My Brain on Latino Comics

Latino Culture + Comics=Summer Reading

Frederick Luis Aldama's new book Your Brain on Latino Comics looks like just the thing for wanting to learn a bit about the culture of Latino comics with interviews with the authors of the comics as well.

 
If I wasn't already sold on the concept, then Aldama's words in an interview with the OSU newspaper hooked me:
"The book not only tells you the story about Latinos in comic books," Aldama said, "it tells you something as foundational as how we can imagine other places, how we can feel, or be emotionally moved by, something that is not in our present tense experience."

UA students in the news

NPR Latino--is anything you can't do?

So I was listening to NPR Latino and heard about "law student and essayist Agxibel (Ah-zi-bel) Barajas [speak] about the book, "She's Out There: 35 Women under 35 who Aspire to Lead: The Next Generation of Presidential Candidates" and realized she's at the UA--go wildcats.

Exhibition at U of A

Ritual Beauty: Art of the Ancient Americas

This is almost to serve like a note to self, but I need to make a point of visiting the UA Museum with my 101 class this summer.

Can a blog serve as a note to self? I guess I'll see. Check out the slideshow

Student Docs from Native American UA Students

Citizen Journalism from KUAT

This past Friday evening, as a part of KUAT's citizen journalism series, I caught three student produced documentaries by Native American students at the University of Arizona.

Click on the link to check out the docs on-line.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! This evening I'm planning on checking out the student presentation from Curtis Acosta's Raza Studies class--hopefully a good link to follow.

Photos from Wildcat Writers Event

Wildcat Writers Meet and Greet
Jenna Vinson, the organizer of Wildcat Writers put together a great slideshow of the event on Picasa, but I'm posting a few below to give an idea of how the end of semester service learning event went--okay, so there are a few of me talking to students--does that make me a bad guy?

Some of my students--excited to be on campus Saturday at 9am

I'm holding a coffee cup, but it looks like my arm is also in a sling

Ashley Holmes, consummate professional volunteer pizza server

Wildcat Writers Meet & Greet Saturday

Service Learning Meet & Greet on Campus

I currently don't have any cool pics related to the event that UA writing teachers are doing with local Tucson Unified School District classes this Saturday, but I'll hopefully have some coming...

Hard Work Wins Pulitzer

Journalism on Police-State Sheriff Arpaio Results in Pulitzer

Since I moved from California to Arizona, I feel like I'm living in a police-state every time I stop at a border patrol checkpoint along the 8 & 10 freeways in Maricopa county. This is something I've spoken out about before, so it's awesome to see what UA alumni are capable of accomplishing.

"UA Alumni Share Pulitzer Prize"

From the UA News website:
"The Pulitzer committee said the East Valley Tribune deserved the award because of "adroit use of limited resources to reveal, in print and online, how a popular sheriff's focus on immigration enforcement endangered investigation of violent crime and other aspects of public safety," according to the Pulitzer Prize Web site."

New Directions Conference University of Arizona

End of the Conference Season

Even though I'm still putting together a potential panel at the 4Cs based on New World Rhetoric, I have my last panel presentation Friday at the New Directions Conference.

It's bitter sweat of course, although I'll be presenting on a peer-editing as New Media DJ exercise that I put together based on Jeff Rice's "Hip Hop-Pedagogy" (a discussion Hillary Danz takes up) in his Rhetoric of the Cool.

Using this framework in my classes helps because a lot of students identify with Hip-hop as being a part of their culture, and something that they feel comfortable talking about when it comes to commutation, appropriation, non-linearity, imagery & chora (often referred to as swagger.)

It doesn't hurt to start the class period with a little Dead Prez to set the mood...

Logos & Kairos for Revisiting Latino Pedagogy

Everyone Loves Statistics
Sure, this article is a few months old, but I feel it gets quoted often enough to post a link to it because it brings up the necessity of the moment to reexamine teaching practices. Speaking to this new majority, historical oral and pictographic literacy provide points of departure into the weaving practices of composition.

"Minorities set to be US majority

White people of European descent will no longer make up a majority of the US population by the year 2042 - eight years sooner than previous estimates.

The big change is among Hispanics and Asians whose share of the population is set to double to 30% and 9%."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7559996.stm

Not just a Heritage Museum, a good calender

Happy César Chávez holiday in Mexico
And other great holidays reminders: http://www.latinoheritage101.com/Tours___Holidays.html

Richard Rodriguez on NPR

Inspiration for Latin American scholars everywhere, Richard Rodriguez discusses Cosmic Race & Age Beyond Race (from Feb '09)
Never a disappointment, Rodriguez espouses the age of Americans wanting to be 'multiple'. Conceptually, this interests me, but practically, I can see where this might be appropriated by 'the rhetoric of the end of racism'. "The notion of being of several things" sounds an awful lot like the myth of the melting pot. Something in me wonders if he's just stoking the fire when he says things like "I don't want to be Mexican" and goes on to say all of the ethnicities that he wants to be; it's true that he's arguing against mono-culturalism, but does he do so in a conscious attempt to be controversial by infusing his arguments with digs that feed into his contrarian ethos as a self-loathing minority?

Blog & Site to Check Out

I enjoy NPR Latino USA Podcast, but this site looks good for a quick fix of daily issues:

http://www.hispanictips.com/


Under the influence of post-Marxism in Rhet, I don't know if it goes against the ideology to keep an eye on business concerns, or if it makes me better informed. I'm siding with the latter.

http://latinobusinessreview.blogspot.com/