Soundtracks Far & Wide: Faculty Guest DJs on KXCI

Fridays in October @ 5PM

Borderlands, surprises, myths and horrors. Humanities professors will join KXCI Community Radio host Hannah Levin throughout October as guest DJs during The Home Stretch. Each professor will select a topic to discuss and play related songs, illuminating their own research and teaching and demonstrating the wide-ranging impact of the humanities.

Oct. 10 – Lillian Gorman, Spanish & Portuguese
Oct. 17 – Dorrance Dean A-P Durand, College of Humanities
Oct. 24 – Rob Stephan, Religious Studies & Classics
Oct. 31 – DeAnna Daniels, Africana Studies

Midautumn Wellness with Author Lisa See and Dr. Andrew Weil

Saturday, October 4 @ 3:30PM
Location: Tucson Chinese Cultural Center, 1288 West River Road

$50 per person | Register Here

The College of Humanities Department of East Asian Studies is proud to support this special Tucson Chinese Cultural Center event with New York Times bestselling author Lisa See. Inspired by the journey of her great-grandfather Fong See, Lisa See has spent her career exploring Chinese and Asian cultures. LADY TAN’s CIRCLE OF WOMEN chronicles the life of a real Ming Dynasty female physician. The story and the research are fascinating. Program includes author discussion, a light dinner with guest menu by Dr. Andrew Weil, and book-signing.

Tibetan Sand Mandala by Lama Losang Samten

Opening Ceremony: October 12 @ 11AM
Public Viewings: October 13 – 17 @ 9AM – 12PM and 3–6PM
Dissolution Ritual: October 18 @ 2PM
Location: Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, 1502 E Mabel St

The Arizona Friends of Tibet invite you to witness the creation of a sand mandala on the U of A campus. The mandala is a Tibetan Buddhist ritual artform that helps viewers to envision enlightenment. Venerable Lama Losang Samten will create the intricate and colorful patterns of the mandala over the course of several days. When he is done, he will conduct a dissolution ritual at which the mandala will be destroyed as a meditation upon impermanence. The particular mandala to be created at U of A is the Kalachakra or “Wheel of Time,” regarded as an especially powerful tool for healing and transformation and transmitted to Buddhist practitioners across the world.

Presented in collaboration with the College of Humanities Center for Buddhist Studies, Health Humanities Hub, Department of Religious Studies & Classics, Department of East Asian Studies, and the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine.

Film Screening: The Dalai Lama’s Gift

Thursday, October 16 @ 5:30 PM
Location: Gallagher Theater, Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E University Blvd

A hidden ritual. A sacred promise. A cornfield transformed. In 1980, His Holiness the Dalai Lama received a humble request from a simple monk in America: to perform the Kalachakra initiation—a powerful tantric ritual never before held outside of India or Tibet—in the heart of rural Wisconsin. Captured on film then locked away in Smithsonian vaults for over 40 years, this long-lost footage resurfaces to reveal a story of devotion, transformation, and a moment when time, space, and tradition converged in the unlikeliest of places. The Dalai Lama’s Gift (2024) is directed by Ed Bastian.

Conversation to follow screening, led by Professor Rae Dachille with Venerable Losang Samten, who appears in the film. Presented by the Department of Religious Studies & Classics.

Poetry Center Dream History Tours

Saturdays, October 25 and November 1 @ 11AM

Poet Mathias Svalina’s Dream Delivery Service takes subscribers and delivers daily dreams to your doors (by mail or messenger) for two weeks. The project is a “nomadic work of permeable poetic unconscious” that seeks to build a durational piece through daily connections that are, like dreams, silly, confusing, cathartic, and profound. Learn more about how to sign up for the Dream Delivery Service at poetry.arizona.edu.

Svalina will also lead Dream History Tours of Tucson, identifying sites of imaginary, unreal, and bewildered historical events, places where what did not or could not have happened happened. Be prepared for approximately two miles of walking. Rain or shine. Two Saturday tours are offered at 11AM on Oct. 25 starting at the Poetry Center and Nov. 1 starting at MOCA Tucson.

Spark! Places of Innovation

September 21 – November 1, Willcox Theater & Arts, Inc.

Spark! is a Smithsonian exhibition spotlighting stories of rural innovation, brought to Arizona through local museums, libraries, and cultural centers. Arizona towns will develop complementary exhibits, public programs, and educational resources that tell their local stories. Nearby Willcox is the featured exhibit host site for the month of October. Visit the AZ Humanities website for more information.