How is beauty portrayed in the movies we watch? In the ads we are exposed to? Popular culture, or the dominant culture, has played a key role in defining the standards of beauty in America and across the globe. We celebrate blondness, fairness, blue-eyes, and slender figures (in women). What advantages and privileges are associated […]

Many Arizonans call the Sonoran Desert and its striking landscapes home. Long before our urban centers and city lights lit up the dark desert skies, the Tohono O’odham were cultivating and shaping the land with abundant agriculture—from squash and beans to corn and cotton. For generations they passed down their rich knowledge and culture grown […]

There has been a lot of attention on pronouns in the news headlines recently—from state bills aimed at regulating pronouns in the classroom to social media platforms offering pronoun options. So, what is a pronoun? How are pronouns related to gender identity, such as cisgender, transgender, nonbinary? What are gender identities? Is there a difference […]

As Americans grapple with increasing tension and division, what can we learn from the past to connect with each other? Arizona has a rich history with Japanese Americans since the 19th century. Hundreds of acres of the land were once owned by Japanese-American farmers who created thriving agriculture communities, producing and delivering products across and […]

Native Americans in the US Southwest developed sophisticated skills in astronomy and predicting the seasons, centuries before non-Indigenous peoples entered the region. In this presentation, archaeologist Allen Dart discusses archaeological and ethnographic evidence of ancient astronomical and calendrical reckoning practices seen in petroglyphs, architecture, and settlement layouts in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, and […]