about writing those futures. Participants will explore the basic elements of creating strong fiction and learn how to weave those elements into the extraordinary worlds we carve out of fringe science and the environmental issues shaping our tomorrows. Participants will engage with existing genre work ranging from Bacigalupi to Zelzany to learn the finer points of craft. Then participants will create new or revisit old works of fiction with an eye towards the future.

About the Instructor
Malik Toms was born and raised in Harlem, New York, and is a 20+ year veteran of the pen and keyboard. He did his undergraduate work in Sociology at Iowa State University, working as a drug rehabilitation counselor before returning to college to pursue a graduate degree in Creative Writing. He published his first short story at the age 18 after two years of “No thanks.” Since then he has worked as a freelance author, which is a bit like being a freelance mercenary minus all the bullets and moral ambiguity. His work has appeared in over thirty publications including multiple anthologies and a stand-alone novella. A graduate of Iowa State’s Creative Writing MFA program, Malik Toms polished his writing skills crafting cyberpunk and steampunk fantasies on the way to multiple Origin and Ennie award nominations including six Ennie wins. Malik also was part of the Shadowrun Returns video game team which won Diehard gameFan’s PC Game of the year in 2013. He is presently hard at work writing his first fantasy thriller. Malik currently lives in Arizona where he is regularly super-smashed by at least one of his three video game obsessed boys. When he isn’t writing, he’s teaching writing and sociology at community colleges throughout the Arizona desert, and maybe watching a lot of TV.

#ArtLitPhx: Natashia Deón Writers Workshop and Reading

Join the PC Rising creative writing department and Natashia Deón for a special one day workshop on Thursday, April 19 from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Phoenix Public Market (721 N Central Ave, Phoenix, Arizona 85004). Natashia is the award winning author of Grace. She will be giving a lecture and workshop on the patio of Phoenix Public Market.

The workshop is free and light refreshments will be provided.

After the workshop join Natashia Deón for a reading at Changing Hands Bookstore (300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, Arizona 85013). Deón will read from her new book, Grace, after the reading there will be a signing and brief Q&A.

Natashia Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Bread Loaf, Dickinson House in Belgium, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Named one of 2013’s Most Fascinating People by L.A. Weekly, she has an MFA from UC Riverside and is the creator of the popular LA-based reading series Dirty Laundry Lit. She is a practicing lawyer.

 

#ArtLitPhx: Robin F. Williams: Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series

Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series welcomes Robin F. Williams to discuss her recent work and research, Monday, March 26 from 7 pm to 8 pm at Grant Street Studios (605 E. Grant St. Phoenix, AZ 85004) .

Williams is a Brooklyn, New York based painter who holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design. Her figurative work explores closely held American mythologies about gender, privilege and the American Dream. Using the fictional nature of the painted image to examine the fictions we tell each other as a cultures.

 

#ArtLitPhx: Prisoners Without Chains with Jerry Garcia

Senior lecturer of ethnic studies at NAU, Dr. Jerry Garcia, will be holding an author’s talk titled “Prisoners Without Chains: The Forced Relocation of Japanese Mexicans 1942-1945” on Tuesday, May 16th. The free event features a small group discussion (limited to 12 RSVPs) from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM. Afterwards, from 6:45 PM to 8:30 PM there will be a presentation and Q&A. The event will be held at Arizona Humanities, located at 1242 N Central Ave Phoenix, AZ 85004. Light refreshments will be served. For more information and to RSVP to the event click here.

Explore the Japanese Mexican experience during World War II and learn how it was markedly different than the Japanese American experience in the United States. Dr. Jerry Garcia from Northern Arizona University shares how the Japanese negotiated a distinct space within Mexican culture where Japanese identity and ethnicity was maintained and rarely challenged due to a perception that the Japanese displayed markers of whiteness that were associated with western imperialism and power. Examine how the Japanese adjusted during turbulent and transformative periods in Mexican history and the over-arching policies of the U.S. regarding Japanese immigration throughout the Americas.

Dr. Garcia’s new book Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and US Hegemony, 1897-1945 examines Japanese immigrants in Mexico and the United States during World War II. The book focuses on the experiences of the Japanese on both sides of the borders and the similarities and differences in their treatment.  You can purchase the book through University of Arizona Press here and use discount code AZHUM17 for a special offer.

Dr. Garcia received his doctorate from Washington State University and was the former Director of the Chicano Education Program and the College Assistance Migrant Program at Eastern Washington University. He is now the Senior Lecturer for Ethnic studies at Northern Arizona University. His research focuses on Chicano History, Latin American History, History of Mexico, Asians in the Americas, immigration, empire, masculinity, and race in the Americas.

bell hooks at ASU

Hosted by the ASU Project Humanities, bell hooks, well-known author and cultural critic, will be speaking on the Arizona State University Tempe and West Campuses.

Her February 13th presentation will touch on issues of race and gender and will be followed by a Q&A. The event will run from 7:00-8:30PM in the Katzin Music Hall on the Tempe campus. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Doors will open at 6:30PM.

The February 14th event will feature a conversation on the feature film and critically acclaimed novel, The Help. The presentation will begin at 3:30-5:00PM at will take place in the La Sala C Lecture Hall on the ASU West campus.

bell hooks is known for her transformational discussions on issues of feminism, politics, and popular culture. She has authored 33 books on a variety of topics, all of which have encompassed viewpoints on race, gender, and culture. Hooks’s work has been described as “transformative” and “soul-changing.”

You can find more information on the event on the Arizona State University Project Humanities page.