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Hope Saska named director of CU Art Museum

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:42:53 +0000

Hope Saska named director of CU Art Museum Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/26/2025 - 07:42

In addition to serving as interim director, Saska has served as the museum��s chief curator and director of academic engagement

Hope Saska, CU Art Museum chief curator and director of academic engagement, has been named director of the CU Art Museum after serving as interim director for more than two years.

Saska was named director following an internal search as well as an assessment and advisory report issued last spring on the future mission, structure and goals of the museum.

Hope Saska, CU Art Museum chief curator and director of academic engagement, has been named director of the CU Art Museum after serving as interim director for more than two years.

��I am thrilled and honored to be named director of the CU Art Museum,�� Saska says. ��With its rich collections and a mission to build community through exhibitions and programming that promote, inspire and generate interdisciplinary scholarship and cultural expression, the museum serves as a vital center for arts and culture on campus and throughout our region. I eagerly look forward to collaborating with museum staff, students, faculty and partners both on and off campus to build on our strengths and uphold our commitment to being an inclusive and welcoming space for all.��

A specialist in works on paper, Saska earned her PhD at Brown University with a dissertation on 18th-century graphic satire and caricature. While serving as the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Detroit Institute of Art and the Samuel H. Kress Curatorial Fellow at the Lewis Walpole Library, Saska honed her curatorial expertise working on a number of exhibitions and research and digital humanities projects. Saska embarked on her ��ƷSM��ӰƬ career in 2015, when she accepted a curatorial position at the museum and was promoted to chief curator and director of academic engagement in 2021. At ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, she has since curated over 30 exhibitions, many in collaboration with faculty and students.

In 2019, Saska co-authored a response paper to the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Academic Futures Interdisciplinary Teaching, Research, and Creative Work Report: Is It an Academy? A Proposal to Expand Interdisciplinary Scholarship and Teaching at the CU Art Museum. The previous year, Saska co-authored a white paper for CU's Academic Futures Initiative: Is It An Art? A Case Study of Teaching at the CU Art Museum.

Saska teaches a graduate-level curatorial practicum with the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Museum Studies program bi-annually. Deeply committed to the transformative role academic art museums play on college campuses, Saska serves on the board of the national Association of Academic Museums and Galleries as a co-representative for the Mountains-Plains region.

��Hope brings many years of experience in museums nationally and here at CU to this position, and I am excited for her expertise and leadership to drive CU Art Museum towards a sustainable future that is central to student and faculty engagement with the arts on campus,�� says John-Michael Rivera, dean of arts and humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences. ��I also want to thank Hope for her leadership through her long stint as interim director of the museum. Throughout many difficult transitions and assessments, her stewardship stabilized and positioned the museum for great successes in the future.��

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In addition to serving as interim director, Saska has served as the museum��s chief curator and director of academic engagement.

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We Are Art Buffs building an arts community

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 19:40:21 +0000

We Are Art Buffs building an arts community Rachel Sauer Thu, 09/25/2025 - 13:40

Rachel Sauer

At Sept. 17 gathering, representatives of the arts at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, in Boulder and across the Front Range built connections in the nascent We Are Art Buffs initiative

First, the question: What is an art buff?

��There is a journey within this question that speaks to the heart of what we are trying to curate,�� said John-Michael Rivera, dean of arts and humanities in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ College of Arts and Sciences. ��We��re fostering not simply an appreciation of the arts but cultivating a lived and embodied inquiry into the creative. To engage the arts is a trait that all should appreciate in daily life.��

Then the idea: What if ��ƷSM��ӰƬ was the heart of the arts in Boulder, on the Front Range and in Colorado��a place where every student is supported in creative inquiry; where partnerships are made and strengthened between the university, artists and arts organizations in communities across Colorado and, someday, the nation; where there are infinite paths to the infinite ways of engaging with the arts?

John-Michael Rivera (at podium), dean of arts and humanities, speaks at the Sept. 17 We Are Art Buffs gathering.

So, dozens gathered Sept. 17 in Norlin Library, representing the arts at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, in the broader Boulder community and across the Front Range��taking steps and building connections in an initiative called We Are Art Buffs.

��From the very beginning��18 months ago, 19 months ago��we said, ��Let��s really start talking about the arts at CU and have more pathways and connections with the community around us,�� Rivera said, addressing leaders from organizations including the Museum of Boulder, the Clyfford Still Museum, the City of Boulder Office of Arts and Culture, the Arvada Center, the Dairy Arts Center and many others.

��Right now is a tough time to be an artist, but it��s also a wonderful time to be an artist because the arts are really going to be the place that interprets this world we��re living in right now.��

��ƷSM��ӰƬ Chancellor Justin Schwartz noted the importance of the arts in ��connecting us as people to one another and to ourselves. The arts not only provide richness to our lives, they provide unique and different types of connection to people. The fact that we are such a vibrant arts community is what makes us such a strong community in general.��

A key outcome of the partnerships that will grow through the We Are Art Buffs initiative is strengthening student success, Schwartz added: ��We know successful learning experiences outside the classroom are vital to student success. We talk about student success internally, and we��re also going to be looking to our community to help us advance the success of our students.��

With community partnerships, Rivera said, ��we can guarantee that our students find their way or, better yet, create new paths as they walk them; whether in the arts or arts-adjacent fields or any profession, our students will show employers what we already know: that creative inquiry transforms every career, transforms every life.

��We owe students a vision of their future, a future with all of us in it.��

��We know successful learning experiences outside the classroom are vital to student success," said ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Chancellor Justin Schwartz. "We talk about student success internally, and we��re also going to be looking to our community to help us advance the success of our students.��

We Are Art Buffs, Rivera added, also is about creating venues for coming together to create pathways and break down barriers between the university and the community. For those in attendance Wednesday, that could include many things, from the practical to the philosophical��from clearer information about parking on campus to broader access to venues on and off campus, expanded work-study opportunities for students and interdisciplinary research projects.

��We have space that��s available to rent��it��s kind of small but let us know if that��s something you��d be interested in,�� said Tracy Travis with The New Local in Boulder. ��Or if you��re interested in getting students involved in seeing how a nonprofit runs, seeing how a gallery runs, seeing how you can get the community involved.��

��We would love to open pathways between our student bodies,�� said Erin Hauger, professor and chair of visual arts at CU Denver. ��We have a great film program; we have a thriving visual arts program that I think has different majors than ��ƷSM��ӰƬ and we would love to infoshare and love to create different opportunities for students between downtown Boulder and downtown Denver.��

��We��re a giant building, so we have lots of possibilities for partnerships,�� said Jen Clements, deputy director of the Dairy Arts Center. ��One of the programs we have is our co-production program, which is a mechanism for early-career artists, for emerging artists to get their foot in a venue without the financial risk that is usually associated with getting your foot in a venue�� and we also have ample volunteer opportunities always.��

Erika Randall, interim dean and vice provost of undergraduate education, also emphasized the importance of building connections between students and the arts outside of campus: ��I have so many folks who are artists at heart or artists in major or art curious, and they only see it as way to extend the time to graduation and a way to disappoint their parents. We need help changing that story, and we need all of you to help in that because we know that the soft skills are not soft, they are hard-won and they are hard-fought.��

While the We Are Art Buffs initiative is in its nascent days, Rivera said that a foundational element is already in place, which is creating venues for coming together ��in very perilous times. What is it we want to be as a collective? What is it we want to do for the arts? How are we going to create pathways and break down barriers between the university and the community? I hope this is the beginning of all of us getting together and thinking what we want for the future of Boulder, the future of Colorado, and then becoming a national model.��

Cindy Sepucha (holding microphone), artists and venues program manager for the City of Boulder Office of Arts and Culture.

Collin Parson (laughing), Arvada Center director of galleries and curator, talks with Chris Taylor, executive director of Museum of Boulder.

Jim Walker, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Norlin Scholars teaching faculty member

A participant takes notes at the We Are Art Buffs gathering Sept. 17.

Attendees at the Sept. 17 We Are Art Buffs gathering responded to the question "What can we learn from your career experience about how to affect students?"

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about the arts at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ? Show your support.

At Sept. 17 gathering, representatives of the arts at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, in Boulder and across the Front Range built connections in the nascent We Are Art Buffs initiative.

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Sometimes ��building back better�� doesn��t include everyone

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 23:14:40 +0000

Sometimes ��building back better�� doesn��t include everyone Rachel Sauer Mon, 09/22/2025 - 17:14

Cody DeBos

��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Mary Angelica Painter finds that in post-disaster recovery, equity isn��t guaranteed

In the mountains of Colorado outside Boulder, a tight-knit community once made up of mobile homes and modest living has all but disappeared. Now, visitors will find the hills dominated by sprawling new homes and residents of a different tax bracket.

��We were driving through, and it was all these multi-million-dollar homes. A lot of talk about this community having more dogs than people,�� Mary Angelica Painter recalls after a recent trip to the town. ��It��s a very wealthy, affluent community.��

Painter, a research associate at the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ��s Natural Hazards Center, knows the history of this town from the work of scholars in the hazards and disaster field. It was a place where lower-income, often elderly residents leaned on each other for care and social support. But after a devastating flood in 2013, everything changed.

Mary Angelica Painter, a research associate in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Natural Hazards Center, co-authored a paper defining ��hazard gentrification�� as the process that unfolds when natural hazards destroy a large portion of a community and residents are displaced by wealthier newcomers during recovery and rebuilding.

��After this event, most of the residents were dispersed and displaced. We saw one area where there was supposedly low-income housing, and we were told rent was ��only�� $1,800 a month. I was like, ��Wow.�� I had no other term to define it than hazard gentrification,�� Painter says.

It��s a familiar pattern she has seen while studying natural hazards and the subsequent recovery efforts of the affected communities.

In an effort to better describe the trend, she recently co-authored a paper defining ��hazard gentrification�� as the process that unfolds when natural hazards destroy a large portion of a community and residents are displaced by wealthier newcomers during recovery and rebuilding.

Unlike slower-moving forms of gentrification, such as those related to climate change, Painter says hazard gentrification is more rapid and has devastating repercussions.

Defining a new kind of gentrification

The term coined by Painter and her co-authors builds on years of disaster capitalism research��the idea that public and private entities exploit disasters to consolidate power and wealth.

��We often hear the term ��build back better,�� which leads to the question of ��build back better for whom?�� she says.

Sustainability gentrification, a similar but unique concept, has been coined recently as well. However, those takeovers tend to happen gradually.

��Hazard gentrification is much faster than other forms of sustainability gentrification,�� Painter explains, ��so that��s why we really felt the urge to write this short paper and punctuate this specific type of gentrification.��

She also warns that it isn��t a theoretical concern. From New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to the aftermath of wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii, the pattern has played out repeatedly.

��We needed to name this phenomenon as its own thing so we can start identifying solutions,�� Painter says.

The forces at play

So, what turns a disaster into a reality-altering event for a local community? Painter says the answer is political as much as environmental.

��Disasters stem from social, economic and political choices that leave people in devastation. So, in my mind, disasters are very political.��

After a natural hazard hits, local governments often face pressure to restore services quickly and begin the rebuilding efforts. Much of that push comes from the loudest and most affluent voices in the community.

Structures and infrastructure in Jamestown, Colorado, were significantly damaged by 2013 floods (Photo: Steve Zumwalt/FEMA)

��There is a huge push to build back faster,�� Painter says, ��and because of that, there are fewer opportunities to involve local community members in the process of making decisions of how it happens.��

When participation is limited, she points out, redevelopment favors those with more money, time and connections. The dynamic also benefits outside investors and developers who are eager to move in where disaster presents an opportunity.

Who gets left behind

For many long-time, even lifelong, residents, rebuilding after a hazard hits simply isn��t an option.

��These populations that are more socially vulnerable tend to either be underinsured or not insured at all against hazards and disasters. They might be living paycheck to paycheck and don��t have the extra income or time to find secondary housing,�� Painter says.

��We actually know from research that white affluent people post natural hazard are actually better off after the disaster. They are able to get large insurance payouts, and if their house needs to be rebuilt or refurbished, the value can go up and they can sell it for a profit,�� she adds.

Those benefits aren��t present for people who live in mobile homes or manufactured housing, let alone renters. Painter explains that rental assistance is often insubstantial, and renters do not receive the same high priority as homeowners.

The loss of social safety nets, both formal and informal, compounds the trauma for local residents who rely on them.

��They lose their networks of support. There are just so many factors that come together that make it slower or impossible for them to recover,�� Painter says.

As a result, many residents find themselves priced out of the place they called home and are left to watch as the area is redeveloped without them.

How some communities push back

Despite the powerful forces at work, hazard gentrification isn��t inevitable. Painter points to a few examples, including Joplin, Missouri; Coffey Park in California; and Seattle��s Duwamish Valley. Here, early and meaningful community engagement helped limit displacement after natural hazards wreaked devastation.

People evacuate West Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in the face of spreading wildfires in 2002. (Photo: Bryan Dahlberg/FEMA)

She notes that Joplin��s story, one close to home, is especially striking. After an EF5 tornado nearly leveled the town in 2011, local leaders mobilized quickly.

��They really self-organized effectively. They were very engaging with the community in the rebuilding process and prioritized not leaving anyone behind,�� Painter says.

��Not every community is able to do that in that way, but it was something that really jumpstarted their recovery into a positive life.��

Painter notes that these engagement efforts helped preserve community bonds and gave residents a sense of ownership over the recovery.

��There seems to be much more cohesion and democratization when it comes to rebuilding like that,�� she says. ��The idea is that you need to bring communities together and let them share their voices. It��s so important.��

What needs to change

The question going forward, Painter posits, is whether policymakers will make bold choices to prevent displacement before the next hazard strikes.

��You can��t be prioritizing the stuff you��ve been prioritizing. If in the past it was something like economic development at the harm of lower-income and marginalized residents, that can��t be the way you go forward,�� she says.

In other words, more equitable recovery efforts must start with a cultural shift in how communities allocate resources. New policies promoting rent control, expanded insurance and better disaster assistance for renters can all help lower the burden in the wake of a hazard.

��People need to understand the idea of sacrifice for their neighbors,�� she says.

��ƷSM��ӰƬ��s Natural Hazards Center is working to bridge the gap between research and real-world solutions.

��We aren��t just a research apparatus,�� Painter says. ��We��re also a connecting body. It��s important that we as researchers connect with policymakers and decision makers and are solution oriented.��

As climate change fuels more frequent and intense natural events, hazard gentrification will become more common. Naming the problem is just a first step, but also a necessary one. From there, Painter hopes society collectively adopts an action mindset.

��We need to find ways to be equitable and to provide for and support our communities, and to have plans for if there��s devastation, too. Academics are really good at identifying problems. However, we need to focus on how we actually solve these problems and how we can use our positions to vocalize and advocate for those solutions.��

Justin Stoler, Ethan Sharygin and Sameer Shah also contributed to this paper.

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Mary Angelica Painter finds that in post-disaster recovery, equity isn��t guaranteed.

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Top image: Lahaina, Hawaii, was devastated by August 2023 wildfires. (Photo: State Farm/Wikimedia Commons)

Liberals hit the brakes on buying Teslas

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:30:00 +0000

Liberals hit the brakes on buying Teslas Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/19/2025 - 07:30

Bradley Worrell

Research co-authored by ��ƷSM��ӰƬ environmental psychologist Amanda Carrico finds CEO Elon Musk��s embrace of rightwing politics results in liberals being less willing to buy the EVs

Tesla CEO Elon Musk��s embrace of rightwing activism has not done him any favors with liberal-leaning Americans��the U.S. demographic group most inclined to purchase electric vehicles��while not resulting in any notable corresponding increase in purchase intentions among the country��s conservatives.

That��s according to a recent research paper published in Humanities & Social Sciences, which was co-authored by Amanda Carrico, an environmental psychologist whose research focus is on understanding people��s behaviors, attitudes and perceptions related to the environment. She is also an associate professor with the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Department of Environmental Studies.

Carrico and her co-authors conducted five surveys of Americans between August 2023 and March of this year about their willingness to embrace 30 actions that would reduce greenhouse emissions. Purchasing electric vehicles (EVs) was the most polarizing item among those actions, with positive intentions recorded for liberals and negative intentions among conservatives.

��ƷSM��ӰƬ scholar Amanda Carrico is an environmental psychologist whose research focus is on understanding people��s behaviors, attitudes and perceptions related to the environment.

However, in the past three surveys (May 2024, July 2024 and March), liberals have pumped the brakes regarding their intentions to buy Teslas��and that decline is associated with Musk��s relatively recent embrace of rightwing politics, Carrico says.

��We definitely find that overall intentions to purchase Tesla seems to decrease over time, so there seems to be an intensification of rejection of Teslas among liberals as Musk��s conservative persona emerged,�� she says. That��s particularly significant given that liberals are the demographic group most inclined to purchase electric vehicles, she adds.

What's at stake when EV tax credits end Sept. 30?

��At the same time, conservatives have been pretty predictable across the entirety of the surveys: They just aren��t interested in EVs,�� Carrico says. ��As Elon Musk was shifting to the right, our initial theory was: Maybe we��ll see conservatives become more interested in EVs, because you��ve got this now conservative figure in the industry who is excited about EVs because of their benefit to the environment. We thought we might be on the precipice of EVs becoming a less polarized issue. However, that has not turned out to be true.��

To support their research on Musk��s impact on the Tesla brand, Carrico and her co-authors also point to a series of Morning Consult polls showing a steady decline in self-reported willingness to buy a Tesla among Democrats since 2023. Separately, a Data for Progress poll found two-thirds of Democrats and half of Independents reported that Musk had made them less likely to buy a Tesla.

Recently, Carrico spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine regarding the findings and implications of the research paper. Her responses have been lightly edited for grammar and clarity and condensed for space.

Question: Your team conducted five surveys between November 2023 and March of this year. Was it always the plan to ask specifically about Musk and Teslas, or did that come later?

Carrico: The idea came later, so it was opportunistic. It was interesting to us to see from the beginning that EVs were among the most polarizing action items, so we asked ourselves in 2024 if we should modify the question from EVs generally to Teslas.

There were two motivations for that. One was: How are people��s opinions shifting in response to this emergent political shift (by Musk)? The second was: We felt like we needed more information about people��s opinions about EVs generally versus Teslas, so some respondents were asked about EVs and some were asked about Tesla specifically, and that��s where you could see some delineation between those two categories.

Question: If Musk��s embrace of rightwing politics cost him the support of liberals without picking up notable support from conservatives, did he basically drive Tesla sales into a proverbial ditch?

"We thought we might be on the precipice of EVs becoming a less polarized issue. However, that has not turned out to be true,�� says ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Amanda Carrico. (Photo: Dylan Calluy/Unsplash)

Carrico: I would not want to speculate on the underlying economics of Musk��s portfolio. A lot of his businesses are interconnected, and a lot of the technologies are interconnected.

But just purely looking at the impact of his political persona in relation to consumer interests in purchasing Teslas, and also the market data about purchasing Teslas, it does seem very clear that there is a decline in consumer interest in Teslas. Of course, business leaders and public figures make value judgments all the time, just like we all do. We don��t know if this decision (by Musk) was driven by economics or other factors. ��

I personally would stop short of making a judgment about whether that was a smart decision or an unwise one, but you can certainly see that relationship (Musk��s embrace of a conservative persona and a declining interest among liberals to buy Teslas) play out in our data and the market data that we were able to acquire during the project.

Question: Do you have thoughts as to whether Tesla could regain support, particularly support from liberals, if Musk either stepped away from his company or perhaps walked back some of his rightwing views?

Carrico: I think there are some insights we could look to, to make an educated hypothesis on what might happen there. I will say, I think once something becomes politically polarized, like becoming aligned with a political identity, it��s very hard to undo that. Politics are very sticky, so it becomes hard to shed that.

With consumer behavior, we have seen a lot of companies recover from these kinds of things. For example, Budweiser being boycotted several years ago in response to their alliance with a transgender influencer. That was different, though, because Budweiser wasn��t entering into the political arena.

This is a very different thing, with Musk being the figurehead of a company. Tesla is unique in how tied Musk is to Tesla. For comparison, I don��t know how many people in America could tell you who is the leader of Nissan or Suncor or other companies, but Musk is uniquely visible in his role with Tesla.

Question: Do you have any thoughts as to how other EV manufacturers should respond to the survey findings when it comes to branding or messaging?

Carrico: Clearly, liberals want to explore EVs. I think it��s clear that it��s aligned with their identity. One interesting thing in this study that was very surprising to us is that the disinterest in EVs that started to grow over the course of the study wasn��t just isolated to Teslas. We started to see it bleed over into interest in purchasing EVs in general.

I wondered if that wasn��t so much a rejection of EVs as a disinterest in one of the leading vehicles in the EV market. Teslas were considered state-of-the-art in many respects. The charging infrastructure for Teslas feels quite superior to other alternatives, so it does feel like there��s a consumer demand that��s not being met by other alternatives.

"Teslas were considered state-of-the-art in many respects. The charging infrastructure for Teslas feels quite superior to other alternatives, so it does feel like there��s a consumer demand that��s not being met by other alternatives," says Amanda Carrico, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ associate professor and department chair of environmental studies.

Of course, that��s easier said than done, but insofar as there are opportunities for other producers to fill this space��to offer purchasing opportunities that are not Tesla but that fulfill the same goals and amenities as Tesla offered��I think that��s a real opportunity, and I��m sure they are scrambling to take advantage of that.

Question: A number of media outlets have reported on the study��s findings. What kind of reaction has the paper been generating?

Carrico: It��s been very interesting because the reaction has depended heavily upon the political orientation of the news outlet, which is perhaps not surprising. If it was covered by a more liberal outlet��Mother Jones, for example��the main takeaway was, ��Look at Elon Musk. What a fool he was, shooting himself in the foot.��

Then if you look on the right��it��s been covered by Breitbart, for example��the narrative has been, ��Look at these liberals rejecting these products that solve the problem they care so much about,�� meaning climate change.

There��s been accurate depictions of the findings in the paper, but also it��s been interesting because anyone can take what they want out of the paper and spin it, or link it, to their political identity.

Question: Do you think this is a topic you and your co-authors will revisit, perhaps to see how opinions on EVs in general, and Teslas in particular, evolve over time?

Carrico: To be honest, we have not talked about it yet, but I would not be surprised if that happens. Writing papers like this, there��s a lot of work to get one completed, and the review process can be long and tedious. But the team (of co-authors) is still meeting, and so I anticipate that within the next few months we��ll be revisiting things, deciding what we want to focus on next and trying to understand how polarization impacts a range of behaviors.

There is an aspect of this project that is trying to understand things people do agree on. Specifically, where is there less polarization? Because those areas are appealing targets for public policy, with the idea (that) we can make progress on the areas we agree on and wait for things we don��t agree on to see if there��s opportunities in the future.

I hope that this moment fades, so that we can move away from this rancor around EVs. I��m really hopeful about the potential of decarbonization and how that is linked with a changing of the vehicle fleet (from combustion engine to EV), so I still think there��s a lot of potential there, and I��m hopeful we will still see some renewed interest in this technology. I think we will.

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Research co-authored by ��ƷSM��ӰƬ environmental psychologist Amanda Carrico finds CEO Elon Musk��s embrace of rightwing politics results in liberals being less willing to buy the EVs.

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Top photo: Dmitry Novikov/Unsplash

It��s not a glitch in the matrix, it��s a mathematical phenomenon

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 22:37:27 +0000

It��s not a glitch in the matrix, it��s a mathematical phenomenon Rachel Sauer Wed, 09/10/2025 - 16:37

Rachel Sauer

��ƷSM��ӰƬ applied mathematician Mark Hoefer and colleagues answer a longstanding question of how to understand tidal bores in multiple dimensions

The photos and videos were all over Chinese social media last autumn: a grid-like pattern that suddenly appeared in two colliding waves on the Qiantang River and looked��if you didn��t know better��like a glitch in the matrix.

This rare phenomenon, called a matrix tide, is caused by two tidal bores��or events in which the front edge of an incoming tide forms a wave that travels up a river against the current��approaching each other from different directions, colliding and forming a grid pattern.

It��s visually stunning and, until very recently, mathematically confounding. However, in newly published research, Mark Hoefer, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ professor and department chair of applied mathematics, and his research colleagues detail how they��ve cracked the mathematical code of matrix tides.

Mark Hoefer, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ professor and department chair of applied mathematics, and his research colleagues recently cracked the mathematical code of matrix tides.

Previously, matrix tides were only studied in one dimension but, because of their characteristics, needed to be studied in two. Adding that second dimension, however, required developing computationally intensive numerical simulations and the mathematics to interpret the results, building on the previous work of mathematicians Gerald B. Whitham, Boris Kadomtsev and Vladimir Petviashvili.

��There are certain equations that model how these waves change in time and space, and those equations simplify when you��re working with just one-dimensional waves,�� Hoefer explains. ��They start out as Euler equations, the partial differential equations of three-dimensional fluid dynamics��basic models in engineering and science broadly��and when you restrict shallow water waves to move in one dimension, they can essentially be simplified. In some cases, you can simplify them further to ordinary differential equations, which is something we teach in lower-division, fourth-semester calculus. They are much easier and accessible to analyze mathematically.

��When you add more dimensions, you��ll inherently get a partial differential equation in time and space, and, for the matrix tide that we studied, the equation will be nonlinear and not reducible to an ordinary differential equation. Nonlinear means that the nature of the waves you see��how fast they move, their shape and the patterns they make��all depend on how big they are. These are all factors that challenge the mathematical analysis of the patterns in these multidimensional, nonlinear waves.��

Studying the matrix tide

In some truly propitious timing, Hoefer and his colleagues Gino Biondini and Alexander Bivolcic at the University of Buffalo had been working on the question of multidimensional, nonlinear waves when Hoefer's wife, Jill, showed him a video that his mother-in-law had sent.

��I started this research because the general field of study I work in is waves,�� Hoefer says, adding that he studies waves in a variety of applications, including the types whose expression can be seen in undular bores, which are tidal bores with smooth, wave-like profiles. ��Waves like undular bores arise in a variety of physical settings��from waves in water, air, light and even matter in quantum mechanics��and the fundamental mathematical reason why that��s the case is that all of them are modeled by similar partial differential equations.��

For a long time, the study of these wave phenomena focused on analyzing them in one dimension, in which they move in one direction and there��s no variation in the perpendicular or transverse direction. ��But my colleagues and I recognized that we really needed to extend their mathematical description to more than one dimension because the world is multidimensional,�� Hoefer says.

A numerical simulation of the matrix tide.

So, the researchers began studying undular bores in two dimensions. They had made good progress and had core results by fall 2024, which is when Hoefer��s mother-in-law sent an Instagram video to his wife, saying, ��These waves are so cool, you��ve got to show Mark!�� he recalls. ��I thought, ��Whoa, this is awesome!�� I immediately realized, ��Oh, these are the waves we��re predicting in our mathematical analysis.��

Hoefer contacted former ��ƷSM��ӰƬ applied mathematics PhD student Yifeng Mao, now a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and who is from China, and asked her to help him get to the bottom of the images and videos he was seeing on social media. She discovered that a tide association for the Qiantang River completed a tidal survey last fall, adding a new tide type to the eight previously identified ones. Piecing together that and other data, Hoefer and his colleagues identified the multidimensional waves they had been studying as what was seen on the river��s surface in the matrix tide.

Expanding the model

Among the challenges in studying waves in undular bores is that while certain physical effects can be disregarded at the outset when studying other types of waves, they must be considered with undular bores, Hoefer says. For example, when the wave oscillations are short enough, gravity causes them to move slower than longer waves. This effect, called negative wave dispersion, can be set aside in the mathematical analysis of longer waves because there are principles that account for it.

��In this setting, though, those effects are things we can��t neglect in our first pass-through,�� he says. He and his colleagues used a supercomputer at the University of Buffalo��s Center for Computational Research and graphical processing units to run many wave simulations in a few hours that would each take a day on a regular computer.

A simulation of the Mach stem and colliding undular bores.

They used shallow-water wave models, in which fluid depth is much less than the horizontal wavelength. ��Counterintuitively, shallow water models can apply even in the open ocean,�� Hoefer says. ��The reason is when you have something like a tsunami, where an earthquake suddenly shifts the ocean bottom and displaces huge amounts of water at the surface, it generates a wave that can be many, many miles wide. Fishermen may be on their boat and not know that a 200-mile wavelength wave is passing under them. There, the tsunami wave is so long that dispersion can be neglected. It��s only when it gets close to shore and the depth gets lower that the waves shorten, compressing the energy and creating destructively large waves. So, the same kind of dispersive wave model that describes near-shore tsunamis is what we used to describe this bore.��

Hoefer and colleagues�� mathematical analysis of two obliquely colliding undular bores predicts that, for a special collision angle, the biggest waves in the matrix tide are eight times the size of the original waves: ��This critical angle prediction was borne out in our wave simulations and marks a fundamental change in the shape of the waves from a matrix tide to another pattern called a Mach stem,�� he says.

Hoefer adds that the applications to describing these waves in more than one dimension extend beyond the surface of water��to fiber and crystal optics, quantum mechanical Bose-Einstein condensates and magnetic materials, meteorology and other applications.

��We have a number of directions to go,�� Hoefer says. ��We are looking for examples of the Mach stem from colliding undular bores. Maybe this will be the tenth tide type discovered during the next river survey.��

On the mathematical modeling, Hoefer adds that the model he and his colleagues used "is what we would consider in the field to be the simplest model to describe this setting. Another thing we assumed was that the waves are not too big, so they��re not breaking. But if you look at the Instagram videos of this phenomenon, you see them break. Another assumption we make in this model is that the variation in the direction that is transverse to wave propagation is not too large, so we want to quantify what that means and see if there are any other possible wave patterns.

��There are these assumptions in the model, so we want to gradually start adding more terms to the equations representing more physics and allow for more complications to see if new things happen. This will make the mathematics harder, but the challenge and reward of predicting new physical phenomena from mathematical models is why I keep doing applied math research.��

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ applied mathematician Mark Hoefer and colleagues answer a longstanding question of how to understand tidal bores in multiple dimensions.

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Top photo: the grid pattern of a matrix tide (Photo: �� Creative Commons)

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave?

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 23:38:52 +0000

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave? Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/09/2025 - 17:38

Cody DeBos

��ƷSM��ӰƬ graduate student researcher Jacob DeRosa delves into the brain��s ability to remove unwanted thoughts

Imagine trying to fall asleep, but your brain won��t cooperate. You tell yourself to let go of the embarrassing conversation from earlier in the day that keeps looping through your head, for example, but you can��t stop thinking about it.

Why are some thoughts so hard to dismiss?

It��s a question ��ƷSM��ӰƬ psychology and neuroscience graduate student Jacob DeRosa has been pondering for years. Now, with a newly published study in NeuroImage. Clinical, DeRosa and his co-researchers may be closer than ever to understanding what makes some brains better at letting go of unwanted thoughts��and why other brains tend to get stuck.

Jacob DeRosa, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ psychology and neuroscience graduate student, studies the question of why some thoughts are so hard to dismiss.

��Why is John really good at getting a thought out of his mind and going on with his day and I��m not?�� DeRosa says. ��This thought just seems to get stuck up in my head, and I��m thinking about it over and over and over again.��

That puzzle��why some people can suppress a thought and move on while others can��t��drove DeRosa to design a study that explores the neuroscience behind thought control.

The findings point to specific brain patterns and networks that may explain why some of us struggle to quiet our internal noise.

A question of control

Before tackling the nuances of thought control, DeRosa wanted to define what it actually means to ��control�� a thought. He and his team focused on four mental operations that are performed in working memory��the brain��s active thinking space.

The distinct tasks they studied included maintaining a thought, replacing it with a new one, suppressing it entirely or clearing the mind completely.

��What am I doing when someone tells me a phone number? Am I switching it with other information? Am I suppressing it? Or am I clearing my mind completely?�� DeRosa asks.

To get to the bottom of it, study participants were asked to view and manipulate words in their working memory while undergoing functional MRI scans. This allowed researchers to observe when different parts of the brain activate and determine whether those patterns vary between people with and without self-reported difficulties in controlling unwanted thoughts.

They found that participants who reported more trouble controlling their thoughts showed less distinct neural activity across the four control operations.

��We��re basically creating a map of the brain,�� says DeRosa, ��and we��re looking at, well, how organized are these networks when someone is removing information?��

Hoping to better understand which regions play a role in thought removal, the team started looking closer at how they were recruited during different operations.

��What we found is that people who are really good at controlling their thoughts have really distinct color patterns for each operation. People who aren��t have a similar color pattern across the four operations, which tells us there��s not a lot of distinct activity happening,�� DeRosa explains.

That lack of distinctness, when the brain isn��t clearly switching between tasks like suppression and replacement, could be why some people struggle to get rid of unwanted thoughts.

��It��s going to take some time to get more organization in your brain and get it working together to remove those thoughts, but it��s definitely possible,�� says ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Jacob DeRosa. (Photo: Pexels)

��There seems to be more of this blending across the brain in terms of what��s happening when someone is trying to remove a thought. What it tells us is that these individuals aren��t able to precisely implement a certain operation,�� he adds.

In other words, your brain might try to use the same mental tool for every task��like using a hammer for every job, when what you really need is a screwdriver.

But perhaps more importantly, DeRosa��s study found that this neural blending didn��t show up when people were at rest. It only emerged when they were actively engaged in trying to remove or control a thought.

DeRosa says the nuance matters.

��It��s not that people��s brains are just disorganized in general. It��s actually when it comes time to remove the information where we see them having a harder time,�� he notes.

Bridging brain scans and mental health

Although anyone can have difficulty controlling thoughts, it��s also a common symptom of a range of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). DeRosa believes that mapping out the brain mechanisms responsible for thought control can help researchers identify objective markers for these disorders and even ways to track how treatments are working.

��What��s nice about this initial study is that it gives us a baseline. Now we can begin to compare between high- and low-internalizing populations and eventually move on to even more specific psychiatric populations like depression, anxiety and PTSD,�� he says.

The good news for everyone is that thought control isn��t necessarily a fixed trait.

��Our biggest takeaway is that it��s possible for anyone to practice getting better at thought control. I think beginning to practice these operations when unwanted thoughts come in is helpful for people because they can begin to differentiate what��s working for them,�� says DeRosa.

That idea reframes thought control not as a matter of brute force willpower or something in our genetics. Rather, it��s a skill that can be trained and supported, whether through mindfulness, cognitive behavioral techniques, journaling or simply paying attention to what works for you.

For anyone who��s ever felt stuck in a spiral of unwanted thoughts, DeRosa��s research offers a glimpse of both clarity and hope. Of course, he also cautions that improvement doesn��t happen overnight.

��It��s going to take some time to get more organization in your brain and get it working together to remove those thoughts, but it��s definitely possible.��

Researchers Harry Smolker, Hyojeong Kim, Boman Groff, Jarrod Lewis-Peacock and Marie Banich also contributed to this study.

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ graduate student researcher Jacob DeRosa delves into the brain��s ability to remove unwanted thoughts.

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Weaving the rhythms of place and people

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 19:41:55 +0000

Weaving the rhythms of place and people Rachel Sauer Thu, 09/04/2025 - 13:41

��ƷSM��ӰƬ Professor Marcia Douglas brings the images and memories that fill her writing, as well as her love of language and words, to The Ampersand

Listen to The Ampersand

On the days the book bus visited, Marcia Douglas waited anxiously outside her school in Kingston, Jamaica��a school that had no library��imagining the stories she��d discover inside, so different from the encyclopedias she had at home.

Even with her nose in the pages, she came to associate the delight of reading with her mother's voice, the neighbors laughing, reggae in the air, a dog's bark, the chatter and din that didn��t distract her but became the sounds that filled her well of language.

Now an award-winning author and hybrid artist, the intimacy with which Douglas writes about her childhood home of Jamaica��the Bob Marley rhythms, the taste of tamarind and saltfish fritters, the holiness of a shoeshine��doesn��t so much pull readers along as immerse them in the journey.

Marcia Douglas is an award-winning author, hybrid artist and a college professor of distinction in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Department of English.

For Douglas, a college professor of distinction in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Department of English, the words, the stories and the process of writing them are joy. While many authors talk about the isolation and loneliness of writing, Douglas sits at her desk in full community with ancestors, memories and the characters that she spins from these spaces.

Douglas recently joined host Erika Randall, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ interim dean of undergraduate education and professor of dance, on "The Ampersand,�� a College of Arts and Sciences podcast. Randall and guests explore stories about ANDing as a ��full sensory verb�� that describes experience and possibility.

MARCIA DOUGLAS: As a writer, you plan certain things, and you have certain intentions of what you want to write. But in the end, I think that a lot of times, your characters emerge, and they tell you the story.

ERIKA RANDALL: They reveal.

DOUGLAS: Exactly. And that's part of the fun and the joy of writing a story��

RANDALL: Is listening to the story.

DOUGLAS: Right, listening to the story. Every day is a little bit of surprise when you return to it and you see where it's going, and that's how it emerges. That's how it comes along.

RANDALL: So, you've had this really incredible life with objects. And it feels primary in my research of you, and maybe not, but maybe-- because maybe it's one of the many threads of your stories. But I recalled you talking in an interview about how when you came from Jamaica to this country as a teenager, you had $10.

But what stood out to me was that your mother wrapped it in toilet paper. And it was the mention of the toilet paper that held me to your story and to the importance of what the thing was and what the thing wasn't. Can you talk to me about objects and their role in your life? And also, did you keep the toilet paper? You spent the $10. But the tissue��is it tucked in somewhere with the ticket, the return trip?

DOUGLAS: Right. I did not keep the toilet paper. The $10 got spent very quickly��

RANDALL: Yes, it did.

DOUGLAS: ��because that's all that I had. I think her impulse to wrap it in the toilet paper had to do with the fact that at the time, there was some government regulation that you were only allowed to take $50 US out of the country. And she had $10 U.S. That's all she had in U.S. money. So, she wrapped it in this piece of toilet paper safely, and that's what I had. And the ticket, I still have.

RANDALL: You do. Where does it live in your life?

DOUGLAS: The ticket is housed in a little file with important papers. And that was meant to be my return ticket to go home. But I ended up not returning home, and I was an undocumented immigrant for many years.

I kept the ticket, though, and I still have the ticket. When you're undocumented, every little bit of paper is important somehow. At least that was my experience.

RANDALL: It felt like safety? It felt like identity?

DOUGLAS: Yeah, identity and this need to hold on to something that you might need, and that somehow is evidence of your existence, that documents you, that does document you in a certain kind of way. So, I think that was part of it, holding on to this ticket even long after it had expired.

But it also��if I'm to be my own psychoanalyst, I would say that it had something to do with a reminder of where I started, where I was from. And even though the ticket has long expired, also a reminder that you can always return, in some kind of way.

Marcia Douglas won a Whiting Award in fiction for her novel "The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass Riddim."

RANDALL: And you do, in memory and in word.

DOUGLAS: Yes.

RANDALL: Is it easy for you to return to the characters, to the clock tower, to the tree that was imagined or real, to the language, to the rhythm, to tone? Are there places in your body that you hold those stories or those memories that are easy to return to? Or do you have to really go into a state, or do you go-- do you go back to Jamaica, visit, take in and then return to the page? How does that live with you? How does your past stay in your present?

DOUGLAS: Yeah, it's easy for me to return. You can't always return physically. But home is a physical place, but also a spiritual place as well. And it's a place inside of you. So, I return in that way. And writing for me is also a way of returning home. That's how I return home. That's how I go back to Half Way Tree and interact with all of those characters. That's me literally going home.

RANDALL: So, thank you for taking us with you so clearly. I mean, I have never been to Jamaica. And many of the stories I've heard are from Midwesterners who take trips for spring break, and it's a very different reality. You tell a story that is��or stories, plural, in your "Electricity"��that was your dissertation-- "Comes?" Can you say that full title? That was��

DOUGLAS: No, that wasn't my��

RANDALL: That was your first book of poetry.

DOUGLAS: It was my first book of poetry, ��Electricity Comes to Cocoa Bottom.��

RANDALL: So, there are stories there and poems there. And then in this, ��The Marvellous Equations of the Dread,�� that whole juxtaposition of a place and of home. So close that they are necessary, the beauty and the devastation that can come, the detail of what's left after a storm that makes one want to go, even though there's just been devastation. You hold all of those parts next to one another. Is that how it was for you growing up in Jamaica? That there's��everything is so close?

DOUGLAS: Growing up as a young person, I was always very observant, and--

RANDALL: You were a writer, or just a watcher?

DOUGLAS: I was a watcher, a writer in the making. I was a watcher. And I think��early on, you were talking about detail. And that's where my relationship to detail started, maybe, just by being a quiet child who would observe people and things and pay attention.

And so, I think that I was definitely a writer in the making because that's what you do as a writer, in part. You pay attention. That's really important. So yeah, that was my world. And I actually didn't grow up even with a lot of books.

RANDALL: You didn't?

DOUGLAS: No, I did not.

RANDALL: So, you didn't-- you mentioned in one interview, you didn't even know the job of being a writer was possible. You were pre-med, in your mind.

DOUGLAS: Right. Well, yeah, later on. But if I'm to push back further, to much younger days, I didn't grow up in a household with a lot of books. I remember we had a set of encyclopedias that my parents had bought, and I spent a lot of time with those encyclopedias.

RANDALL: That makes a lot of sense because you have this encyclopedic way of holding objects, story, detail, catalog. Did you just wear those out?

DOUGLAS: Yeah, those were my go-to spaces, the encyclopedias. And at the beginning of the school year, we always used to get a new set of books. And that always felt very precious, your new books at the beginning of the school year. But I didn't have a lot of just books around��

RANDALL: Fiction, story��

DOUGLAS: Yeah, that kind of thing. Every now and then, my parents might purchase a book for me or something like that. But I didn't have a lot of books. I remember when-- maybe from grade 1 through 3, I would say, or grades 1 through 4, I went to a school which didn't have a library, but what we had was��there was a mobile library truck.

RANDALL: Yes, I remember those. Yeah, we called it the bookmobile.

DOUGLAS: Yes. So, this was from the Jamaica Library Service, I suppose. And they came very intermittently, not very often at all, maybe once per term, as I recall. But it was always this big event. And you would get to pick out one book. The teacher would let you pick out one book.

RANDALL: How did you choose?

DOUGLAS: Yeah, but it was so exciting. And I also didn't feel deprived. I want to hasten to say that. I felt blessed and lucky that the library truck was coming and I would get to have a book. So that was one source of books for me. So, I didn't have a lot of reading material, but I loved to read, loved the language.

My other source of language for me would be from church. My father was a preacher, and he was also a roadside evangelist. And he would preach on street corners. And so I think listening to people like him was one of my language wells also. And all of this-- you don't know it at the time. But I look back.

RANDALL: Yeah, and then you go in and there it is.

DOUGLAS: Right, on my development of a writer. And that was definitely one of the pieces, listening to him read from the Bible. And he also wasn't a very good reader either. He used to struggle with it. But yeah-- so that was the writer in the making, I would say.

Listen to The Ampersand

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ Professor Marcia Douglas brings the images and memories that fill her writing, as well as her love of language and words, to The Ampersand.

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We��re still tasting the spice of 1960s sci-fi

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 13:00:00 +0000

We��re still tasting the spice of 1960s sci-fi Rachel Sauer Fri, 08/29/2025 - 07:00

Bradley Worrell

With this month marking Dune��s 60th anniversary, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ��s Benjamin Robertson discusses the book��s popular appeal while highlighting the dramatic changes science fiction experienced following its publication

Sixty years ago this month, a novel about a galactic battle over a desert planet valued for its mystical spice forever altered the face of science fiction.

Authored by Frank Herbert, Dune would go on to sell more than 20 million copies, be translated into more than 20 languages and become one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time, spawning several sequels and movie adaptions that have further boosted its popularity.

Benjamin Robertson, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ associate professor of English, pursues a research and teaching focus on genre fiction.

In retrospect, it��s hard to quantify how important Dune was to the genre of science fiction, says Benjamin Robertson, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Department of English associate professor whose areas of specialty includes contemporary literature and who teaches a science fiction class. That��s because the status Dune attained, along with other popular works at the time, helped transition science fiction from something that was primarily found in specialty magazines to a legitimate genre within the world of book publishing, he says.

Robertson says a number of factors made Dune a remarkable book upon its publication in August 1965, including Herbert��s elaborate world building; its deep philosophical exploration of religion, politics and ecology; and the fact that its plot was driven by its characters rather than by technology. Additionally, the book tapped into elements of 1960s counterculture with its focus on how consuming a spice harvested on the planet Arrakis could allow users to experience mystical visions and enhance their consciousness, Robertson says.

Journey beyond Arrakis with a different kind of dune

��There��s also the element of the chosen one narrative in the book, which is appealing to at least a certain segment of the culture,�� he says. The book��s protagonist, Paul Atreides, suffers a great loss and endures many trials before emerging as the leader who amasses power and dethrones the established authorities, he notes.

While Dune found commercial success by blending many different story elements and themes in a new way that engaged readers, it��s worthwhile to consider the book in relation to other works of science fiction being produced in the 1960s, Robertson says. It was during that turbulent time that a new generation of writers emerged, creating works very different from their predecessors in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, which is often considered the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Whereas many Golden Age science fiction writers tended to set their tales in outer space, to make technology the focus of their stories and to embrace the idea that human know-how could overcome nearly any obstacle, Robertson says many science fiction writers in the 1960s looked to reinvent the genre.

��The 1960s is probably when, for me personally, I feel like science fiction gets interesting,�� he says. ��I��m not a big fan of what��s called the Golden Age of Science Fiction��the fiction of Asimov or Heinlein. The ��60s is interesting because of what��s going on culturally, with the counterculture, with student protests and the backlash to the conformities of the 1950s.��

New Wave sci-fi writers make their mark

In 1960s Great Britain, in particular, writers for New Worlds science fiction magazine came to be associated with the term New Wave, which looked inward to examine human psychology and motivations while also tackling topics like sexuality, gender roles and drug culture.

��This new generation of writers grew up reading science fiction, but they were dissatisfied with both the themes and the way it was written,�� Robertson says. ��One of the New World��s most notable writers, J.G. Ballard, talked about shifting away from, quote-unquote, outer space to inner space.

��That dovetailed with other writers who weren��t necessarily considered New Wave but were writing soft science fiction that was not focused on technology itself��such as space ships and time travel��but more about exploring the impact of technologies on humanity and on how it changes our relationship with the planet, the solar system and how we relate to each other.��

New Wave authors also wrote about world-ending catastrophes, including nuclear war and ecological degradation. Meanwhile, many British New Wave writers were not afraid to be seen as iconoclasts who challenged established religious and political norms.

��Michael Moorcock, the editor of New Worlds, self-identified as an anarchist, and Ballard was exemplary for challenging authority in his works. He was not just interested in saying, ��This form of government is bad or compromised, or capitalism is bad, but actually the way we convey those ideas has been compromised,�� Robertson says. ��It wasn��t enough for him to identify those systems that are oppressing us; Ballard argued we have to describe them in ways that estranges those ideas.

��And that��s what science fiction classically does��it estranges us. It shows us our world in some skewed manner, because it��s extrapolating from here to the future and imagining ��what might a future look like that we couldn��t anticipate, based upon the situation we are in now.��

American science fiction writers might not have pushed the boundaries quite as far their British counterparts, Robertson says, but counterculture ideas found expression in some literature of the time. He points specifically to Harlan Ellison, author of the post-apocalyptic short story ��I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,�� who also served as editor of the sci-fi anthology Dangerous Visions, a collection of short stories that were notable for their depiction of sex in science fiction.

Robertson says other American sci-fi writers of the time who embraced elements of the counterculture include Robert Heinlein, whose Stranger in a Strange Land explored the concept of free love, and Philip K. Dick, who addressed the dangers of authority and capitalism in some of his works and whose stories sometimes explored drug use, even as the author was taking illicit drugs to maintain his prolific output.

Meanwhile, Robertson notes that science fiction during the 1960s saw a more culturally diverse group of writers emerge, including Ursula K. Le Guin, the feminist author of such works as The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven; Madeliene L��Engle, known for her work A Wrinkle in Time; and some lesser-known but still influential writers such as Samuel R. Delaney, one of the first African American and queer science fiction authors, known for his works Babel-17 and Nova.

At the same time, even authors from behind eastern Europe��s Iron Curtain were gaining recognition in the West, including Stanislaw Lem of Poland, author of the novel Solaris, and brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in the Soviet Union, authors of the novella Ashes of Bikini and many short stories.

Impact of 1960s sci-fi remains long lasting

As the 1960s and 1970s gave way to the 1980s, a new sci-fi genre started to take hold: Cyberpunk. Sharing elements with New Wave, Cyberpunk is a dystopian science fiction subgenre combining advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, with societal collapse.

Robertson says the 1984 debut of William Gibson��s book Neuromancer is widely recognized as a foundational work of Cyberpunk.

While works of 1960s science fiction are now more than five decades old, Robertson says many of them generally have held up well over time.

��Dune definitely broke out into the mainstream��and the fact that Hollywood is continuing to produce movies based upon the book today says something about its staying power,�� he says. ��I think the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, particularly the Left Hand of Darkness, is a great read and a lot of fun to teach. And Philip K. Dick is always capable of shocking you, not with gore or sex but just with narrative twists and turns.��

If anything, Dick is actually more popular today than when he was writing his books and short stories back in the 1960s, Robertson says, pointing to the fact that a number of them have been made into films��most notably Minority Report and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which was re-titled Blade Runner).

��At the same time, I think one of the dangers of science fiction is thinking what was written in the 1960s somehow predicts what happens later,�� Robertson says. ��It can look that way. But, as someone who values historicism, I think it��s important to think about cultural objects in the time they were produced. So, the predictions that Philip K. Dick was making were based upon the knowledge he had in the 1960s, so saying what happened in the 1980s is what he predicted in the 1960s isn��t strictly accurate, because what was happening in the 1980s was coming out of a very different understanding of science, of politics and of technology.

��What I always ask people to remember about science fiction is that it��s about more than the time that it��s written about��it��s about what the future could be, not about what the future actually becomes.��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about English? Show your support.

With this month marking Dune��s 60th anniversary, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ��s Benjamin Robertson discusses the book��s popular appeal while highlighting the dramatic changes science fiction experienced following its publication.

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Top illustration: Gary Jamroz-Palma

New exhibit celebrates ceramics at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 23:09:59 +0000

New exhibit celebrates ceramics at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Rachel Sauer Wed, 08/27/2025 - 17:09

Rachel Sauer

Opening Sept. 5 at the CU Art Museum, ��Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020�� focuses on themes including the environment, domesticity and rituals of home and material connections

The joy��and sometimes frustration��of ceramics may be found in its contradictions: its fragile strength, its rough refinement, its elastic rigidity. Drop it and it might shatter, or it might survive millennia.

��It��s a material that��s about so much transformation,�� says Jeanne Quinn, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ professor of art and art history. ��It goes from being very plastic and malleable to something that��s more like stone. And embedded in ceramics is all kinds of material meaning. Our students who are trained in ceramics are really trained to dig into technical mastery with the material but also dig into how you find meaning in the material itself, how you��re using the material as metaphor.��

Myers Berg Studios, United States, ��in plain sight, 2025, ceramic, maple, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec.19, 2025. (Photo Rachel Sauer; ? Myers Berg Studios)

For students in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ ceramics program, the material also represents connection to an artistic lineage that has grown in breadth and renown through successive cohorts. It is a lineage nurtured by ceramics faculty Quinn, Scott Chamberlin and Kim Dickey, who have been teaching together and broadening the program for 25 years.

It is the length of those associations, in fact, that planted the seed of what has grown into the exhibit ��Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020,�� kicking off with an opening celebration Sept. 4 at the CU Art Museum and opening to the public Sept. 5.

��CU has a really long history of investing in ceramics and having a very strong ceramics program,�� Quinn explains. ��Kim (Dickey) had this idea that it��s our silver anniversary of teaching together, we have this incredible group of alumni, so many amazing artists who have come through, as undergrads, as post-bacs and as grad students, so we should create an exhibit to celebrate that.��

A ceramic tradition

��ƷSM��ӰƬ has long championed the arts and supported artists, including ceramic artists who have created a student-focused program that prioritizes learning, technical mastery and artistic exploration. The ceramic program was significantly bolstered by Betty Woodman, an internationally renowned artist whose 2006 retrospective show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was the first such show by a living female ceramicist, and who taught at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ for 30 years.

Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020

What: The ��ƷSM��ӰƬ ceramics program is celebrating its history with faculty Scott Chamberlin, Kim Dickey, and Jeanne Quinn. To honor the achievements of artists who graduated from this program, faculty curators are partnering with the CU Art Museum to present a retrospective exhibition.

When: Opening celebration Sept. 4 from 4�C6 p.m.; exhibit opens to the public Sept. 5-Dec. 19. There will be an all-day symposium celebrating the exhibit Sept. 5.

Where: CU Art Museum

Learn more

Chamberlin was a colleague of Woodman, and Quinn was a student of both Woodman and Chamberlin before joining the ceramics faculty in 1997.

��In this program, there is a real commitment to ceramics and its incredibly rich history,�� Quinn says. ��Every civilization from the beginning of time has had ceramics, so it��s an incredible kind of medium to work with and have the opportunity to reference all that. But I also feel like we have a very non-dogmatic approach to teaching��there��s so much history, but also so much space for experimentation and invention.

��Ceramics is a very demanding material. Anybody who��s ever sat down and tried to throw a pot on the wheel realizes oh, you don��t just toss this off. Every step requires real skill, real technical skill, but we��ve worked to build a program where students receive this amazing education in learning how to learn and learning how to grapple with the material and how the material can offer so many different avenues of expression.��

Erica Green, a post-baccalaureate student in the program between 2011 and 2013 and one of the exhibit��s 30 featured artists, credits the ceramics program��s emphasis on exploration with helping her forge her path as an artist.

��Ceramics is always my first love, but the nice thing about this department is you��re encouraged to follow the idea and not just the material,�� Green says. ��One of my professors in the program suggested I set clay to the side and focus on fiber and being more in tune with the material.��

Green��s work in the exhibit, ��California King,�� centers on a bed covered in a blanket of knotted felt and wool-blend fibers. ��I work a lot in knots as a metaphor for mending and repair and healing.��

Artist Lucero Aguirre, who earned an MFA in the ceramics program, created the quilted tapestry ��Mije�� to include thousands of iridescent ceramic sequins��bringing together ��the spaces of brownness and queerness in its sequined message,�� Aguirre explains. ��The term ��mije�� is a gender-neutral version of the often-used Spanish term of endearment ��mija,�� or daughter.��

In transforming ��mija�� into ��mije,�� Aguirre considers the ��affective labor of navigating brownness as a queer subject. The piece responds to the way that intimacy is often gendered in Mexican and Latine spaces, leaving queer Latine bodies at once inside and outside.��

Erica Green assembles her work "California King" (2022, knotted fibers on mattress) for the "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020" exhibit opening Sept. 5 at the CU Art Museum. (Photo Rachel Sauer; ? Erica Green)

��You can do anything with clay��

Quinn emphasizes that even though the exhibit celebrates the ceramics program, it also includes textiles, video works, photography, live performances and other media. ��(The exhibit) runs the gamut of materials, but the unifying piece is that you can see that sense of commitment to the craft, to really handling a material with authority and also expressing something beyond the material.��

The hardest part, she adds, was choosing exhibit participants ��because we��re in touch with all of these alumni, we��re following what they��re doing, they��re sending us updates.��

At the same time the exhibit participants were being chosen, Quinn and her colleagues were working with CU Art Museum staff to envision and plan the exhibit��a time-intensive but rewarding process, says Hope Saska, CU Art Museum acting director. Saska also partnered with Quinn, Dickey and Chamberlin to organize an all-day symposium September 5 celebrating the exhibit; it will include performances, conversations and in-gallery artist talks.

��You say ceramics and people have this idea of, ��Oh, you��re making pots on the wheel,�� Quinn says. ��And ceramics certainly fits in this kind of lane, that is absolutely part of what we teach. But you also have an artist like Casey Whittier, who made thousands of ceramic beads and then strung them together into this gorgeous textile piece that hangs on a wall. Casey has taken ceramics, which you might think of as fixed and static, and then created this piece that hangs and moves and is as much a textile as it is ceramics.

��So, we want people to come to the exhibit, and especially we want students to think, ��Oh, you can do anything with clay.��

Lucero Aguirre, mije, 2024, handmade and lustered ceramic sequins, thread and batting and fabric, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; ? Lucero Aguirre)

Linda Nguyen Lopez, United States (1981), Gummy Worm, Ombre Dust Furry, 2021, porcelain, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer, ? Linda Nguyen Lopez)

Joanna Powell, United States (1981), Flower Vessel no. 1, 2019, earthenware, majolica, gold luster, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec. 19, 2025. (Photo Rachel Sauer; ? Joanna Powell)

Sandra Trujillo, United States (1967), Mosaic - Yellow, 2024, Mexican Smalti (glass), Wedi (polystyrene board), wood, steel, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; ? Sandra Trujillo)

Julie Poitras Santos, United States (1967), The Conversation, 2019, single channel video, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; ? Julie Poitras Santos)

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Opening Sept. 5 at the CU Art Museum, ��Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020�� focuses on themes including the environment, domesticity and rituals of home and material connections.

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Matthew McConnell, United States (1979), Didn��t Miss a Thing, 2023, dark stoneware, twine and twist ties on steel panels, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec. 19, 2025. (Photo Rachel Sauer; ? Matthew McConnell)

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Top image: Matthew McConnell, "Didn��t Miss a Thing," 2023, dark stoneware, twine and twist ties on steel panels, "Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000�C2020," CU Art Museum, Sept. 5�CDec. 19, 2025. (Photo: Rachel Sauer; ? Matthew McConnell)

��ƷSM��ӰƬ scholar helps unite Navajo culture and modern science

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 22:43:38 +0000

��ƷSM��ӰƬ scholar helps unite Navajo culture and modern science Rachel Sauer Tue, 08/26/2025 - 16:43

Cody DeBos

Kelsey John��s Navajo-centered Horses Connecting Communities initiative offers culturally relevant, practical education about horses

When Kelsey John left Oklahoma to pursue her PhD in New York, she quickly started missing a central piece of her lifestyle: horses. Raised in an environment rooted in horse culture, John��s life is deeply intertwined with the animals.

��I am a citizen of the Navajo Nation, and I am a lifelong horse person,�� she says. ��Both sides of my family had horses in their background, so I grew up with a lot of exposure to them and education about them.��

As she studied away from home, Kelsey John, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ assistant professor of ethnic studies, felt a strong pull to return home and rediscover the close relationship with horses she once had.

As she studied away from home, John, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ assistant professor of ethnic studies and Center of the American West affiliate, felt a strong pull to return home and rediscover the close relationship with horses she once had. That realization inspired her doctoral research and gave birth to a community organization centered on the profound bonds between humans, horses and the environment. Ultimately, it led her back to her community to spearhead a unique initiative called Horses Connecting Communities.

Blending cultural traditions and modern science

Originally started as a one-day conference, Horses Connecting Communities quickly became a cherished gathering, providing Navajo people with culturally relevant and practical education about horses.

��The goal was to kind of braid those things together and just make it a really Navajo-centered event for the needs of the Navajo people and their horses. That��s where it all started, and it��s grown since then,�� John says.

Events hosted by the organization typically include speakers, demonstrations, and hands-on workshops on horse care, training and veterinary skills. They are often led by Navajo experts like John, who return to their community to share their specialized knowledge.

��We��ve also partnered with a different camp that��s been happening on the Navajo Nation for over 10 years now called Song of the Horse Camp, which is organized by the folks at the University of Arizona,�� says John.

��Since we partnered with them, we��ve been able to introduce more equine facilitated learning, which helps either youth or adults with academic skills, life skills, personal communication, confidence building, body language awareness �� all these different interpersonal and personal skills in a new and different way,�� she adds.

Horses, land and Navajo identity

At the heart of Horses Connecting Communities is the understanding that horses, land and Navajo cultural identity are inseparable.

��Something really unique about horses is that, in order to have a relationship with them, you��re kind of inevitably having a relationship with the land as well,�� says John. ��Because we are an indigenous community, we have a deep relationship with our ancestral land.��

She also emphasizes how Navajo traditions and modern equine science are not opposing ideas, but natural complements to each other.

��There is a great effort among the horse community in the Navajo Nation to understand and integrate our cultural beliefs with the best and most current science,�� John explains. ��I��ve had the huge privilege of being able to work with lots of professionals who are also tribal members so they can personally and in a communal way integrate tradition with relevant science.��

��There is a great effort among the horse community in the Navajo Nation to understand and integrate our cultural beliefs with the best and most current science,�� says ��ƷSM��ӰƬ scholar Kelsey John. (Photo: Kelsey John)

Working ��with,�� not ��on��

John��s approach to relationship building through Horses Connecting Communities emphasizes the ethical necessity of working hand-in-hand with indigenous communities rather than just researching them. Her organization exemplifies this with a collaborative and sustained partnership that is directly shaped by the Navajo people��s needs and aspirations.

��The idea is making your research relevant and useful to the community and keeping that ongoing relationship and ongoing presence,�� she says.

But community partnerships can still be complex, John acknowledges.

��There��s always going to be a power differential between a university��even a university researcher such as myself��and a community. You��re always dealing with power and access to resources and sometimes even conflicting ideas of what��s beneficial.��

Yet, despite these challenges, the rewards of genuine community-based collaboration inspire John to keep coming back for more.

��It��s been almost nine years now since I started my research, but I still work with a lot of the same people that I worked with for the first Horses Connecting Communities event. We��ve brought in new people and changed our programming and are always evaluating if what we��re doing is relevant,�� she says.

John adds, ��But it always goes back to what I learned in that initial research about what the horse means to the people, what they want, and what are the challenges they��re facing, then finding ways to support that.��

Looking ahead

Thanks to recent support in the form of a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ PACES Grant, Horses Connecting Communities will further explore equine facilitated learning tailored to the Navajo community.

��We want to understand what the needs of the tribe are and if they can be met through this unique educational approach,�� John says.

She is also excited about organizing specialized events for Navajo women that recognize culturally significant beliefs about their relationships with animals and the land.

John��s ultimate aspiration, however, goes beyond education and research. She hopes her initiative will inspire a deeper appreciation for horses, their care and the Navajo people��s enduring relationship with these animals.

��The big thing is to really be aware of the legacy and the significance of the horse and the people��s relationship with the horse��and the land, too,�� she concludes. ��There��s such a long history there, and I��m so glad to be a part of the larger narrative about horses.��

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Kelsey John��s Navajo-centered Horses Connecting Communities initiative offers culturally relevant, practical education about horses.

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