Past Events
Fall 2019
2020 Texas Poet Laureate: Emmy Pérez
Emmy Pérez is the author of With the River on Our Face and Solstice. She is the recipient of a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship and will serve as Texas Poet Laureate in 2020. Since 2008, she has been a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros for socially engaged writers, and in 2017, she co-founded Poets Against Walls collective. Currently, she’s Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she also serves as Associate Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies.
Pérez will lead a social justice discussion, writing workshop and poetry reading on TWU's Denton campus Wednesday, November 13. Both events are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Ashley Bender at abender@twu.edu or (940) 898-2324.
Sponsors: TWU Department of English, Speech, & Foreign Languages; TWU Office of Diversity, Inclusion, & Outreach; TWU Global Connections; Texas Commission on the Arts
Social Justice Poetry Discussion & Writing Workshop
Wednesday, November 13, 2019 | 2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Admissions & Conference Tower (ACT) - Room 301
Pérez will lead a discussion and writing workshop focused on social justice poetry. This event is free and open to the public.
Poetry Reading
Wednesday, November 13, 2019 | 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Admissions & Conference Tower (ACT) - Room 301
Pérez will read a selection of poems, including some from her most recently published collection, With the River on Our Face (Arizona UP, 2016). Q&A and book signing to follow. Books will be available for purchase. This event is free and open to the public.
Building Global Perspectives:
Key Questions, Challenges, and Opportunities in the Environmental Humanities
Wednesday, October 9
4:00-5:15 PM | ACT 301
Reception to follow in ACT second floor lobby
Joni Adamson, Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, will discuss the “humanities for the environment,” a new movement taking form in a 21st century, pluralist, global experimental ethos as numerous research initiatives, funding schemes, journals, and teaching programs are being created around the world to network the humanities. Based on her experience working in the Humanities for the Environment, a global network of regional Observatories, she will outline key tensions, challenges, and opportunities for a solutions-oriented, interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and publicly-engaged humanities. This lecture will explore how narrative and storytelling is increasingly being accepted at the highest international, scientific and policy levels, including the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as a vital component in efforts to achieve an equitable, sustainable, intergenerationally-just future.
Presented by Global Connections and Building Global Perspectives in the Humanities. For more information, contact globalconnections@twu.edu.
These events are free and open to the public.
How to Make your Campus an Urban Lab for the Citizen Humanities
A Workshop with Joni Adamson
Wednesday, October 9
12:20-1:00 PM | ACT 501
Joni Adamson, Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, will lead a workshop
on the “template” projects that the Humanities for the Environmental Global Network of Observatories is creating to link humanities programs at different universities in different regions and nations through pedagogical projects that encourage students to become “citizen humanists” interested in using the arts and humanities to address global environmental challenges like mass extinction and biodiversity loss.
Presented by Global Connections and Building Global Perspectives in the Humanities. For more information, contact globalconnections@twu.edu.
These events are free and open to the public.
Spring 2019
Film Screening: Spirits’ Homecoming, Unfinished Story
Date: Wednesday, April 3
Time: 5:00-7:30 PM
Location: CFO 202
Pizza will be served in the CFO lobby beginning at 5:00.
Sponsors: College of Arts & Sciences, Global Connections, Global Connections Student Committee, Campus Alliance for Resource Education (CARE)
Korean "Comfort Women" is a euphemism from a Japanese term to refer to women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II. This often forgotten and important issue has been the source of international controversy between South Korea, Japan, and the world community. During this event, there will be a showing of a film entitled Spirits Homecoming, Unfinished Story from JO Entertainment. Following the film, there will be a discussion led by Ms. Sinmin Pak, an advocate for the women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery and their families. She is the founder of "Unforgotten Butterflies," a group devoted to bringing awareness to this often lost and important issue.
For more info about the event, send an email to globalconnections@twu.edu.
Reproductive Justice Panel Discussion
Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Venue: CFO 202
Time: 4-6 p.m.
Hosted by the TWU Department of Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies
Who gets to decide what choices you make about your own body? TWU students deserve to be informed about their reproductive health and wellbeing. The Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies Department and cosponsors have organized a reproductive justice panel discussion in conjunction with International Women’s Day and to support students in navigating their reproductive choices and the politics and policies that influence those choices. Medical providers, activists, and elected officials will help students understand the politics and policies that directly impact their reproductive health. Free pizza will be provided!
Reproductive Justice Fair
Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Venue: Student Union (second floor)
Time: 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Hosted by the TWU Department of Multicultural Women’s and Gender
Who gets to decide what choices you make about your own body? TWU students deserve to be informed about their reproductive health and wellbeing. In conjunction with International Women’s Day and to support students in navigating their reproductive choices and the politics and policies that influence those choices, the Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies Department and cosponsors have organized a reproductive justice fair showcasing community resources relating to reproductive justice, including birth control, STI prevention and care, reproductive health, breastfeeding, and parenting, as well as information about how to get involved in the political process to influence reproductive justice policy. We’ll have candy, prizes, and vital information for TWU students’ reproductive lives!
Download the Policies, Politics, and Reproductive Justice event flyer (PDF)
Immigration, Education, and Advocacy
Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Venue: CFO 202
Time: 4-5 p.m.
In what ways does immigration affect one’s access to education? What are the effects of inequitable educational systems?
Join Global Connections for a panel discussion to learn more about the intersections of immigration and education.
Panelists will share their personal and professional experiences as advocates for the education of students from around the world and provide insight about how you can also become an advocate for the education of others, both here at home and abroad.
Panelists are Mariela Nunez-Janes (Ph.D. in Anthropology), Lilyan Prado Carrillo (TWU alumna, BS in Bilingual Education, MS of Public Administration), and Carolyn Swen (TWU alumna, BA in English, Peace Corps Volunteer).
For questions about the event, send an email to globalconnections@twu.edu.
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.
Livestream the event>>
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.
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
.jpg)
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
.jpg)
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
Learning and Choosing to Vote: Women’s Political Participation Cross-Nationally
A lecture by Sheri Kunovich, Ph.D.
- March 28, 2017 at 4 p.m.
- ACT 301 on TWU’s Denton campus
- Reception to follow on ACT 2nd floor
Sheri Kunovich is an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Sociology at Southern Methodist University. She is also the recipient of SMU’s Golden Mustang Award and the Margareta Deschner Teaching Award in Women and Gender Studies. Her research and teaching interests include women’s political representation, democratization in Eastern Europe, wealth and consumption, social stratification and inequality, and research methods. She is a member of two international research teams focusing on social and political change in Poland and Central Europe. Her most recent work focuses on current voter knowledge and behaviors in East-Central Europe as well as a historical comparison of women’s descriptive political representation in Eastern Europe.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Global Connections at globalconnections@twu.edu.
This event is sponsored by:
TWU College of Arts and Sciences, Global Connections and IGNITE.
Page last updated 1:18 PM, February 3, 2021