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Noon Talk: Digital Mourning: Memorializing Deaths in the Sonoran Desert 

Alyssa Quintanilla, David J. Weber Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America
12 noon to 1 PM
The Texana Room, Fondren Library, 6404 Robert S. Hyer Lane, SMU

The weaponization of the Sonoran Desert is central to the 1994 U.S. immigration policy Prevention through Deterrence as means of not only endangering migrants, but effectively erasing their deaths. In this talk I explore how artists and activists have turned to digital methods to memorialize migrant deaths as a means of visibility, remembrance, and resistance.

Alyssa Quintanilla is this year’s David J. Weber Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America. She received her PhD in Critical and Cultural studies from the University of Pittsburgh in 2021 and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the United States Naval Academy (USNA). Her research focuses on mourning and memorials in the United States-Mexico borderlands, materiality, and visual culture. During her time at the Clements Center, Alyssa will finish work on her first book, currently entitled, “Markers, Monuments, Memorials in the United States-Mexico Borderlands.” 

Free and open to the public.  No reservations necessary.  Questions? Email swcenter@smu.edu.