Event Category: Public Lecture

David Burckhalter at Tumamoc Hill in Tucson

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Time: 6 p.m., MST

Where: Tumamoc Hill Boathouse, 1675 W Anklam Rd, Tucson

Documentary photographer David Burckhalter shares stunning images of Seri (Comcaac) baskets and the women who make them. His book, Baskets from the Seri Coast: Comcaac Weavers and Their Craft, traces the evolution of Seri basketry from a utilitarian craft to a celebrated art form. Burckhalter has spent five decades cultivating friendships and documenting Seri traditions, landscapes, and basketry in Sonora, Mexico. With detailed insights into the artistry, labor, and legends surrounding Seri baskets, Burckhalter’s images pay tribute to the resilience and creativity of Seri women, whose weaving continues to be passed on to future generations.

This talk will be held at the boathouse, at the base of Tumamoc Hill. The event is presented by Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, The University of Arizona Press, and The Southwest Center, and is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase, and the author will be available for signing following the talk. Reserve your spot here.

About the book:

This stunning exploration of Seri (Comcaac) basket weaving reveals the resilience and creativity of the weavers as seen through the lens of documentary photographer David Burckhalter, who has spent five decades cultivating friendships and documenting Seri traditions, landscapes, and basketry in Sonora, Mexico.

Blending striking photography with reflections from years as a trader and observer of Seri culture, Burckhalter traces the evolution of Seri basketry from a utilitarian craft to a celebrated art form. The book examines how Seri weavers have navigated the influences of the craft economy, outside forces like anthropologists, and changing traditions, while preserving their unique oral history and spiritual connections. With detailed insights into the artistry, labor, and legends surrounding Seri baskets, this work is a tribute to the resilience and creativity of Seri women, whose weaving continues to be passed on to future generations.

Arizona Author Series Presents Carolyn Niethammer

When: Thursday, May 11, 1 p.m.

Where: On Zoom

Carolyn Niethammer will present a talk about her book A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Heritage, as part of the State of Arizona Research Library’s 2023 Arizona Author Series. Attendees are encouraged to register to receive the link to the presentation (scroll to bottom of the page). After the talk, there will be time for questions from the audience.

Tucson cuisine combines the influences and foodways of Indigenous, Mexican, mission-era Mediterranean, and ranch-style cowboy traditions into something wholly unique to the desert. It is no wonder, then, that Tucson became American’s first UNESCO City of Gastronomy. In A Desert Feast, Carolyn Niethammer honors this history and shows how waves of immigrants, travelers, and settlers have shaped this confluence of flavors and techniques to create food that smells and tastes unlike anything else. In this book, she interviews farmers, chefs, families, and entrepreneurs who are dedicated to preserving and expanding Tucson cuisine.

“Gathering Together We Decide” Book Launch at UTRGV in Edinburg, Texas

Date: Monday, December 8, 2025

Time: 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m., CST

Place: University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Ballroom, 1201 W University Dr, Edinburg, TX

Celebrate the publication of Gathering Together, We Decide: Archives of Dispossession, Resistance, and Memory in Ndé Homelands edited by Margo Tamez, Cynthia Bejarano, and Jeffrey P. Shepherd. The book launch event at the UTRGV Ballroom includes the screening of the domentary El Muro, a panel of speakers, book giveaways, and book signings. El Muro documents the struggle of Dr. Eloisa G. Tamez against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that implemented eminent domain to seize a portion of her own Lipan Apache ancestral land in El Calaboz Rancheria, Texas. Margo Tamez (Ndé) is an associate professor of Indigenous studies in the Community, Culture, and Global Studies Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and affiliated in the MFA Creative Writing (Poetry) Program, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, at the University of British Columbia in the unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan People. Cynthia Bejarano is a regents professor and College of Arts and Sciences Stan Fulton Endowed Chair at New Mexico State University. Jeffrey P. Shepherd is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Event schedule:

Doors open at 10:45 a.m.
Documentary El Muro 11 a.m.
Panel Speakers 12 p.m.
Book Giveaways & Signings 1:45 p.m.

The celebration is free and open to the public. The event is sponsored by Emilio Institute for Indigenous Responsibility, Rights & Research,
UTRGV Department of Criminal Justice and the University of Arizona Press.

About the book:

In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security began condemnation proceedings on the property of Dr. Eloisa Tamez, a Lipan Apache (Ndé) professor, veteran, and title holder to land in South Texas deeded to her ancestors under the colonial occupation and rule of King Charles III of Spain in 1761, during a time when Indigenous lands were largely taken and exploited by Spanish colonizers. Crown grants of lands to Indigenous peoples afforded them the opportunity to reclaim Indigenous title and control. The federal government wanted Tamez’s land to build a portion of the “border wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border. She refused. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security sued her, but she countersued based on Aboriginal land rights, Indigenous inherent rights, the land grant from Spain, and human rights. This standoff continued for years, until the U.S. government forced Tamez to forfeit land for the wall.

In response, Dr. Eloisa Tamez and her daughter, Dr. Margo Tamez, organized a gathering of Lipan tribal members, activists, lawyers, and allies to meet in El Calaboz, South Texas. This gathering was a response to the appropriation of the Tamez family land, but it also provided an international platform to dispute the militarization of Indigenous territory throughout the U.S.-Mexico bordered lands. The gathering and years of ensuing resistance and activism produced an archive of scholarly analyses, testimonios, artwork, legal briefs, poetry, and other cultural productions.

Ana Patricia Rodríguez at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.

Date: Saturday, February 7, 2026

Time: 6 p.m., EST

Where: Politics and Prose at Union Market, 1324 4th Street NE, Washington, D.C.

Salvadorans make up thirty-two percent of the Washington D.C.’s Hispanic population, and one Salvadoran writer described the American Capital City as “another city in El Salvador.” Ana Patricia Rodríguez will read from her new book, Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area at Politics and Prose at Union Market on February 7, 2026. Rodríguez is an associate professor of U.S. Latina/o and Central American literatures at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is past president of the Latina/o Studies Association (2017–2019). This book launch celebration is free and open to the public.

About the book:

For more than four generations, Salvadorans have made themselves at home in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and have transformed the region, contributing their labor, ingenuity, and culture to the making of a thriving but highly neglected and overlooked community.

In Avocado Dreams, Ana Patricia Rodríguez draws from her own positionality as a Salvadoran transplant to examine the construction of the unique Salvadoran cultural imaginary made in the greater D.C. area. Through a careful reading of the creative works of local writers, performers, artists, and artivists, Rodríguez demonstrates how the people have remade themselves in relation to the cultural, ethnoracial, and sociolinguistic diversity of the area. She discusses how Salvadoran people have developed unique, intergenerational Salvadoreñidades, manifested in particular speech and symbolic acts, ethnoracial embodiments, and local identity formations in relation to the diverse communities, most notably Black Washingtonians, who co-inhabit the region.

Ann Hedlund in Silver City, NM

Date: Sunday, February 8, 2026

Time: 3-4:30 p.m., MDT

Where: Flash Gallery, Light Art Space, 209 West Broadway, Silver City, NM

Ann Lane Hedlund, author of Mac Schweitzer: A Southwest Maverick and Her Art, will give an illustrated talk about her book, followed by book signing at Flash Gallery in Silver City. Flash Gallery at Light Art Space will host a showing of lithographs by Mac Schweitzer and photographs by Larry Ollivier from February 5 to 28, 2026. The exhibit opens in time for a first Friday ArtWalk on February 5, 5-7 p.m.

About the book:

In Tucson during the 1950s, nearly everyone knew, or wanted to know, the southwestern artist Mac Schweitzer. Born Mary Alice Cox in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1921, she grew up a tomboy who adored horses, cowboys, and art. After training at the Cleveland School of Art and marrying, she adopted her maiden initials (M. A. C.) as her artistic name and settled in Tucson in 1946. With a circle of influential friends that included anthropologists, designer-craftsmen, and Native American artists, she joined Tucson’s “Early Moderns,” receiving exhibits, commissions, and awards for her artwork. When she died in 1962, Mac’s artistic legacy faded from public view, but her prize-winning works attest to a thriving career.

Octavio Quintanilla in Mexico City

Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Time: 6-7 p.m., CST

Where: Av. Miguel Ángel de Quevedo 485c, Romero de Terreros, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México

Octavio Quintanilla will talk about his recent collection, Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize, at the Marabunta Librería y Cafetería. This book launch event is sponsored by literary collective, Chicanxs Sin Fronteras, as part of “Encuentro de Cultura Chicana.” Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours will be introduced by Mexican poet Javier Tinajero. Quintanilla served as the 2018–2020 Poet Laureate of San Antonio, Texas. He teaches literature and creative writing in the MA/MFA program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas.

About the book:

In Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, Octavio Quintanilla takes us on a profound journey to witness what it means to erase those boundaries devised by genre and politics intent on stifling memory, imagination, and creativity.

Presented in Spanish with English translations, this poetry collection comprises lyric and concrete poems—or frontextos—that explore intimacy and different shades of violence as a means to reconcile the speaker’s sense of belonging in the world.

Vélez-Ibáñez at Guadalajara International Book Fair

Date: December 6, 2025

Time: 1:00-1:50 p.m., CST

Place: Salón G, Área Internacional, Expo Guadalajara, Verde Valle, Guadalajara, Mexico

Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez give a presentation about his book, The Rise of Necro/Narco Citizenship: Belonging and Dying in the Southwest North American Region, in Spanish, at the Guadalajara International Book Fair. The presentation will be moderated by Maria Cruz Torres. The Guadalajara Book Fair (Féria del Libro de Guadalajara), November 29-December 7, 2025, is one of the most prestigious book fairs in the world. The Fair hosts speakers by invitation only and includes world authors who write in Spanish and English.

About the book:

The Rise of Necro/Narco Citizenship investigates the intricate and often harrowing dynamics that define the borderlands between the United States, Mexico, and beyond. This groundbreaking book provides a comprehensive cultural, economic, social, and political-ecological analysis, illustrating how various forms of violence and militarization have reshaped the daily lives and identities of the region’s inhabitants. Through meticulous ethnographic fieldwork, extensive archival research, and rigorous statistical data, Vélez-Ibáñez exposes the deeply entrenched networks of exploitation and conflict that have emerged in response to global capitalism’s pressures.

William L. Bird at Tucson Modernism Week

Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025

Time: 6 –8 p.m., MST

Where: Copenhagen Imports 3660 E Fort Lowell Rd, Tucson

Admission: Free, but reservation is required

William L. Bird, author of In the Arms of the Saguaros, will take part in a Tucson Modernism Week event with Herb Greif, a pioneering advertising man, illustrator, and designer whose work helped shape the visual and architectural identity of postwar Tucson. Greif joins Bird and Carlos Lozano for a conversation about his life, work, and legacy. Together they will explore how art, design, and advertising intersected in mid-century Tucson, and how Greif’s creative vision continues to resonate in the city’s modern landscape. William L. Bird is a curator emeritus of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. His interests lie at the intersection of politics, popular culture, and the history of visual display.

This Tucson Modernism Week event is hosted at Copenhagen Imports and includes a reception and exhibition of Greif’s original works, presented among the store’s modern furnishings. The event is free, but reservations are required.

About the book:

Through text and lavish images, In the Arms of the Saguaros explores the saguaro’s growth into a western icon from the early days of the American railroad to the years bracketing World War II, when Sun Belt boosterism hit its zenith and proponents of tourism succeed in moving the saguaro to the center of the promotional frame. This book explores how the growth of tourism brought the saguaro to ever-larger audiences through the proliferation of western-themed imagery on the American roadside. The history of the saguaro’s popular and highly imaginative range points to the current moment in which the saguaro touches us as a global icon in art, fashion, and entertainment.

Joe Watkins at Tumamoc Hill in Tucson

Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Time: 5:30 p.m., MST

Where: Tumamoc Hill Boathouse, 1675 W Anklam Rd, Tucson

How does the Ainu experience in Hokkaido, Japan relate to other Indigenous people in the context of global colonialism? Joe E. Watkins’ earlier anthropology work with Indigenous communities in the United States allows him to answer this question. He will talk about his new book, Indigenizing Japan: Ainu Past, Present, and Future, which investigates the rich history and cultural resilience of the Ainu, tracing their journey from ancient times to their contemporary struggles for recognition. As a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Watkins’ interests concern the ethical practice of anthropology and anthropology’s relationships with descendant communities and populations on a global scale. Watkins will be in conversation with Carol Ellick, executive director of Archaeological and Cultural Education Consultants.

About the book:

In Indigenizing Japan, archaeologist Joe E. Watkins provides a comprehensive look at the rich history and cultural resilience of the Ainu, the Indigenous people of Hokkaido, Japan, tracing their journey from ancient times to their contemporary struggles for recognition. Watkins’s insightful analysis highlights the Ainu’s enduring spirit and their resurgence as part of the global Indigenous movement. Key events such as the 1997 Nibutani Dam case and the 2007 recognition of the Ainu as Japan’s Indigenous people are explored in depth, showcasing the Ainu’s ongoing fight for cultural preservation and self-determination.

Ann Lane Hedlund in Tucson

Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2026

Time: 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.

Place: Stonewall Community Room, Education Center, Tucson Museum of Art, 166 W Alameda, Tucson

Tucson Modernism Week features author Ann Lane Hedlund’s talk, “Rediscovering Mac Schweitzer,” on Wednesday, November 5. Hedlund, author of Mac Schweitzer: A Southwest Maverick and Her Art, will discuss the life and art of Mac Schweitzer (Mary Alice Cox Schweitzer)—a pioneering artist who captured the beauty, grit, and humanity of the American Southwest. Ann Lane Hedlund is a cultural anthropologist who collaborates with Indigenous weavers and other visual artists to understand creative processes in social contexts. From 1997 to 2013 she served as a curator at Arizona State Museum and professor at the University of Arizona. The event is open to the public, and tickets are $5. Books will be available for purchase and signing by the author.

About the book:

Author Ann Lane Hedlund draws from the artist’s letters, photo albums, and published reviews to tell the story of Mac’s creative and adventuresome life. Her watercolors, oil paintings, prints, and sculptures—a diverse body of work never before seen in public—range from naturalistic studies of Sonoran Desert animals to impressionistic landscapes to moody abstractions. A sharp observer of Indigenous life, she sketched and painted scenes of Navajo (Diné), Hopi, O’odham, and Yaqui people and events. These unique portrayals of the Southwest illustrate this saga of a maverick artist rediscovered.

The University of Arizona Press