2009-10 Common Reading Program: Campus Events

Thanks for visiting the Common Reading Program Campus Events page. Please be aware that the event listings will continually be updated. Be sure to check back frequently to learn about additional opportunities to engage with the campus community about The Devil’s Highway. All events are free and open to the public. It is encouraged that you arrive 10-15 minutes early in order to secure seating. A special thanks to those who contributed to the planning of these events.

Friday, August 21, 9:30am, O’Connell Center
*PASSPORT EVENT*
New Student Convocation & Author Visit

New Student Convocation, a bookend to Commencement (aka. graduation), is the University of Florida’s formal official welcome for all new first-year students. As the one and only time all 6,400 members of the class will convene, this event celebrates the class of 2013’s entry into higher education and inducts them to a community of learners here at the University of Florida. New Student Convocation articulates to our newest Gators the institution’s mission and the expectations to which they will be held during their collegiate career here at the University of Florida. Our first-year students will not only realize their identity as a class but be reminded of the privilege they have to change the world for the better as a member of the Gator Nation.

Tuesday, September 8, 7:00pm, Reitz Union Auditorium
*PASSPORT EVENT*
Film and Talk Back Lecture, Sleep Dealer
Lecture by Dr. Libby Ginway, Dept of Spanish and Portuguese Studies

Winner of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Screenwriting Award, this film portrays Memo, a young Mexican, who lives on a milpa in Santa Ana, Oaxaca with his family. Once, a river flowed through through the milpa, which his father owns. But a few years ago, the Del Rio Water Company built a dam upstream. Now, residents of Santa Ana must pay $1/gallon to enter the facility and collect water. In his spare time, Memo tinkers with discarded radio parts and builds an antenna to pick up voices from far away. One night, he overhears a transmission between Rudy, a drone gunship operator, and his compatriots. His signal is detected and tracked down to his family's shack in Santa Ana. Live on TV the next day, Rudy carries out a mission to neutralize an aqua-terrorist intercept.

Wednesday, September 16, 7:00pm, Harn Museum of Art
*PASSPORT EVENT*
Working the Line: Photographs of the US/Mexico Border

David taylor is an artist whose photographic and video work investigates the US/Mexico border and probes the relationship between our idealized understanding of the American west and the contemporary issues of the southwest borderlands. Approaching the subject with an artistic lens, Taylor walks a fine line between art photography and photojournalism. In his latest projects, "Working the Line," "Frontier/Frontiera," and "A Measure of Faith and a Line in the Sand," Taylor has negotiated with United States Border Patrol for broad access to their operations. Taylor is Associate Professor of Photography at New Mexico State University. In 2008 he was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. His work is exhibited nationally and is in the collections of several notable institutions.

Thursday, September 17, 10:30am-12:00pm, LOCATION CHANGE: Reitz Union, Room 282
*PASSPORT EVENT*
2009 Constitution Day Program at the University of Florida
“The U.S. Constitution and Undocumented Immigrants”

Do undocumented immigrants have certain protections under the U.S. Constitution? Where, and under what historical context, do our country’s Constitutional ideals and practical immigration policies intersect? Inspired by the university’s Common Reading Program 2009 book selection, The Devil’s Highway — which documents the harrowing and fatal desert border crossing of a group of 26 ill-fated South and Central American immigrants — UF Constitution Day presentations include: “Welcome to America: The Constitution and Arriving Non-U.S. Citizens,” presented by David Hudson, professor of law; “Desert Mirage: The Elusive Protection of the Fourth Amendment for Undocumented Immigrants,” presented by Lea Johnston, assistant professor of law; and, "A Brief History of the Constitution and Immigration Restriction," presented by Juan Perea, the Cone Wagner Nugent Johnson, Hazouri and Roth Professor of Law.

Philip J. Williams, the director of the UF Center for Latin American Studies and project co-director for Latin American Immigrants in the New South: Religion and the Politics of Encounter, will serve as an expert commentator during panel discussion and audience Q&A following the presentations. The UF Constitution Day Program will be moderated by Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin.

Thursday, September 24, 7:00pm, Reitz Union Grand Ballroom
*PASSPORT EVENT*
Florida Alternative Break (FAB) Student Panel Discussion

Did reading The Devil’s Highway leave you with a desire to make a positive social impact in the world? One UF group is especially committed to doing just that: Florida Alternative Breaks. Through education, service, and reflection, FAB immerses students in a particular social issue through regional and international trips during UF breaks. At this panel discussion, FAB students will share rich experiences of how they touched lives and, in turn, had their own world views expanded. Come learn how you can combine travel and community service into one of the most memorable experiences of your college career!

Monday, September 28, 6:30pm, Institute of Hispanic/Latino Cultures
*PASSPORT EVENT*
Café Cultural: Student Voices -What does it mean to be an immigrant?

Did you or your family immigrate into the United States? Have you ever wondered what is like to be an immigrant and the reasons why people come into this country? Please join us as UF students talk about their stories and their family stories of immigration into the United States. Also, come prepared to learn how you can be part of helping others achieve the right to pursue an education.

Tuesday, September 29, 6:30-8:00pm, Fine Arts Building B, Room 103
"Oral History and Cultural Identity and the Arts" Lecture by Judith Sloan
Hosted by the School of Art & Art History and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

In this lecture demonstration Sloan looks at ethics and politics in performance and expressive documentary projects that use oral history as source material. Questions of who owns a story, responsibility of the author/artist to the subject, ethical decisions involved in using “real” people’s stories. A look at oral history projects in theatre, film, books and radio and how those projects impact the lives of the subjects as well as the artists. Increasingly artists, documentarians, journalists, are engaging in national dialogues about the training necessary and ethics in revealing stories of people who are vulnerable or have experienced significant trauma. Sources include DART CENTER for Journalism and Trauma.

Wednesday, September 30, 10:00am-12:00pm, Reitz Union, Room 282
Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America and the Immigrant Experience: Process and Lessons Learned for the Real World
Discussion lead by Judith Sloan, hosted by the Bilingual/ESOL Program

An overview and discussion of the process of working on Crossing the BLVD. Discussion and hands on practice in dealing with issues of diversity; sensitivity to other cultures; complexity in gathering stories from people who have been displaced; and complexity of covering stories through interviews with people who have limited English proficiency.

Wednesday, September 30, 3:00-5:00pm, Reitz Union, Room 282
"Audio Editing and Sampling Demo on use of Protools, editing voice and music"
By Judith Sloan and Taylor Rivelli, hosted by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

A demonstration using examples from Crossing the BLVD audio work and Sloan’s new radio work with Taylor Rivelli — on the use of protools and break down how sampling is done, and the behinds the scenes of hip hop music and sequencing. Judith Sloan’s radio and audio pieces have aired on National Public Radio, New York Public Radio and at the Third Coast International Audio Festival. She has won several audio awards for Crossing the BLVD audio pieces and documentaries. Most recently she won first place in the 2009 Missouri Review National Audio Competition for her piece Dayenu with music by Frank London (engineered and recorded by Taylor Rivelli.) In 2008, her piece Sweeping Statements won First Place in the Missouri Review competition with music produced, composed and performed by Taylor Rivelli. Taylor Rivelli has engineered and produced for John Legend, Sharon Jones, Kardinal Offishall, Immortal Technique, Jim Jones & Juelz Santana, Saigon and Judith Sloan.

Thursday, October 1, 4:30-6:00pm, Reitz Union, Room 282
Visual Literature
Lecture by Warren Lehrer, hosted by the School of Art & Art History

Lecture by Warren Lehrer on his work as a writer, designer, and pioneering practitioner of visual literature. Lehrer will talk about his obsessions with capturing the shape of thought, reuniting the pictorial and oral roots of storytelling with the printed word, and bridging documentary and expressive forms. Lehrer discusses his pilgrimage with language through art, music and theater into literature, and performs excerpts of his books and multi-media projects including i mean you know, FRENCH FRIES, Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America, and his new illuminated novel in progress, The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley, which contains 101 books within it.

Thursday, October 1, 7:00pm, Constans Theatre
*PASSPORT EVENT*
Crossing the Blvd Public Performance

Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America by documentary artists Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan is a cross-media project that documents and portrays the largely invisible lives, images, sounds and stories of new immigrants and refugees who live in the borough of Queens, New York — the most ethnically diverse locality in the United States. Home to the New York airports, Queens, is no longer made up of neatly partitioned ethnic enclaves. Today the choreography of Queens, a place where residents speak 138 different languages, is one of chaotic co-existence. This group portrait of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial community is a magnifying glass for the future of America.

Tuesday, October 6, 1-4pm, Reitz Union Grand Ballroom
*PASSPORT EVENT*
Forum on Mexico

This forum will provide UF researchers an opportunity to share current research, teaching, and service activities involving Mexico. Our desire is to have a multidisciplinary atmosphere with as many Colleges on campus in attendance. A keynote speaker will begin the event, followed by the poster session, and then ending with a discussion by a panel of experts on current political, economic, technological, and social issues involving Mexico. This event will also introduce first-year students to opportunities for undergraduate research, courses, and service.

Thursday, October 8, 4:30pm, Reitz Union, Room 282
*PASSPORT EVENT*
“Boundaries, Bridges, Culture, and Geography: A Border Station in San Luis Arizona”
Lecture by Mick Richmond, UF Alum, Project Architect

All architecture addresses the idea of boundary on some level. However, few projects deal with that idea on more conceptual levels, and at more physically disparate scales, than does a border station. In the recently completed Land Port of Entry in San Luis, (in Yuma County, Arizona), the concept of boundary can be viewed and analyzed from a scale within a single building, all the way up to that of the national border itself. Subsequently, the concept of “border/boundary” could, in the context of this project, promote a discussion touching on immigration, trade, and security. This presentation of the Land Port of Entry at San Luis prompts questions such as how built form can serve simultaneously to defend and to welcome; how the response to desert geography and climate on the US/Mexico border informs building and site planning strategies; and how a project linked as it is to various national debates connects simultaneously into the history and cultural memory embodied in the place of San Luis and Yuma County, on the border between Arizona and Mexico.

Wednesday, October 14, 7:30pm, Reitz Union Grand Ballroom
*PASSPORT EVENT*
"The Inconvenient Truth About Immigration"
Presented by Dr. Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University

Dr. Hu-DeHart will explore the history of immigration to the United States and the current state of affairs. As a nation of immigrants, this country has suffered recurrent misgivings about immigration and immigrants. Throughout the ages, there have been those designated desirable and not-desirable. Today, the not-desirables are the so-called “illegal aliens,” who total as many as 12 million, increasingly criminalized, feared and despised. Who are these illegal immigrants? when and why was this category created in the first place? which nationalities and ethnic groups have been caught in its wide net? What are the implications for children and youth stuck in this status as far as their educational pursuits are concerned? Join us to learn about the legacy of immigration in the United States, and how you can be a change agent for equity.

A special thanks to the campus-programming committee members who worked tirelessly to organize the campus events listed above:
Elizabeth Dow, 2nd Year Public Relations Major
Cliff Haynes, Department of Housing and Residence Education
Angela Lindner, College of Engineering
Jill Lingard, Warrington College of Business
Mary Risner, Center for Latin American Studies
Maria Rogal, School of Art and Art History