Event Category: Public Lecture

Theodore H. Fleming at Tohono Chul

When: Thursday, November 7, 2024

Time: 10 a.m., MST

Where: Garden Pavilion, Tohono Chul, 7366 N Paseo Del Norte, Tucson

Author Theodore H. Fleming will speak about his book, Birds, Bats, and Blooms: The Coevolution of Vertebrate Pollinators and Their Plants at Tohono Chul in Tucson. His presentation will include his beautiful photographs of birds, bats and the flowers that they pollinate. Fleming spent thirty-nine years in academia at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and the University of Miami, teaching ecology courses and conducting research on tropical rodent populations and plant-visiting bats and their food plants in Panama, Costa Rica, Australia, Mexico, and Arizona. He now lives in Tucson and is a volunteer at Tohono Chul.  His new book will be available for purchase and the author will sign books.

About the book:

Like gems flitting through the sky, hummingbirds attract our eye. But they are more than flash: they are critical pollinators in their ecosystems. Similarly in the darkness of night, nectar-feeding bats perform the same important ecological service as their colorful avian counterparts.

A deeply thoughtful and researched dive into evolutionary history, Birds, Bats, and Blooms offers an engaging trip across evolutionary trajectories as it discusses nectar-feeding birds and bats and their coevolution as pollinators with flowering plants. The primary focus is on New World birds such as hummingbirds and their chiropteran counterparts (nectar-feeding bats in the family Phyllostomidae). It also discusses their Old World ecological counterparts, including sunbirds, honeyeaters, lorikeets, and nectar-feeding bats in the Pteropodidae family. Fleming also addresses the conservation status of these beautiful animals.

 

Theodore H. Fleming at Western National Parks Association

When: Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Time: 12 p.m., MST

Where: 12880 N Vistoso Village Dr, Oro Valley, AZ

Author Theodore H. Fleming will speak about his book, Birds, Bats, and Blooms: The Coevolution of Vertebrate Pollinators and Their Plants at the Western National Parks Association store in Oro Valley. His presentation will include his beautiful photographs of birds, bats and the flowers that they pollinate. His new book will be available for purchase and the author will sign books. This event is free, but requires registration here.

About the book:

Like gems flitting through the sky, hummingbirds attract our eye. But they are more than flash: they are critical pollinators in their ecosystems. Similarly in the darkness of night, nectar-feeding bats perform the same important ecological service as their colorful avian counterparts.

A deeply thoughtful and researched dive into evolutionary history, Birds, Bats, and Blooms offers an engaging trip across evolutionary trajectories as it discusses nectar-feeding birds and bats and their coevolution as pollinators with flowering plants. The primary focus is on New World birds such as hummingbirds and their chiropteran counterparts (nectar-feeding bats in the family Phyllostomidae). It also discusses their Old World ecological counterparts, including sunbirds, honeyeaters, lorikeets, and nectar-feeding bats in the Pteropodidae family. Fleming also addresses the conservation status of these beautiful animals.

 

Author Rafael Martínez in Santa Barbara

Date: Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Time: 12:30 p.m., PDT

Where: McCune Room 6020, Humanities and Social Sciences Building, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA

Rafael Martínez will speak about his book Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the Unites States as part of a community book talk at UC Santa Barbara. Martínez is an assistant professor in the Southwest Borderlands Initiative at Arizona State University whose work focuses on immigrant rights, mixed-status families, and Latinx cultural and historical productions in the Southwest borderlands. This in-person event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

About the book:

Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States takes readers on a journey through the history of the rise of undocumented youth social movements in the United States in the twenty-first century. The book follows the documentation trail of undocumented youth activists spanning over two decades of organizing. Each chapter carefully analyzes key organizing strategies used by undocumented youth to produce direct forms of activism that expose and critique repressive forms of state control and violence. This inquiry is particularly generative in relation to how immigrant bodies are erased, contained, and imagined as “aliens” or “illegal.”

Author Stephen Strom in Fort Collins, CO

When: Monday, October 28, 2024

Time: 5:30-7 p.m., MDT

Where: Avogadro’s Number, 605 S. Mason St., Fort Collins, CO

Stephen E. Strom will be part of a panel discussion featuring his book, Forging a Sustainable Southwest: The Power of Collaborative Conservation at Avogadro’s Number in Fort Collins, Colorado. Hosted by the Warner College of Natural Resources, this discussion will highlight the theme of collaborative conservation. This in-person event is free and open to the public.

About the book:

Forging a Sustainable Southwest introduces readers to four conservation efforts that provide insight into how diverse groups of citizens have worked collaboratively to develop visions for land use that harmonized sometimes conflicting ecological, economic, cultural, and community needs. Through the voices of more than seventy individuals involved in these efforts, we learn how they’ve developed plans for protecting, restoring, and stewarding lands sustainably; the management and funding tools they’ve used; and their perceptions of the challenges that remain and how to meet them.

 

Author Stephen Strom at Colorado State University

When: Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Time: 5-8 p.m., MDT

Where: Colorado State University Student Center, 1101 Center Ave. Mall, Fort Collins, CO

Stephen E. Strom will be part of a feature panel discussion for the 75th Anniversary of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac at CSU’s Lory Student Center. Strom will be joining other speakers in discussing “the importance of people, land and animals in effective conservation.”

This in-person event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the event page.

About the Forging a Sustainable Southwest:

Forging a Sustainable Southwest introduces readers to four conservation efforts that provide insight into how diverse groups of citizens have worked collaboratively to develop visions for land use that harmonized sometimes conflicting ecological, economic, cultural, and community needs. Through the voices of more than seventy individuals involved in these efforts, we learn how they’ve developed plans for protecting, restoring, and stewarding lands sustainably; the management and funding tools they’ve used; and their perceptions of the challenges that remain and how to meet them.

 

Poets Denise Low and Kimberly Blaeser in San Francisco

Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Time: 7 p.m., PST

Where: Bird & Beckett, 653 Chenery Street, San Francisco

Poet Denise Low will read from her book, House of Grace, House of Blood: Poems, and Kimberly Blaeser will read from her book, Ancient Light, at San Francisco’s at Bird & Beckett. Poet Kim Shuck will also read from her work. Low is a former Kansas Poet Laureate and a founding board member of Indigenous Nations Poets. Blaeser is an Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist enrolled at White Earth Nation. She is a professor emerita at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and an Institute of American Indian Arts MFA faculty member.

This in-person event is free and open to the public.

About House of Grace, House of Blood:

Intertwining a lyrical voice with historical texts, Low brings fresh urgency to the Gnadenhutten Massacre. In 1782, a renegade Pennsylvania militia killed ninety-six pacificist Christian Delawares (Lenapes) in Ohio. Those who escaped, including Indigenous eyewitnesses, relayed their accounts of the atrocity. Like Layli Longsoldier’s Whereas and Simon Ortiz’s from Sand Creek, Low delves into a critical incident of Indigenous peoples’ experiences. Readers will explore with the poet how trauma persists through hundreds of years, and how these peoples have survived and flourished in the subsequent generations.

About Ancient Light:

Elegiac and powerful, Ancient Light uses lyric, narrative, and concrete poems to give voice to some of the most pressing ecological and social issues of our time. With vision and resilience, Kimberly Blaeser’s poetry layers together past, present, and futures. Against a backdrop of pandemic loss and injustice, MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), hidden graves at Native American boarding schools, and destructive environmental practices, Blaeser’s innovative poems trace pathways of kinship, healing, and renewal. They celebrate the solace of natural spaces through sense-laden geo-poetry and picto-poems. With an Anishinaabe sensibility, her words and images invoke an ancient belonging and voice the deep relatedness she experiences in her familiar watery regions of Minnesota.

Poet Kim Blaeser in Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Date: Friday, October 25, 2024

Time: 6:15 p.m. – 7:15 p.m., CDT

Where: Dotters Books, 307 S. Barstow St., Eau Claire, WI

Former Wisconsin Poet Laureates Kimberly Blaser, author of Ancient Light, and Max Garland, author of Into the Good World Again, will speak and read poetry as part of Dotters Book’s “Poets In Conversation” event. Blaeser is an Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist enrolled at White Earth Nation. She is a professor emerita at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and an Institute of American Indian Arts MFA faculty member. Garland was born and raised in western Kentucky. He received numerous fellowships and an inclusion in Best American Short Stories. He is currently Professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

This event is hosted by Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. Books will be available for purchase. This in-person event is free and open to the public.

About Ancient Light:

Elegiac and powerful, Ancient Light uses lyric, narrative, and concrete poems to give voice to some of the most pressing ecological and social issues of our time.

With vision and resilience, Kimberly Blaeser’s poetry layers together past, present, and futures. Against a backdrop of pandemic loss and injustice, MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), hidden graves at Native American boarding schools, and destructive environmental practices, Blaeser’s innovative poems trace pathways of kinship, healing, and renewal. They celebrate the solace of natural spaces through sense-laden geo-poetry and picto-poems. With an Anishinaabe sensibility, her words and images invoke an ancient belonging and voice the deep relatedness she experiences in her familiar watery regions of Minnesota.

William L. Bird at Tumamoc Hill in Tucson

Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Time: 6 p.m., MST

Where: Tumamoc Hill Boathouse (bottom of the hill), 1675 W Anklam Rd, Tucson

William L. Bird Jr., author of In the Arms of Saguaros, will be in conversation with Bruce Dinges, former editor of the Journal of Arizona History in a presentation “Saguaros: Real and Imaginary.” Scientists have studied saguaros on Tumamoc Hill since 1908! But even before then, in the late 1800s, the saguaro became a symbol of the west.  You’ll look at Tumamoc’s long-studied saguaros in a whole new way after seeing William L. Bird’s images of saguaros, from early illustrations to modern photographs. The railroad first used saguaros to market new destinations in the American West, then all kinds of tourist destinations used saguaro iconography to attract customers to everything from health resorts to dude ranches to shopping centers. Today, the saguaro touches us as a global icon in art, fashion, and entertainment.

This talk will be held at the historic 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.

William L. Bird Jr. 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.

About the book:

Through text and lavish images, this work 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.

William L. Bird at UA Herbarium Lunch Seminar

Date: Thursday, October 10, 2024

Time: 12 p.m., MST

Where: The University of Arizona Herbarium, 1130 South Campus Drive, Tucson, AZ

William L. Bird, Jr. will discuss the history of saguaro cactus imagery drawn from his recent book,  In the Arms of the Saguaros.  His talk is titled “In the Arms of Saguaros: The Hunt for Iconic Collections and Pictures, 1880-1960.” The illustrated talk will picture the dramatic uptick in saguaro cactus imagery that followed the railroad’s penetration of the Sonoran Desert in the early 1880s—resulting in transplanted displays from Southern Pacific depots to world’s fairs that acquainted Americans with the plants firsthand. Not until the years bracketing the Second World War did the Southwest’s travel and tourism industry elevate the saguaro to the status of a regional icon. For many unfamiliar with the actual plant, the saguaro became an icon of the American West that by the early 1960s resided in a new and highly imaginative range.  Bring your own lunch to this Herbarium seminar.

William L. Bird Jr. 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.  

About the book:

Through text and lavish images, this work 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.

Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan Discussion Panel in Tucson

When: Monday, November 4, 2024

Time: 10 a.m., MST

Where: Copper Room, Pima County Historic Courthouse, 115 N. Church Ave, Tucson

Stephen E. Strom will speak about his book, Forging a Sustainable Southwest: The Power of Collaborative Conservation and Pima County’s Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. Strom will be joined by Karen Simms, Division Manager with Pima County’s new Conservation Lands and Resources Department, and Julia Fonseca, now retired from the County’s Office of Sustainability and Conservation.  The panel will be moderated by Larry Fisher, adjunct professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment. This free event is co-hosted by the Cienega Watershed Partnership and Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources. Forging a Sustainable Southwest will be available for purchase, and the author will be signing books.

About the book:

Forging a Sustainable Southwest introduces readers to four conservation efforts that provide insight into how diverse groups of citizens have worked collaboratively to develop visions for land use that harmonized sometimes conflicting ecological, economic, cultural, and community needs. Through the voices of more than seventy individuals involved in these efforts, we learn how they’ve developed plans for protecting, restoring, and stewarding lands sustainably; the management and funding tools they’ve used; and their perceptions of the challenges that remain and how to meet them.

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