Events › AZ Speaks - Thinking About the American Southwest

For many of us, the American Southwest is distinctive because of its landscape, culture, and history. We see, for instance, its mountains, deserts, and canyons. We are aware of its diverse cultures. And we have some understanding of the Indigenous, Mexican, and U.S. histories that have brought us to the present moment. But a careful examination of these taken-for-granted features reveals that there is more than meets the eye. Beneath this surface we find that the American Southwest is as much a product of the imagination as it is a geographical fact. 

In this presentation we take insights from the field of cultural geography to consider how the Southwest came to be a distinctive region both on the ground and in our minds, and we question whether these distinctive landscapes conceal as much as they reveal about our southwestern society.

Presented by Dr. Scott Warren