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Navigating the spaces between us
As we begin 2024, the Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA) and Colorado Chautauqua are hosting a community conversation about how we form opinions, and what happens when we confront opposing views.
The Difficult Dialogues series brings together local voices to explore complex topics, fostering a mutual understanding and a respectful discourse. Difficult Dialogues events aim to create a space for grappling with tough subjects that people may find difficult or uncomfortable to talk about. These events are not debates but platforms for thoughtful exchange.
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.
Our co-facilitators for this evening will include:
Jennifer Ho, Director of CHA
The daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica, whose own parents were immigrants from Hong Kong, Jennifer Ho is the director of the Center for the Humanities & the Arts at CU Boulder, where she also holds an appointment as Professor in the Ethnic Studies department. Ho has co-edited two collection of essays and is the author of three scholarly monographs, Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels (Routledge 2005), Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture (Rutgers University Press 2015), which won the South Atlantic Modern Language Association award for best monograph, and Understanding Gish Jen (University of South Carolina Press 2015). She has published in journals such as Modern Fiction Studies, Journal for Asian American Studies, Amerasia Journal, The Global South, Southern Cultures, Japan Forum, and Oxford American. In addition to her academic work, Ho is active in community engagement around issues of race and intersectionality, leading workshops on anti-racism and how to talk about race in our current political climate.
Karen Ashcraft, Professor of Communication, CU Boulder
Karen Lee Ashcraft is a Professor in the Department of Communication. Her research examines how relations of difference—such as gender, race, and sexuality—shape various scenes of work and organization, ranging from social services to commercial aviation to academic labor. Her scholarship appears in such venues as Academy of Management Review, Communication Theory, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Management Communication Quarterly. Most recently, she is exploring the relationship between communication and affect and, specifically, how occupational identities arise and circulate through affective economies. She teaches undergraduate courses that address difference and communication, especially in the context of work life, as well as graduate seminars in organizational communication and qualitative research methods.
Read the introduction from Karen Ashcraft’s latest book “Wronged and Dangerous: Viral Masculinity and the Populist Pandemic” here:
https://www.chautauqua.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ashcraft-introduction.pdf
Get the full book “Wronged and Dangerous: Viral Masculinity and the Populist Pandemic”
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.