4:00 p.m.
Presented by the Oregon Humanities Center
In an era of increased isolation where civic deserts, disinformation, and technological dependence separate us from one another, how can we reimagine our capacity for deeper connection and sustainable collaboration in our current reality? Deepa Iyer, a social justice advocate, will lead an exploration of the pathways that strengthen ecosystems for social change in her talk titled “Re-imagine: Our Social Change Ecosystems” on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 4 p.m. in the Knight Library Browsing Room.
Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Her work is rooted in Asian American, South Asian, Muslim, and Arab communities where she spent fifteen years in policy advocacy and coalition building in the wake of the September 11th attacks and ensuing backlash. Currently, Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at the Building Movement Project, a national nonprofit organization that catalyzes social change through research, strategic partnerships, and resources for movements and nonprofits. She conducts workshops and trainings, uplifts narratives through the “Solidarity Is This” podcast, and facilitates solidarity strategy for cohorts and networks.
Deepa’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (2015), chronicles community-based histories in the wake of 9/11 and received a 2016 American Book Award. Her debut children’s picture book, We Are The Builders!, was released in 2024.
Deepa’s book Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection (2022) is a practical guide for those on journeys towards justice, equity, and solidarity. It introduces an ecosystems framework that includes ten roles that many people play in service of social change values. Over the past three years, individuals and organizations around the world have used the social change ecosystem framework to respond to the pandemic, express solidarity during the uprisings against anti-Black racism, and support multiracial coalitions struggling for reproductive rights, immigrant and refugee protections, and climate justice. Free copies of Social Change Now will be available at Iyer’s talk.
Iyer is the UO’s 2024–25 Lorwin Lecturer in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Her talk, part of the OHC’s “Re-imagine” series, is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed and recorded. Please register at ohc.uoregon.edu
3:30–5:00 p.m.
Bridging Borders – Stories of Migration, Memory, and Cultural Identity with Kristin Yarris, Tobin Hansen, Salma Valadez Marquez, and Liesl Cohn De Leon
May 15 / 3:30pm-5:00pm / EMU Cedar Room
Join the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) for a dynamic research colloquium featuring three presentations from current CLLAS faculty and graduate student grantees. Through diverse lenses—art-activism, food studies, and oral history—these scholars explore the lived experiences, cultural legacies, and resistances of Latinx, Latin American, and Guatemalan Maya communities across borders and generations.
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Faculty members Kristin Yarris and Tobin Hansen present “Witnessing Immigration Injustice: Art, Memory, and Activism with Hostile Terrain ’94,” a collaborative project that brings an interactive memorial installation to the University of Oregon, inviting participants to engage with the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border through art and research. Learn more.
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Salma Valadez Marquez (PhD Candidate, Folklore) shares work from her dissertation project “Amor Propio: Mexican Food and Culture Beyond the Fictions We’ve Been Fed,” uncovering how Mexican foodways have been used to shape—and resist—national narratives of race, gender, and identity throughout history.
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Liesl Cohn De Leon (PhD Student, Anthropology) discusses her anthropological research, “Migrant Memories of Guatemalan Maya Women in Oregon,” examining how Maya women reconstruct collective identity and memory in new contexts shaped by displacement, violence, and resilience.
This event is free and open to the public. Come learn how scholars are using research to illuminate underrepresented stories and to foster dialogue across communities, borders, and generations.
4:00–5:30 p.m.
Join us for the next Native American and Indigenous Studies Research Colloquium. UO PhD student Jasmine Penate shares her work examining the factors that influence the separation from Indigenous identity and acculturation into Western culture among Maya individuals in Guatemala and the U.S. Through interviews in regions like Antigua and Sololá, this research highlights how Indigenous communities navigate cultural change and continuity.
1:00–2:00 p.m.
Enjoy stress-free time together online with disabled and neurodivergent graduate students from across campus. Share experiences, exchange resources, or consult with a GE from the Accessible Education Center.
11:00 a.m.
The Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies Presents: “Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together.” Join us for a book talk and reception with Author Dean Spade on Friday, May 23 at 11 am in the Redwood Auditorium (EMU 244). Free book available to the first 100 people!
Dean Spade is the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law and Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next). He has worked for twenty-five years in movements for trans liberation, prison abolition, and anti-militarism. His latest book, Love in a F*cked Up World: How To Build Relationships, Hook Up and Raise Hell Together, was published by Algonquin Press in January 2025. Find him at deanspade.net.
Free and open to the public.
Cosponsored by LGBT Education and Support Services and the Mellon Foundation
10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Strengthen connections and unplug on Oregon’s beautiful coast while hiking Hobbit Trail and spending time at the ocean near Florence. Transportation, lunch, and snacks provided.
A $5 deposit through the Outdoor Program (OP) is required to secure your seat. Space is limited to the first 20 students, with priority given to international students.
Please call the Outdoor Program at 541-346-4365 to reserve a spot, or sign up in person at OP's DIY Bike Space in the EMU.
1:00–3:00 p.m.
Join the Native American and Indigenous Studies, Black Studies, Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies, and the Latinx Studies departments for our 2025 Commencement ceremony on Sunday, June 15th at 1:00 pm in the Miller Theatre Complex.
5:00 p.m.
What is Research? (2026) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.
What is Research? (2026) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.
What is Research? (2026) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.
This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.