UNE Center for Global Humanities presents “Dreaming of a Hemisphere Without Walls and Borders”
In 2016 Donald Trump rode into office on a wave of nationalism, as his calls to build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S. border with Mexico drew the largest cheers at his campaign rallies. And yet, a sizeable portion of the electorate resisted that sentiment, appealing to the fact that the U.S. is, after all, a nation of immigrants.
These competing visions of the United States will be the topic of an upcoming lecture at the University of New England Center for Global Humanities when scholar Paul Ortiz presents “Dreaming of a Hemisphere Without Walls and Borders.” The lecture will take place Monday, December 9 at 6:00 p.m. at Innovation Hall on the UNE Portland Campus.
Ortiz is director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and an associate professor of history at the University of Florida. His books include An African American and Latinx History of the United States, which won the 2018 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Literary Award, and Emancipation Betrayed, which received the Harry T. and Harriett V. Book Award.
In this lecture, Ortiz will encourage attendees to view Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa at the center of a historical narrative that allows us to see the United States as multicultural from the outset, while avoiding the narrow nationalism that continues to plague our political culture.
This will be the eighth lecture of the 2019-2020 season at the Center for Global Humanities, where events are always free, open to the public, and streamed live online. For more information, please visit:
https://www.une.edu/calendar/2019/dreaming-a-hemisphere-without-walls-and-borders
About the Center for Global Humanities
The Center for Global Humanities offers lectures by leading scholars to help us better understand the challenges besetting our civilization and outline new solutions for nations and peoples to live together without prejudice. Global in perspective, the Center’s lectures are streamed live on the Internet, allowing our speakers to answer questions from any country. Because the Center believes in the vital necessity of a humanities culture to civic and democratic life, it works closely with the local community to encourage reading, discussion, and debate. The Center was founded in 2009 by UNE scholar Anouar Majid, Ph.D., who serves as its director.