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Center for the Southwest

The Center serves as an interdisciplinary organization that encourages conversations, collaborations

10/06/2026

Book Talk | Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539-1640
Dr. Miguel A. Valerio

Monday | October 12 | 3:00 PM

LAII Conference Room

This book talk will explore a striking feature of Black life in colonial Mexico: Africans and their descendants who elected kings and queens and brought them into public view through elaborate festivals, processions, dances, music, and performance. Drawing on his award-winning book Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539–1640, Valerio examines how these practices helped Afro-Mexicans build community, express collective identities, and claim forms of autonomy within a society structured by slavery and racial inequality. He traces these traditions across the early Black Atlantic, from Central Africa and Iberia to Mexico, while showing how Afro-Mexicans transformed them in a new setting.

09/18/2026

You are warmly invited to join UNM students, staff, faculty, and community members on a group trip to Chaco Canyon on Saturday, November 7th. This trip provides a unique opportunity to explore Chaco Culture National Historical Park while learning from Diné and Pueblo community leaders about the importance of Chaco Canyon and the Greater Chaco region.

This is an all-day trip. Participants should plan to leave Albuquerque at 7am and expect to return around 6pm.

For more information contact Silas Grant at [email protected]

03/08/2026

Join us on Thursday, March 26 for the 2026 C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Lecture featuring Dr. Elizabeth Ellis.

A citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, Dr. Elizabeth Ellis is Associate Professor of History at Princeton University, where she teaches early American and Native American history. She is a scholar of early North America with a focus on diplomacy, borderlands, cross-cultural exchange, and Indigenous politics. She is the author of The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South (2022).

Her talk, “Recording Stories in the Indigenous Middle Ages: Ancient Iconography in Middle America,” will begin at 5:30 PM in the Bobo Room, Hodgin Hall (Alumni Center), University of New Mexico.

A reception and book signing will follow the lecture.

Questions? Contact [email protected]

We hope to see you there!

02/17/2026

Interested in Participating?: Please complete this form (https://forms.gle/oBNKJXr4gZ81AxV97) by 5pm on Monday, February 23. We will announce participants by March 16.
Faculty and Staff: Moderators and Day-of Support are needed.

10/18/2025

This weekend CSW attended and co-sponsored the 2025 Western History Association Conference in Albuquerque, NM. It was a pleasure to hear from so many talent scholars including our own students and professors who are doing an impactful work!

10/07/2025

Hello UNM Community!

On Tuesday, October 14, we are pleased to host Dr. Omar Valerio-Jimenez for a talk on his most recent book, Remembering Conquest.
His lecture, “Collective Memories and Mexican American Civil Rights,” will begin at 5:30 pm in the Frank Waters Room, located in the Zimmerman Library.

Dr. Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Professor of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He was born in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and grew up in Taft, Corpus Christi, and Edinburg, Texas. After graduating from MIT, he worked as an engineer for five years before attending UCLA, where he obtained his master’s and doctorate degrees. His research and teaching focus on Latinxs, borderlands, memory, public history, and immigration.

We are so excited for Dr. Valerio-Jimenez’s talk and to invite everyone to the event.

04/17/2025

Tonight (Thursday, April 17) is our 2025 C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Lecture! Dr. Joshua L. Reid will be presenting "Comekala and Ranald MacDonald: Making Pacific Worlds through Indigenous Exploration." The lecture starts at 5:30pm and will be held in the Bobo Room in Hodgin Hall (Alumni Association Building, University of New Mexico). There will be a reception and book signing held immediately after the lecture. This event is open and free for all.

04/14/2025

Our annual Horn Lecture is this Thursday! We are so looking forward to hosting Dr. Joshua L. Reid and seeing you there!

Date: Thursday, April 17
Time: 5:30pm
Location: Bobo Room, Hodgin Hall (Alumni Association Building, UNM)

Reception & book signing to follow

04/08/2025

Tomorrow, April 9 at noon in the UNM History Commons Room (1104 Mesa Vista Hall), Dr. Katherine Massoth will present the Annual Snead Wertheim Endowed Lecture, "Borderwomen: Tracing Matriarchal Business Networks in Territorial Tucson"!

04/07/2025

Our 2025 C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Lecture is next Thursday! Please join us on Thursday, April 17 at 5:30pm to hear Dr. Joshua L. Reid's lecture in Hodgin Hall (Alumni Center Building), Bobo Room.

Address

Mesa Vista Hall 2061, University Of New Mexcio
Albuquerque, NM
87106

Website

http://centerforthesouthwest.unm.edu/

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