2018 Events
Fall 2018
Border Crossing: History and the Refugee Crisis from Classroom to Detention Center
Thursday, October 25, 4:00-5:00 p.m., ACT 301
Reception to follow in the Stoddard Hall Lobby. This event is free and open to the public.
This summer the mass separation of refugee families at the U.S.-Mexico border transfixed the nation and the world. Since then, U.S. authorities have begun holding growing numbers of migrant children in camps and are seeking to lengthen indefinitely the detention of migrant families in immigration prisons. How can history help us make sense of these events? How can students draw on their training in the humanities to act on these and other global issues? In this lecture, historian Nara Milanich discusses the intersections of public scholarship, experiential learning, and our engagement with the world.
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Dr. Nara Milanich
Nara Milanich is Professor of Latin American History, Barnard College, Columbia University. She teaches and researches the comparative histories of family, childhood, gender, reproduction, and law. She is the author of Children of Fate: Childhood, Class, and the State in Chile, 1850-1930 (Duke, 2009) and a history of paternity testing, Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father (Harvard University Press, 2019), which will be out for Father’s Day. She has volunteered as a translator for Central American mothers and children incarcerated in the immigrant detention center in Dilley, Texas and has written about this experience in the Washington Post, Dissent, and NACLA: North American Congress on Latin America. In the spring semester, she will teach a class on the border crisis and take students to work in the detention center.
This event is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Download the event flyer (pdf)
Spring 2018
Women in Politics: A Talk with State Representative Victoria Neave
Monday, March 5, 10:00 – 11:00 a.m., ACT 301
Join us as state Representative Victoria Neave discusses her personal story and the need for more women in politics. A Q&A will follow the talk.
This event is free and open to the public.
Speaker Bio
Victoria Neave represents Texas House District 107, which includes parts of Dallas, Mesquite, and Garland. She grew up in the barrio in Pleasant Grove in Dallas and comes from a working-class family. The daughter of a father with a sixth grade education who had a small TV and VCR repair shop in Mesquite, Victoria became the first in her family to graduate from college, earning her degree in Government and Politics from The University of Texas at Dallas and then graduating magna cum laude in the top 3% of her law school class at Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law. She currently runs her own law firm. As a member of the Texas legislature, she has served on the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence and the House Committee on County Affairs. Neave regularly mentors students and believes that investment in education is one of the most critical issues facing our state. Her priorities are advocating for working families, women, small businesses, and Veterans.
Sponsors
The College of Arts & Sciences and Global Connections
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Inheriting Trauma: Argentine Activists Interpret the Hidden Consequences of State Sponsored Genocide
Monday, March 19, 2:30-4:00 p.m., ACT 301
The call for truth and justice for the estimated 30,000 victims of state terror in Argentina has undergone many socio-cultural and generational changes. Starting from 2003, some children of these victims, the children of the disappeared, have looked to art to express the hidden consequences of the trauma associated with their parents’ disappearance. This talk and reading discussion highlights some of these artists/activists and examines how the definition of truth and justice has changed.
This event is free and open to the public.
Speaker Bio
Dr. William R. Benner is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Texas Woman’s University. His research focuses on the recent artistic productions by the post-dictatorship generation in Argentina and how these works relate to ethical and theoretical challenges in human rights activism. His recent articles examine how feedback loops created between the reader and the author encourage memory entrepreneurship.
Sponsors
Global Connections and the College of Arts & Sciences
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Telling Your Story: A Workshop with Jenifer Sarver
Monday, April 9, from 3:00-5:00 p.m., ACT 301
Whether speaking to the media, legislators, or members of the general public it is critical to understand audience needs and perceptions, and then clearly define and articulate your story for them. Too often messages are dry, data-driven, soulless sentences that are easily forgettable. Think back to the most powerful lessons you learned as a child – were they conveyed in bullet points, facts and pie charts? Or were they wrapped into a good tale that helped sear into your memory the importance of values like kindness, sharing and patience? Unfortunately somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the ability to knit together a good story. But everyone loves a good story – and storytelling is an effective and important way to communicate with impact. In this session, participants will learn the importance of clearly articulating one’s own personal story, and building a personal brand. They will also begin to craft their own story and think through how they can most effectively communicate it.
This event is free and open to students, faculty and staff at TWU.
Speaker Bio
Jenifer Sarver
Principal, Sarver Strategies
Jenifer Sarver likes stories and likes to help her clients effectively tell theirs. She has two decades of experience in media relations, crisis communications, speechwriting and media and presentation skills training. Her career has spanned corporate, nonprofit and political worlds, helping clients from Austin to Kazakhstan develop and deliver effective messages. In 2014, she launched Sarver Strategies to focus her skills on training and storytelling, helping clients develop a narrative that effectively conveys their core values, and then preparing them to expertly deliver that message. She is passionate about community engagement, promoting and advancing women, and helping young people define and pursue their passion. She has a Master’s degree from American University in Washington, D.C. and a pair of bachelor’s degrees from UT Austin, where she spends the bulk of her time volunteering and cheering on various Longhorn sports teams.
Sponsors
The Center for Women in Business, College of Arts & Sciences and Global Connections
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