The University of Arizona Press
April 15-18, 2020—
Join us in Seattle for the 47th annual NACCS conference! This year’s theme is “New Fire: The Flowering of a Union of Free Pueblos”.
The year 1968 has long been heralded as a year of global revolution. From the Tet Offensive to Tlatelolco, and from Black, Red, Yellow, and Chicano Power to Brown is beautiful and the Blowouts, the stage was set for the emergence of Chicana and Chicano Studies. The following year witnessed the Santa Barbara and Denver conferences where, respectively, the blueprint for Chicano Studies and MEChA were born and for the first time Chicanas/os declared themselves a People, a Nation, a Pueblo among other Pueblos, and Aztlan itself as a Union of Free Pueblos. As we commemorate the various 50th anniversaries of many of these events and accomplishments, as well as the anniversaries of several respective departments, let us also heed the call of the Zapatistas for the need to rethink our cartographies and calendars. So rather than the uncritical mapping of Aztlan premised on the national-territorial borders of western colonial nation-states, or the marking of yet another decade or half-century as is the hallmark of western temporalities, let us use this upcoming 2020 conference to develop the critical hindsight and conceptual clarity on the need for a New Fire— the ceremonial rebirthing that occurs every 52 years among several Pueblos of the misnamed territories currently named Mexico and the U.S. Southwest.
Please come visit the University of Arizona Press booth and browse our latest books!
