University Speakers Series
University Speakers Series presents:
Luis Alberto Urrea
“Universal Border:
From Tijuana to the World”
Wednesday, March 6, 7:30 PM
Atkinson Recital Hall
View the entire program here!
Best-selling author Luis Alberto Urrea will share his story of transformation from his beginnings on a dirt street in Tijuana to Pulitzer Prize finalist and beloved storyteller. Though recognized as a writer who concentrates on the border regions of the Southwestern United States, Urrea says, “Borders don’t interest me. I’m really in the business of building bridges.”
Luis Alberto Urrea is a prolific and award-winning writer. He is a master of language and a gifted storyteller who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.
Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother, Luis grew up in San Diego, Califonia. Like so many great writers, Luis got his start in literature writing poems to impress girls in junior high school. His early heroes were all rock stars, but not being especially musically gifted Luis chose to follow in the steps of his literary role models. A fanatical hunger for reading pushed him over the edge at the age of 13. “I just had to do what my heroes were doing” he has said.
Read more about him here.
About the University Speakers Series
The University Speakers Series is sponsored by the Honors College, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, and the Associated Students of New Mexico State University. Each year the series brings to Las Cruces speakers of international acclaim to present, free of charge, a lecture of interest to the entire community. A committee comprised of university faculty and townspeople selects speakers. In our selection of speakers, we endeavor to represent a broad range of timely and provocative subjects, and to include distinguished authors, critics, artists, scientists and social commentators. In presenting the series, NMSU makes a unique and valuable contribution to the cultural life of southern New Mexico.
Since 1992, the University Speakers Series has hosted the following distinguished guests:
2012 Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and author
2011 Alma Guillermoprieto, author
2010 Bill McKibben, environmentalist and author
2009 Sir Salman Rushdie, author
2008 Dr. Michael Walton, Partners in Health
2007 Maria Hinojosa, radio/TV journalist and host of “Latino USA”
2006 Vali Nasr, Middle East specialist
2006 E.O. Wilson, biologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author
2005 Ed Morales, contributor to The Village Voice and author of “Living in Spanglish”
2005 Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
2004 Karen Armstrong, historian of religion
2004 Robert F. Kennedy, environmental lawyer
2003 Edward James Olmos, actor and social activist
2003 Samuel Bilson and Roy Hawthorne, Navajo Code Talkers
2002 Susan Sontag, essayist, novelist and critic
2002 Judy Chicago, artist
2001 N. Scott Momaday, novelist
2000 Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author of “Awakenings”
1999 Gloria Steinem, author and activist
1998 F.W. de Klerk, former Prime Minister of South Africa and Nobel Prize laureate
1997 Elie Wiesel, author, humanitarian and Nobel Prize laureate
1996 Alice Walker, novelist and essayist
1995 Jane Goodall, primatologist
1994 Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist and author
1992 Carlos Fuentes, Mexican novelist and diplomat