Arizona Dreaming: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Borderlands

Predavanje će se održati u hibridnom obliku, fizički u multimedijalnoj dvorani Knjižnice Augusta Cesarca, Šubićeva te putem platforme Zoom na izravnoj poveznici: https://tinyurl.com/yc3yxpyf.

Arizona, the last territory in the continental USA to be awarded statehood, is a dramatic land of contradictions. While celebrating its natural beauty, cultural heritage stretching back thousands of years, and building a powerful tourist industry on the basis of its diverse cuisine and Borderlands lifestyle, Arizona’s citizens have also struggled with environmental devastation, the legacies of settler colonialism, and ongoing political issues related to migration and American identity. This presentation introduces not only the stunning Arizona landscapes and fascinating hybrid culture of the American Southwest, but tackles some of the challenges facing the state today which are of global significance. The presentation will also tell the story of the Dalmatians who arrived in Tucson, one of Arizona’s most important metropolises, in the late 19^th century and were crucial to the city’s transformation from an isolated Mexican outpost in the Sonoran Desert into the thriving city it is today.

Vjeran Pavlaković is a full professor at the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Rijeka, Croatia. He received his Ph.D. in History in 2005 from the University of Washington, and has published articles on cultural memory, transitional justice in the former Yugoslavia, and the Spanish Civil War. He is a co-editor of the volume Framing the Nation and Collective Identity in Croatia (Routledge, 2019), which was recently re-issued in Croatian version. He was the lead researcher on the Memoryscapes project as part of Rijeka’s European Capital of Culture in 2020 and a co-founder of the Cres Summer School on Transitional Justice and Memory Politics, as well as a researcher on the Rijeka/Fiume in Flux project. Current research includes the transnational muralization of conflict and a history of Dalmatian immigrants in the American Southwest.