Our third Difficult Dialogue Conversation takes up the topic of how to have difficult conversations with people you care about but may disagree with. Our facilitators, Jennifer Ho and Ami Dayan, believe it is possible to have productive conversations about controversial subjects, so long as all parties enter into the conversation with a sincere willingness to listen and learn rather than simply argue in order to persuade someone to their point of view. Join us on March 27 (Wed, 6-7pm) to practice having hard conversations, including on the topic of Gaza and Israel.
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:
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 the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also holds an appointment as Professor in the Ethnic Studies department. She is the past president of the Association for Asian American Studies (2020-2022) and sits on the board of directors for the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI), the National Committee on US-China Relations, and Kundiman (an Asian American literature non-profit). Ho has co-edited two collection of essays, Narrative, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States (Ohio State University Press 2017) and Teaching Approaches to Asian North American Literature(Modern Language Association 2022), and she 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. Her next two academic projects are a breast cancer memoir and a monograph that will consider Asian Americans in the global south through the narrative of her maternal family’s immigration from Hong Kong to Jamaica to North America. 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.
Ami Dayan is an award winning Israeli/American playwright, director, and performer. He studied and worked professionally in Europe, Israel and extensively in the United States. He serves on the board of the Jaipur Literature Festival in Boulder, and is founder of The Interview Game Inc., a Boulder based company with a mission of bridging the intergenerational gap, and bringing people closer with curated reciprocal interviews.
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.
Over a year after Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz of Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange) reintroduced themselves on their 2021 self-titled LP, the pair shared a special surprise release: Watchhouse (Duo), a self-produced recording of Marlin and Frantz performing the most elemental possible arrangements of all nine songs from Watchhouse. It’s a project that captures the fundamental power of Watchhouse: Two singers and musicians with profound chemistry, performing earnest yet masterfully crafted songs that encompass the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life.
Starting over a decade ago playing coffee shops and local restaurants around North Carolina, Watchhouse is a grassroots success story that’s been driven by Marlin’s poignant songwriting. They’ve sold out iconic venues (Red Rocks, Ryman Auditorium) and attract hundreds of millions of streams while producing exploratory music that “redefines roots music for a younger generation” (Washington Post).
2022 was filled with many endeavors including the American Acoustic Tour with Punch Brothers, headlining shows across the US, collaborating with Planet Bluegrass on Mabon, an autumn equinox concert series, and of course Watchhouse (Duo). In 2023, Marlin and Frantz will celebrate the release of Watchhouse (Duo) with a short run of shows that will feature just the two of them, harkening back to their earliest days of performing.
Monuments and place names transmit stories, knowledge, and values from one generation to the next. But what happens when generational values shift about who, or what, deserves to be commemorated? Join Colorado’s State Historian’s Council for a lively discussion about controversial monuments and place names and how we might address them today.
Panelists:
Dr. Claire Oberon Garcia is a professor of English at Colorado College. Dr. Garcia’s research focuses on Black history portrayed through literature, including an emphasis on women of the Black Atlantic in the beginning of the twentieth century. She is the co-editor of many notable works, including Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Help: White Authored Narratives of Black Life, and her work has appeared in The Colorado Magazine and Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, among others. As a scholar and teacher, Dr. Garcia is particularly interested in the archives of the marginalized, the silenced and the “expendable” who did not have access to official institutions and dominant power structures.
Dr. Nicki Gonzales is a professor of history and vice provost for diversity and inclusion at Regis University. Her research interests include the American Southwest; the Chicano Movement in Colorado; Chicano social, political, legal, and environmental activism; and the history of land grant communities. She has served as an advisor for History Colorado’s exhibits El Movimiento: The Chicano Movement in Colorado and Zoom In: The Centennial State in 100 Objects. Dr. Gonzales is History Colorado’s appointee to the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board established by Governor Polis in July 2020.
Dr. Susan Schulten is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Denver, where she has taught since 1996. Dr. Schulten’s research innovatively uses old maps to tell new stories about history. Dr. Schulten has also authored multiple books, including A History of America in 100 Maps, which examines how maps can reveal new angles on our past and Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America, that explores how maps transformed American life by organizing information. Her work has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her most recent work, Emma Willard: Maps of History, examines one of the nineteenth-century’s most influential educators. For several years, Dr. Schulten has also served as an editor for History Colorado’s podcast, Lost Highways.
Dr. William Wei is a professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder. He was the founding editor-in-chief of the online Colorado Encyclopedia and has held various national and international fellowships. His work focuses primarily on modern China, with research interests in Asian Americans. His latest book, Asians in Colorado: A History of Persecution and Perseverance in the Centennial State, was a finalist for the 2017 Colorado Authors’ League Award for General Nonfiction. He was a lead advisor on History Colorado’s Zoom In exhibition in 2016–2017, and is the author of the exhibition’s companion book, Becoming Colorado: The Centennial State in 100 Objects. He received the Asian American Hero of Colorado Award from the Colorado Asian Culture and Education Network in 2022.
Jason Hanson is the Chief Creative Officer and Director of Interpretation and Research at History Colorado, where he also serves as the Deputy State Historian on the State Historian’s Council. At History Colorado, he works with talented colleagues to create award-winning and groundbreaking exhibitions, actively build a collection that reflects the stories of all who have called Colorado home, and publish innovative original scholarship about Colorado history. He has led numerous exhibition projects and written widely on topics such as the role of monuments in society, the origins of the modern workplace, what we’ll remember about 2020, gender roles in Utopian communities, Denver Water, environmental history, baseball, and beer. He is a member of the America 250 – Colorado 150 Commission helping the state get ready for our Sesquisemiquincentennial in 2026. Prior to joining History Colorado, he was a member of the research faculty at the Center of the American West at CU Boulder.
This is a free event. Click “Get Tickets” to RSVP.
Ben Folds is widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation.
The Emmy-nominated singer-songwriter-composer has created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records.
For the past three decades, he’s toured as a pop artist, while also performing with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras.
A New York Times Best Selling author and podcast host, Ben also composes for film, tv and theatre, guest stars in films and TV, and serves as the Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
A longtime advocate for arts and music education funding, Ben launched a music education charitable initiative in his native state of North Carolina entitled “Keys For Keys,” which provides funds and keyboards to existing nonprofits that provide free or affordable music lessons to interested school-age children. On the national level, he’s active as a member of Americans For The Arts and the Arts Action Fund.
Lindsey Kraft
Lindsey Kraft is a multi-faceted artist – actress, singer, and composer. You may recognize her from various TV roles including Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, HBO’s Getting On and most recently Netflix’s Obliterated.
She continues as the opening act for Ben Folds, where she’ll be performing her brand of theatrical pop songs including songs from her musical, “love, me,” a one-woman show workshopped recently in LA for a LIVE album. During an opening performance for Ben at the Kennedy Center in 2023, she received a glowing review by DC Music Review which wrote that the audience “was treated and transfixed by the performance of Lindsey Kraft. Within the first few moments of her piece, concertgoers realized how perfect the pairing was. A burgeoning newcomer to musical performances, Kraft, in addition to her brilliant piano playing and songs, masterfully interacted with and entertained the audience with her witty and sincere songs.”
She characterizes her songs as deeply personal, funny, and sad, her sound inspired by Carly Simon, Carole King, Billy Joel, Bette Midler, Randy Newman, and Broadway (but like, only the good shows).
Music Director Peter Oundjian continues his tradition of ending the season with glorious music by Mahler. The composer built his Fourth Symphony around his own song “The Heavenly Life,” which borrows text from a Bavarian folk poem. “The angelic voices gladden our senses,” the poem proclaims, “so that everything awakens for joy.” Mahler’s sunniest symphony invokes bells, harp, and woodwinds; in keeping with the lightness of the work, Mahler insisted the soprano perform “with childlike, cheerful expression;” soprano Karina Gauvin joins the Festival in this role. This final concert of the season includes Ravel’s colorful twist on the Shéhérazade tales — again featuring Gauvin’s “glowing, flexible tone” (Opera News) — and the overture to Strauss’ most famous and farcical operetta, Die Fledermaus.
