Director's Colloquium: What is the Southwest?

How do we understand the Southwest and its history? Join the Center’s director, Dr. Jay Harrison, for a discussion of the various ways peoples have defined the American Southwest from early times to the present. This talk will address popular and scholarly views that defined the region via its peoples and cultures, geographies, geology, natural and human histories, and will include perspectives which still prevail today. Rather than identifying one cohesive view of the region, Dr. Harrison will address core ideas the Center’s staff and collaborators embrace to study the Southwest in its many facets.

Jay Harrison, Ph. D. began serving as the director of the Center of Southwest Studies in August. Dr. Harrison is a working historian of the early Southwest whose research considers colonial and early national transformations of peoples and places in the greater region. His experience includes nearly seventeen years in private and public business concerns, most recently as the director of federal programs at a Washington D. C. area technology and policy firm, and has held several university and collegiate faculty appointments. This is a first of a series of conversations with Dr. Harrison about the Southwest, its peoples and cultures, and various perspectives on its study.

Refreshments will be offered beginning at 5:30 pm, with the program to begin at 6:00 pm in the Center's Lyceum. This event is free and open to the public.