Door time: 5:30 PM
Event time: 6:00 PM
Supported by the Betsy Hitchcock Foundation
The US 2024 election was tumultuous and contentious, and regardless of what side of the political aisle you find yourself allied with, political polarization has been increasing with the rise of social media and other communication technologies over the last few decades, especially during the era of the Internet. This political polarization comes with an emotional cost, and this Difficult Dialogue Conversation (co-facilitated by Jennifer Ho, Ethnic Studies professor and Center for Humanities & the Arts director, and Angie Chuang, Journalism professor and author of an upcoming book, American Otherness, that engages with political polarization) will guide participants in conversation about the emotional reactions we have to the political issues that are taking up our head and heart space, particularly after the presidential inauguration on January 20.
Moderators:
Angie Chuang:
Angie Chuang is an associate professor of journalism whose research and teaching focus on race, identity and representations of Otherness. She came to academia after 13 years as a national and regional award-winning newspaper reporter at The Oregonian, The Hartford Courant and the Los Angeles Times. At The Oregonian, she launched one of the first regional newspaper beats on race and ethnicity issues, and traveled to Afghanistan, Vietnam and the post-Katrina Gulf Coast to cover stories. Her book, American Otherness in Journalism: News Media Constructions of Identity and Belonging, is forthcoming with Routledge in late 2025. Her scholarly work on race and media has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly; Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism; and Communication, Culture and Critique. Her reporting in Afghanistan became the backbone of her literary journalism-memoir book, The Four Words for Home (Aquarius Press-Willow Books, 2014), which won an Independent Publishers Book Award Bronze Medal, and was shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize and the International Rubery Award. Her media commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, The Conversation, Huffington Post, The Root, Poynter Online, The Seattle Times and The Oregonian.
In her first academic appointment at American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C., Chuang was awarded the Ann S. Ferren Curriculum Design Award for creating the pilot of a mandatory first-year course on race and social identity. She has also served as a consultant on diversity, equity and inclusion issues to National Public Radio, Atlantic Media, Bloomberg Industry Group, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Jennifer Ho:
The daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica, whose parents themselves were immigrants from Hong Kong, Jennifer Ho is the director of the Center for Humanities & the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she specializes in Asian American literary and cultural studies and Critical Race Theory. She is past president of the Association for Asian American Studies (2020-2022), the editor of four essay collections, most recently Global Anti-Asian Racism (Columbia UP 2024), the author of three scholarly monographs, including Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture (Rutgers UP 2015), which won the best monograph award from the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in 2017, and a number of essays and articles, both research-oriented and public-facing (a sampling of which is also on this webpage). In addition to her academic work, Ho is active in community engagement around issues of race and intersectionality.
The Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA) mission is to promote arts and humanities by being a dynamic hub on the CU Boulder campus and by creating connections within the Boulder community.
Our purpose is to hold dialogues on topics considered difficult, provocative, or controversial, among constituents that may have strong conflicting views.
Our objective is NOT to necessarily agree, fix anything, prove anyone right or wrong, or alter anyone’s position.
We are committed to fostering productive dialogues in the hopes that minds and hearts might expand. We ask that you
- Keep an open mind
- Be respectful of others
- Listen with the intent to understand
- Speak your own truth
We expect to experience discomfort when talking about hard things. Remain engaged and recognize that the discomfort can lead to problem-solving and authentic understanding.
This is a free event. Click “Get Tickets” to RSVP.
Located in the Rocky Mountain Climbers Club, on the lower level of the Community House.
