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25 years after 9/11: the persistence of stereotypes, the willingness to build understanding

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 19:42:01 +0000

25 years after 9/11: the persistence of stereotypes, the willingness to build understanding Rachel Sauer Thu, 09/10/2026 - 13:42

Bradley Worrell

In the weeks following 9/11, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� sociologist Lori Peek was in New York City hearing the stories of Muslim Americans navigating suspicion, hostility and questions of identity and belonging

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, as smoke rose from the burning World Trade Center and the United States struggled to comprehend an unprecedented terrorist attack, sociologist Lori Peek found herself asking a different question: Who would be hurt next?

At the time, Peek was a doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Natural Hazards Center, where she studied disasters and how they affect vulnerable communities. As the nation focused on the destruction of the World Trade Center and the thousands of lives lost, Peek recognized another crisis was unfolding at the same time: anti-Muslim sentiment was quickly spreading across the country.

For Peek, this issue was not simply academic. While pursuing her master’s degree, she became close friends with an Afghan American woman whose family arrived in the United States as refugees. As public mistrust and anger quickly intensified, Peek worried about her friend and others being viewed through the lens of fear and blame.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� researcher Lori Peek, director of the Natural Hazards Center, interviewed Muslims in New York City about anti-Muslim backlash after 9/11.

When her academic advisor informed her that she would be traveling to New York City to study the disaster, Peek already knew the topic she wanted to pursue. Rather than document the attack itself, she set out to record how Muslim Americans, particularly young, second-generation Muslims, were experiencing the nation’s response.

Those interviews eventually formed the foundation for her first book, Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans After 9/11. Peek says those interviews preserved the voices of people navigating anger, discrimination and uncertainty while insisting that the actions of a few religious extremists did not define their faith, their identities or their place in America.

As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches Friday, Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine spoke with Peek about what she learned in speaking with Muslim Americans immediately after the terrorist attacks and why she believes those lessons remain important today. The following interview was condensed and lightly edited for style.

Question: How did your research on the experiences of Muslim Americans following 9/11 come together?

Peek: Back in 2001, I was a PhD student in sociology, and I was working at the Natural Hazards Center here at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. Like the graduate students before me, I assumed I’d write a dissertation on natural hazards or disasters. That was one of the key expectations of being a research assistant here at the Center.

Then 9/11 happened. I came in that morning and my advisor, who was the director of the Natural Hazards Center at the time, looked at me and said, ‘I hope you know what you are going to do, because you’re going to New York City.’

As a sociologist, I was very interested in socially marginalized populations in disasters. That’s still my area of expertise. Even in that disaster, my immediate thought was, ‘Who is going to be hurt? What are the effects going to be for those who are already being blamed?’

Did 9/11 fundamentally reinvent U.S. policy in the Middle East? No, says ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� historian John M. Willis, a scholar of the modern Middle East. In fact, "promoting democracy or human rights has never been a priority for the U.S. in the Middle East," he says.

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I was also influenced by my personal connections. When I was a master’s student, I had become close friends with an Afghan American woman, who wore the full head covering, whose family had come to America as refugees.

When 9/11 happened, and I had to figure out what to study, I brought together my scholarly commitment to understanding social inequality and vulnerability in disasters along with my personal care for people in the Muslim community.

Question: Did you experience difficulties in attempting to speak with Muslim Americans in the environment of distrust and suspicion following 9/11?

Peek: It took a lot of what we call ‘shoe leather sociology.’ It meant making calls, sending emails and traveling around and meeting people once I got to New York City. There were practical considerations about how to find people willing to talk. Muslim student associations were a great way to gain access to groups of young, second-generation Muslim Americans, and then they helped me to meet other people.

Interviews Lori Peek conducted very soon after 9/11 built the foundation for her book Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans after 9/11.

As a non-Muslim, people are often curious about how I was received. I think there were a lot of reasons people were willing to speak with me. I was only 26 years old at the time, and so I was a similar age as my participants. We also shared the same status as students or recent graduates in the case of a few.

Once I got on the ground and started talking to people, they often said, ‘It’s a good thing you’re talking to me, because there’s no way my parents or grandparents would have ever talked to you.’ They were too scared.

In other instances, interviewees would tell me, ‘It helps that you’re not Muslim because we’re trying to explain that we’re not all terrorists, but when that message comes from us, people may dismiss it.’ If someone outside of the faith is willing to take the time to listen, that matters.

Question: What did Muslim Americans share with you about experiencing backlash after 9/11? Also, did they feel like they had experienced discrimination before 9/11?

Peek: Like many members of religious or ethnic minority communities, participants often had stories from before 9/11 about insensitive comments, misunderstandings or stereotypes. It wasn’t as though life had been completely free of those experiences. But they generally described those earlier incidents as ignorance or unfamiliarity with the Islamic faith.

After 9/11, the situation felt completely different. There was fear from the public, often stoked by the media, regarding people who were perceived to share the identity of those responsible for the attacks. … Some participants who had grown up in diverse communities and rarely felt singled out suddenly found themselves wondering whether they were being watched, targeted or even physically endangered. Those fears were quantitatively and qualitatively different from anything they had experienced before.

Question: Did young Muslim Americans’ experiences differ depending upon gender, race, ethnicity or other factors?

Peek: All of those things mattered. None of us have only one identity. At any given moment, multiple identities operate together. In my study, Muslim women often expressed greater fear of physical violence because they felt more vulnerable and were also more visible due to their headscarves.

In addition to gender, race, ethnicity and immigration history also mattered. For example, I interviewed some white converts to Islam who felt that being white offered certain protections, but those protections seemed to disappear once they put on a headscarf because the clothing is such a symbolic marker of the faith.

All of those identity characteristics matter, but after 9/11, there was also a strong unifying effect around the faith itself. In sociology, we talk about identity salience, the idea that identity under the greatest threat becomes the most important one. After 9/11, being Muslim became a highly stigmatized identity—and that identity was pushed to the forefront of many young Muslims’ lives.

Before 9/11, many participants told me they felt they could be both Muslim and American without contradiction. Afterward, some felt society was forcing them to choose. One participant told me, ‘If I’m going to have to choose, I’m going to choose to be Muslim.’ That shift was very real.

Question: Did the backlash after 9/11 change the ways in which young Muslim Americans thought about being American?

Peek: Absolutely. I interviewed 140 people for the study, and I’ve remained in contact with some of them over the years. The effects were profound.

For some, it changed their educational paths and careers. People switched majors, pursued international relations, entered public service or sought careers where they felt they could bridge cultures and make a difference.

It also influenced how they thought about belonging and integration. Historically, immigrants tend to assimilate more easily when they are not stigmatized. When communities remain under suspicion or attack, that process changes.

I observed that some participants became more committed to living in communities where they felt safe speaking their heritage languages or marrying within their faith. I didn’t study those choices systematically, but they were themes that emerged in people’s stories.

Even now, a generation later, younger Muslim Americans who read Behind the Backlash tell me the experiences still resonate. They may not have lived through 9/11, but they recognize some of the same dynamics.

"Before 9/11, many participants told me they felt they could be both Muslim and American without contradiction," says Lori Peek. "Afterward, some felt society was forcing them to choose." (Photo: Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tennessee)

Question: It sounds like, for at least some of the people you spoke with, they deepened their connection with their Muslim identity after 9/11?

Peek: Yes, absolutely. In my work, I describe three stages of identity development. First is an ascribed identity, the identity you are born into. Second is chosen or learned identity, where a person actively embraces and practices their faith. Then, after 9/11, many participants entered what I called the identity of crisis.

They didn’t suddenly become Muslim because of 9/11. They were already Muslim. But after the attacks, that identity became the most important and unavoidable part of how they experienced the world.

As a result, many increased their involvement with Muslim student associations, attended mosque more regularly when they felt safe doing so and sought out connections with other Muslims who understood what they were going through.

Understandably, during that time of upheaval they wanted community, support, information and solidarity. They also wanted to serve as a counterpoint to the stigmatizing narratives surrounding Islam and Muslims in the moment.

Question: Based upon what your extensive conversations with Muslim Americans after 9/11, what are a few of the top things you think are worth sharing?

Peek: First, the consequences of 9/11 have obviously been so enduring for so many people. The effects reach from geopolitics all the way down to individual lives. There is a reason we’re still talking about it decades later, and it is important to think about the many and varied consequences for so many people.

Second, I hope people understand the importance of listening to and learning from others. Many of the stereotypes participants faced didn’t begin with 9/11, but the attacks intensified them.

One thing that stood out to me was often Muslim women said, ‘Nobody is forcing me to wear this (the hijab). In fact, concerned family members immediately after 9/11 were telling me to take it off and I chose not to.’ Yet, even when they explained that repeatedly, they felt some stereotypes remained deeply embedded in public consciousness.

At the same time, I was struck by the grace many participants showed. They often felt that people were acting out of fear or misunderstanding rather than pure hatred. They wanted to educate, engage and correct misconceptions.

The persistence of stereotypes is also an important lesson, but so is the persistence of people’s willingness to build understanding despite them.

My study was just one within a much larger body of scholarship about 9/11, but I think the broader question it raises remains important: What happens when immigrant communities or minority communities come under suspicion or attack?

What interests me is not just the theory, but the lived experience. How are people affected? How do they respond? What does it mean for their daily lives?

The United States is an extraordinarily diverse country, and one of the enduring questions we continue to face is how hundreds of millions of people from different backgrounds can live together, understand one another and build a shared future? Those questions remain as important today as they were when I began this research.

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CU historian offers view on how 9/11 changed the Middle East

Brad Worrell — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:28:57 +0000

CU historian offers view on how 9/11 changed the Middle East Brad Worrell Wed, 09/09/2026 - 11:28

Bradley Worrell

Twenty-five years after the terrorist attacks, Middle East expert John M. Willis says 9/11 did not fundamentally reinvent U.S. policy in the region but it did remove political constraints and accelerate changes

If there is one misconception about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that University of Colorado Boulder historian John M. Willis would like to challenge, it is the idea that those attacks fundamentally reinvented U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Willis, whose research focus is on the modern Middle East, was living in Yemen on a Fullbright fellowship when the 9/11 attacks occurred. He recalls attending a town hall at the U.S. embassy a few days later, where he asked the ambassador if the U.S. would present its evidence for who it saw as being responsible for the attacks and if it would seek to build international community support for any actions it would take. He says the ambassador responded bluntly that the U.S. would not wait to respond.

That idea, as later articulated in more detail by the George W. Bush administration, was that the U.S. could react unilaterally—and preemptively—against any perceived threats, Willis says. Rather than following the established rules-based international order, Bush’s declaration put forth the idea “that the U.S. presented itself as above or beyond international laws,” he adds.

John M. Willis is a ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� history professor whose expertise is in the Middle East.

Officially, that represented a new policy for the U.S., but Willis says conservative think tanks had been laying the groundwork for such a change for at least two decades prior to the terrorist attacks.

‘Global War on Terror’

The first phase of the American response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and Pentagon in Washington, D.C., focused on Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had established its base under Taliban protection.

For many Americans, the invasion of Afghanistan appeared to have a clear objective: dismantle the organization responsible for the attacks and prevent future acts of terrorism. But Willis argues that the U.S. government’s response quickly expanded into something much broader.

He says the idea of a “Global War on Terror” evolved beyond al-Qaeda and became a framework for understanding a wide range of international challenges. Terrorism, he explains, became the central lens through which policymakers viewed the Middle East.

Willis says that broader approach helped pave the way for the 2003 invasion of Iraq—even though there was no evidence linking al-Qaeda and the Arab dictatorship.

Long before the 9/11 attacks, Willis says influential neo-conservatives associated with the Project for a New American Century had been advocating for a more muscular U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. After the first Gulf War, many prominent neo-cons argued that defeating Saddam Hussein’s regime would create a “massive domino effect in the Middle East that would lead to the emergence of liberal democracy, free market capitalism and so on,” Willis says.

He adds that neo-con ambitions did not end with Iraq, noting that in the months following 9/11 President Bush described America as being in conflict with an “Axis of Evil” that included Iran.

In the days following 9/11, Willis says using language like Axis of Evil and Global War on Terror made it nearly impossible for Americans to challenge the direction in which the country was headed.

How

How have anti-Muslim backlash and stereotypes affected Muslim Americans in the 25 years since 9/11? ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� researcher Lori Peek asks how a nation of hundreds of millions of people from different backgrounds can live together, understand one another and build a shared future.

Learn more

“If you think back to that period, it was really difficult to speak against this idea of the Global War on Terror. It was a really constrained rhetorical and political environment if you were opposed to U.S. military intervention,” he says.

Unintended rise of Iran

Perhaps one of the great ironies of the post-9/11 era, Willis says, is that efforts intended to strengthen American influence in the Middle East by overthrowing the Iraqi government instead helped Iran expand its power in the region.

The removal of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, eliminated one of the most important rivals of Iran, a Shia-majority country. In the political vacuum that followed, Shiite parties and movements—many of which had longstanding ties with Iran—gained prominence in Iraq, Willis says.

“By around 2003, when we have the first beginning of a democratic process in Iraq following the U.S. invasion, it was clear to every policy specialist that any new government would be dominated by Shiite political parties,” he says. Unfortunately for the United States, its leaders weren’t listening to what those policy specialists had to say at the time, he adds.

This development, Willis argues, illustrates the difficulty of predicting how major interventions will reshape regional politics.

Meanwhile, for Sunni-led Gulf monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, Iran’s strengthened position was a source of deep concern.

“The 1979 (Iranian) revolution was a popular revolution that unseated a monarch supported by the U.S.,” Willis says. “And in the 1980s, there were a number of local movements within the Gulf regimes’ own Shiite populations inspired by Iran, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. For the longest time, Gulf states had seen Iran as an exporter of revolution, so the rise of the Shiite-led government in Iraq made that threat palpable.”

Two key developments

Meanwhile, the U.S. was not the only government taking action in the Middle East following 9/11 in the name of combating terrorism. Willis says many Arab states quickly recognized that by presenting domestic opposition groups as terrorist threats they could justify crackdowns while avoiding international criticism.

“Effectively, it gave the green light to massive waves of repression across the region,” he says. “Gulf states could not only get U.S. support, but also military and financial aid to combat terrorism when it was, in effect, combating domestic enemies. So, it effectively worked against any form of democratic reform or democratic culture.”

The result, Willis contends, was the strengthening of authoritarian governments across the region.

Beyond the optics of standing with Arab governments pledging to fight terrorism, Willis says the U.S. was in no position to criticize those countries because it directly benefited from those relationships. Specifically, some Arab governments like Jordan helped the U.S. infiltrate al-Qaeda while others hosted CIA-operated “black sites” where security services sought to extract intelligence from al-Qaeda prisoners in ways that would have been illegal in the U.S.

Willis says one of the other key developments that indirectly resulted from 9/11 was that, with Iran’s increased influence in the region following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the existing relationship between Israel and the Gulf countries was effectively brought out into the open.

“I think the U.S. relationship has stayed roughly the same with the Gulf states, with minor exceptions, but I think it did help cement the relationship with Israel and the Gulf states,” he says.

The ‘Arab Spring’ challenge

If the 2003 Iraq War revealed the unintended consequences of intervention, Willis says the ‘Arab Spring’ that gained momentum in 2011 exposed the limitations of a regional order built primarily on security partnerships.

An Arab Spring protest in Egypt. The movement exposed the limitations of a regional order built primarily on security partnerships, says ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholar John M. Willis. (Photo: MidoSemsem/Shutterstock)

He argues that many U.S. leaders underestimated popular frustration throughout the Middle East. That’s because those leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, tend to equate a country’s leadership with its citizens, when none of the authoritarian governments in power are popular with their citizenry, he says.

In countries such as Tunisia and Egypt, mass movements demanded political reform, greater accountability and expanded economic opportunities. Protesters demonstrated that public opinion remained a powerful force despite oppression, Willis says.

He says the Obama administration had an opportunity to support the 2011 Egyptian revolution that supplanted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a historic ally of the U.S. and Israel, but opted not to. Instead, it tacitly endorsed the military coup in 2013 that removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power.

For Willis, the Arab Spring revealed a fundamental contradiction in U.S. policy.

“Promoting democracy or human rights has never been a priority for the U.S. in the Middle East. It simply hasn’t,” he says bluntly. “If we go to the post-World War II period, when we really see the emergence of the U.S. role in the Middle East, it was about Cold War alliances and concerns; it was the domination of energy resources and military alliances meant to marginalize the allies of the Soviet Union in the region. Post-1967, it was about the strong alliance with Israel more than anything. So, we really don’t see a concerted effort to promote democracy or human rights.”

Willis says he believes U.S. policymakers still have not learned the lesson that security arrangements with Arab governments could prove fragile when the underlying grievances of those countries’ citizens remain unresolved.

A legacy still unfolding

More than two decades after 9/11, Willis believes the consequences of America’s actions after the terrorist attacks continue to shape the Middle East.

He is not confident that the U.S. has learned any lessons from its past military intervention in the region based on the Trump administration’s decision earlier this year to join Israel in launching a sneak attack on Iran, seeking to overthrow the Islamic republic’s government by eliminating its top leadership.

Willis says such an action reflects a mindset that has persisted since 9/11: that American military power alone can successfully manage the Middle East’s most difficult challenges. He warns that, historically, such confidence has often produced outcomes very different from those that policymakers originally intended.

Meanwhile, the idea of a Global War on Terror has not gone away—and the repercussions of that exist far beyond the Middle East, according to Willis.

“I think one thing we have not fully contended with here is we’re seeing the growing surveillance state and much harsher responses to civil disobedience and protest,” he says. “It is something that has grown out of this idea of a Global War on Terror, which becomes existential in a way that a war between countries can’t, because it’s not geographically bounded. Terror can exist everywhere and anywhere. It can exist outside the U.S. and in the most American places in the North American continent. I think that still lives with us in the most unfortunate way.”

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Twenty-five years after the terrorist attacks, Middle East expert John M. Willis says 9/11 did not fundamentally reinvent policy in the region but did remove political constraints and accelerate changes.

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Firefighter deaths afflict surviving colleagues, research finds

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 23:06:28 +0000

Firefighter deaths afflict surviving colleagues, research finds Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/08/2026 - 17:06

Researcher Robert Scott recommends expanded mental-health training, stronger support systems after fatalities and improved benefits for private-sector firefighters.

Clint Talbott

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� sociologist shines light on understudied area of wildfire research: how wildland firefighting fatalities affect the people on the front lines

Robert Scott started fighting wildfires so he could pay for college. While conducting graduate-level research in 2013, the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona overran and killed 19 firefighters in one of the deadliest wildfires in U.S. history.

At the time, Scott was researching how firefighters' perceptions of risk change over time. But in the wake of the Yarnell Hill tragedy, the topic felt much more personal.

“I had seen how that was affecting my crew members, how it was affecting me,” he says. Describing this as a pivotal event, Scott resolved to focus his PhD research on firefighters’ responses to their colleagues’ deaths.

Robert Scott an instructional associate in the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Arts and Sciences Residential Academic Programs.

Another key experience happened a year earlier while working on an Idaho wildfire shortly after a firefighter had been killed by a falling tree.

“I got to see and experience what that’s like, being at a fatality fire several days after a death has occurred,” Scott says. “What happens in briefings, how firefighters are processing being out in the field at that time.”

His 2025 doctoral dissertation at the University of Colorado Boulder found that firefighter fatalities can inflict psychological wounds with long-lasting effects on crews, families and fire organizations.

Scott, a sociologist who is an instructional associate in the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Arts and Sciences Residential Academic Programs, is originally from Ontario, Canada, and became a firefighter while attending college in the United States.

Based on in-depth interviews with 37 firefighters across the American West, Scott’s research documents trauma, grief, survivor guilt, anxiety, hypervigilance and, in some cases, suicidal thoughts among firefighters who experienced the deaths of colleagues.

Scott's dissertation, When Counterparts Die: Wildland Firefighters' Responses to Line of Duty Deaths, fills what he calls a significant gap in wildfire research.

“Focusing on firefighters' responses to peer fatalities in the line of duty is an area of research that's extraordinarily understudied,” Scott says.

The research comes as wildfires burn larger areas of the West. The number of wildfires has declined in recent years, but the size and intensity of them has increased.

Data from the National Interagency Fire Center and National Wildfire Coordinating Group reports 697 wildland firefighting fatalities in the United States between 1983 and 2023, an average of about 17 deaths per year. Medical emergencies accounted for about 27% of those deaths, followed by aviation accidents (20%), burnovers and entrapments (20%), vehicle accidents (19%), hazard trees (6%) and other causes (7%).

Four levels of involvement

Through interviews with firefighters ranging from rookies to veterans with decades of experience, Scott developed a framework describing four levels of involvement in firefighter fatalities.

“Some firefighters probably could have better addressed their conditions afterwards had they known a bit more about what was going on,” says ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� researcher Robert Scott.

The most severe reactions were associated with primary involvement: personally knowing the deceased, witnessing death and dying or feeling implicated in a fatality.

Those firefighters often described consequences that extended years beyond the incident.

“What I found striking was just how much direct involvement in fatality incidents affected the daily lives of some firefighters who I talked to,” Scott says. “For some, there are ongoing chronic struggles, periods of suffering.”

Several firefighters reported persistent hypervigilance and anxiety on the fireline long after a fatality. Others described impacts on family life.

“The work was definitely affecting family life,” Scott says. “And it seemed also to be coming back into work life.”

One finding was that some firefighters continued working after traumatic incidents even when they were still struggling psychologically.

“Some would experience random bouts of anxiety in the field,” Scott says. “Some would be extremely hypervigilant for many years.”

'They knew something was changing'

Scott found that firefighters recognized changes in themselves after a fatality. “But they didn’t necessarily have a framework to fully understand what was happening to them.”

That happened, he argues, partly because firefighters historically received little training in grief, trauma and mental health.

Researcher Robert Scott recommends expanded mental-health training, stronger support systems after fatalities and improved benefits for private-sector firefighters.

One firefighter interviewed for the study experienced suicidal thoughts and feelings of worthlessness for a long duration. “He thought that it was normal until he opened up to a friend,” who assured him otherwise.

Another firefighter worked with military veterans struggling with suicidal thoughts before recognizing similar symptoms in himself.

“It took time for the full realization to come through,” Scott says. “Something’s going on here, and I need to get help.”

Scott believes that earlier education could have helped many firefighters recognize warning signs sooner.

“Some firefighters probably could have better addressed their conditions afterwards had they known a bit more about what was going on,” he says.

A culture of silence

The study suggests cultural factors have long discouraged firefighters from openly discussing emotional struggles.

“For a very long time, and still, the field has been primarily men,” Scott says. “There was the sort of soldier-on attitude and be mentally tough attitude that existed.” Additionally, there have been few research opportunities for firefighters.

As a result, many firefighters have kept their struggles private.

The interviews revealed that some firefighters grappled with severe trauma responses but disclosed them only to specific close family members, friends or helping professionals. That silence made conducting the interviews particularly meaningful.

“I’m so grateful that they opened up to me,” he says. Scott believes that being a firefighter himself, knowing the training and culture and being sensitive to the firefighters’ experiences helped them trust him. “They go through a lot, and they continue to.”

The people who remain

Much wildfire fatality research focuses on what went wrong during an incident, organizational responses and cause-of-death trends. Scott’s research focuses on the firefighters who continue working after various levels of involvement in fatality incidents, which is understudied.

“A big focus of the literature is about what went wrong, what happened and how can we mitigate that in the future,” he says.

But, “What about the people who are there and go back to work after? Maybe they take some time off, but they go back.”

That has implications not only for individual well-being but for the functioning of organizations.

“How organizations perform changes after these events,” Scott says. "People have been influenced by the events, and they continue to go to work.”

Recommendations for change

Scott’s dissertation recommends expanded mental-health training, stronger support systems after fatalities and improved benefits for private-sector firefighters.

Scott also argues that discussions about wildfire policy should factor in firefighter mental health alongside ecological and economic questions.

For decades, wildfire management debates have centered on suppression costs, forest health and fuel loads. “What's been left out is mental health,” he says.

Ultimately, Scott hopes his research might help firefighters better understand experiences that have often remained private.

“I didn't undertake the project to become known,” he says. “If I could have done it anonymously, I would have. It was about a very serious topic that I think matters and that I could contribute to in a valuable way for the fire community.”

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� sociologist shines light on understudied area of wildfire research: how wildland firefighting fatalities affect the people on the front lines.

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Mao still casts a long shadow

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:00:42 +0000

Mao still casts a long shadow Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/04/2026 - 07:00

Bradley Worrell

Five decades after his death, Mao Zedong remains the face of modern China, yet ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� historian William Wei argues his rise to power was never inevitable and neither is the verdict on his legacy

Mao Zedong remains one of the most prominent political figures in modern history. Fifty years after his death, his embalmed body still lies in state in Tiananmen Square, his enormous portrait continues to hang over the Gate of Heavenly Peace, his face appears on the country’s currency and Chinese schoolchildren are still taught that he was the founding leader who reunified and transformed the nation.

Mao’s omnipresence can create the impression that his rise to power was inevitable. However, reflecting on Mao’s legacy today—five decades since his death Sept. 9, 1976, at age 82—his place in history was never assured, argues William Wei, a University of Colorado Boulder Department of History professor who is an expert on modern China.

“One of the things I teach my students is that nothing is historically inevitable—and that is certainly the case with Mao’s rise to power,” he says. “If you study Chinese history, you see that his rise to leadership within the Chinese Communist Party unfolded over about a decade. It was driven by a combination of strategic skill, organization building, ideological innovation and, quite frankly, intra-party struggles that involved the purging of rivals.”

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� historian William Wei studies modern China, including the legacy of Mao Zedong.

Mao’s rise was never guaranteed

In fact, far from being recognized as leader of the communist movement in China initially, Wei says Mao in the early 1930s was sidelined by rivals known as the “28 Bolsheviks”—communist leaders trained in Moscow who adhered more closely to orthodox Marxist-Leninist doctrine of organizing urban workers to create a revolution.

Wei says the turning point came in 1935 following the Long March—one of the defining episodes in Communist Party history. After anti-communist nationalist forces overran the communist base in Jiangxi Province, Mao led his Red Army soldiers on a grueling 6,000-mile retreat over some of China’s most difficult terrain to escape encirclement and destruction.

According to Wei, the march was devastating from a military standpoint, with communists losing roughly seven-eighths of their forces. “But they survived, and for the Chinese communists, survival was a form of victory,” he adds.

Even then, Wei says Mao’s emergence was not the result of a sudden triumph but a long process. After communist forces under other leaders lost battles to the country’s nationalist forces, Wei says Mao’s rivals effectively ceded military leadership to him.

Mao also distinguished himself through ideological innovation, Wei says. While orthodox Marxists emphasized that the urban working class would form the revolutionary vanguard, Mao instead argued that China’s overwhelmingly rural population made the peasantry the natural engine for revolution. Wei says Mao’s emphasis on rural peasants as the agents of change helped establish an ideological identity known as “Maoism” that was distinct from both his domestic rivals like the 28 Bolsheviks as well as Soviet orthodoxy.

War, occupation and revolution

With the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937, the nationalists and communists largely halted their fighting to focus on combatting the Japanese invaders. While the nationalists tended to engage in pitched battles with the Japanese, Mao’s communists employed hit-and-run tactics associated with guerrilla warfare.

“This strategy preserved the communist party’s strength, as the nationalists bore the brunt of the fighting,” Wei says. “(Nationalists) fought most of the major battles against the Japanese and consequently suffered most of the defeats as well.”

A propaganda image of Mao Zedong from 1967.

By emphasizing guerrilla warfare, recruiting peasants and expanding the party organization throughout rural China, Wei says Mao transformed a weakened movement into a formidable political and military force. Between 1937 and 1940, Chinese Communist Party membership grew from 40,000 to 800,000.

When Japan’s defeat ended World War II in August 1945, the nationalists and communists renewed their fighting. Here again, Wei argues that Mao’s success was never guaranteed.

The nationalists initially held several advantages. They possessed larger forces, better equipment and support from the United States. But Wei says the nationalists were also weakened by corruption, declining public support and incompetence in administering the country’s economy.

The communists, in contrast, entered the conflict stronger than they had been at any point since the Long March, and by the late 1940s the balance shifted decisively in Mao’s favor, Wei says. In 1949, Mao proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China, with the communist victory marking one of the most remarkable political reversals of the 20th century, Wei says.

Korea and Mao’s emergence as a global leader

Mao’s stature expanded beyond China’s borders almost immediately after the communist victory. The Korean War became the first major international test of the new regime and played a crucial role in shaping’s Mao’s standing at home and abroad, Wei says.

He notes that both Mao and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin were initially reluctant to support North Korean leader Kim Il-sung’s plans to militarily reunify the Korean Peninsula. Kim convinced them that he could strike quickly and that America would not intervene.

However, America did intervene on behalf of South Korea. And once American-led forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur reversed North Korea’s initial victories and advanced toward the Yalu River—the border separating Korea from China’s industrial heartland in Manchuria—Chinese leaders viewed that as an unacceptable threat, Wei says.

Although Chinese forces were poorly equipped and lacked air support, Wei says that by their sheer numbers (more than 250,000 soldiers) and with the element of surprise, they decimated the U.S. Army contingent and pushed American forces back to the 38th parallel. The war eventually settled into a costly stalemate.

Politically, however, the war produced significant benefits for Mao, Wei says. He argues that Mao’s reputation was enhanced because China managed to fight the strongest post-World War II power to a standstill. The conflict elevated not only Mao’s prestige but also the People’s Republic by demonstrating that it could not be dismissed as a weak or a subordinate power, Wei says.

The war also reshaped China’s Cold War relationships. Wei says Stalin’s view of Mao improved after China’s willingness to confront the United States, while the conflict poisoned the country’s relations with Washington for decades, until rapprochement in the 1970s and the normalization of relations in January 1979.

Building a new China

“Mao left behind a complicated legacy,” says ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� historian William Wei. “But I stand by my original assertion that he was, to use the Chinese formula, seven parts wrong and only three parts right."

With the victory over the nationalists, Mao was able to impose his stamp on China. Even Wei, who is a critic of Mao, acknowledges his many accomplishments. Mao is remembered for ending what the Chinese call the “Century of Humiliation”—a period during which Western powers and Japan dominated large portions of China. Mao reunified a fragmented country after decades of warlordism, civil conflict and foreign invasion. For millions of Chinese, this achievement alone secured his place in history, Wei says.

The early years of communist rule brought significant social reforms. Perhaps most notably, Wei notes that land redistribution programs transferred land to hundreds of millions of peasants. He also credits the new government with launching a successful industrialization campaign, expanding public health initiatives, increasing access to education and implementing legal reforms designed to improve the status of women. Additionally, the country’s literacy rates improved dramatically, infant mortality declined and new public health programs reached rural communities for the first time.

At the same time, Wei emphasizes that many of these achievements came at an extraordinary human cost. He notes that land reform redistributed property on a massive scale, but at the cost of upwards of a million landlords as well as others targeted as “class enemies.” Meanwhile, industrialization generated rapid economic growth, yet it unfolded within an authoritarian framework that tolerated little dissent.

Twin tragedies

The darkest chapters of Mao’s rule came with the Great Leap Forward starting in 1958 and the Cultural Revolution starting in 1966. Wei describes the Great Leap Forward as a man-made catastrophe, as land collectivization policies, unrealistic farm production quotas and widespread falsification of agricultural data combined to create a disaster that by some estimates resulted in 35 million to 45 million deaths—making it one of the deadliest policy failures in human history.

The Cultural Revolution inflicted a different kind of damage. Initiated after Mao’s standing had been weakened by the failures of the Great Leap Forward, Wei says it was both a political power struggle and an ideological crusade, as Mao sought to eliminate rivals and prevent what he viewed as a drift toward capitalism.

“One of the things Mao believed was in his theory of continuous revolution,” Wei explains. “Permanent revolution believes the revolution never ends, even when you have a seizure of state power, because the party, in this case the Chinese Communist Party, could itself become a new ruling class.”

Wei says the campaign produced persecution and social chaos, as cultural and religious sites were destroyed, schools and universities were shut down and an entire generation lost years of educational opportunity.

For that reason, Wei sharply disagrees with the Chinese Communist Party’s official verdict that Mao was “70% right and 30% wrong.” He reverses that formula, arguing Mao was “70% wrong and 30% right.” While recognizing Mao’s role in reunifying China and advancing certain social reforms, he insists that Mao must be held responsible for the immense anguish caused by his policies.

“Mao left behind a complicated legacy,” Wei says. “But I stand by my original assertion that he was, to use the Chinese formula, seven parts wrong and only three parts right. As a historian, I’m not going to let him escape responsibility for the millions of deaths and all the suffering he caused.”

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Michael A. Kelberman named a Simons Foundation Fellows-to-Faculty Award recipient

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 20:42:54 +0000

Michael A. Kelberman named a Simons Foundation Fellows-to-Faculty Award recipient Rachel Sauer Thu, 09/03/2026 - 14:42

Hope Kerrigan

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� postdoctoral researcher receives a grant supporting his work on the intersection between social bonds and brain aging

Michael A. Kelberman, a postdoctoral fellow in Zoe Donaldson’s lab in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, has been named a 2026 Simons Foundation Fellows-to-Faculty Award recipient—one of five awardees supported through the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB) this year. The award comes with a three-year, $600,000 faculty research grant.

Michael A. Kelberman, a postdoctoral fellow in Zoe Donaldson’s lab in the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, has been named a 2026 Simons Foundation Fellows-to-Faculty Award recipient.

Prior to his postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado Boulder, Kelberman received his Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and earned his doctorate in Neuroscience from Emory University. While a graduate student in David Weinshenker’s lab at Emory, Kelberman used electrophysiology, optogenetic-fMRI and behavioral assays in rodents to uncover how noradrenergic locus coeruleus function is disrupted by dementia-related pathology.

Kelberman joined Donaldson’s lab in October 2023, which uses monogamous prairie voles to understand how disease affects the neural and genetic basis of social bonds. In the Donaldson lab, Kelberman developed a niche, studying the overlap between dementia and social bonds.

The SCPAB Fellows-to-Faculty program represents a natural extension of his research interests, where he will use prairie voles to study how pair bonds and their supporting neural systems evolve over the lifespan and influence cognition.

“I am honored to have been selected as one of this year’s recipients of the Simons Foundation SCPAB Fellows-to-Faculty award,” he says. “I look forward to continuing and expanding my work on how our closest social relationships contribute to healthy aging, with the goal of developing socially informed interventions that prolong health in the face of challenges brought about by aging.”

The Simons Foundation’s Autism & Neuroscience Research Initiative (SFARI) specializes in advancing the basic sciences of autism spectrum disorders. This year, the foundation is funding 10 recipients through SFARI and five through SCPAB to support early-career scientists as they transition from postdoctoral research into an independent, tenure-track faculty position.

Kelly Martin, executive vice president of SFARI, expressed enthusiasm about welcoming this accomplished cohort of scientists into the Simons community: “Their diverse expertise, including clinical insights and computational approaches, reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of basic science, and we look forward to seeing all that they accomplish.”

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� postdoctoral researcher receives a grant supporting his work on the intersection between social bonds and brain aging.

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Climate crisis behind bars is heating up

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 20:13:23 +0000

Climate crisis behind bars is heating up Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/01/2026 - 14:13

Bradley Worrell

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� sociologist David Ciplet explains why climate change and incarceration are deeply connected

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As climate change intensifies, discussions about vulnerability often focus on coastal communities, agricultural regions or low-income neighborhoods. Much less attention is paid to the 1.2 million people incarcerated in U.S. prisons—many of whom face extreme heat, flooding, wildfire and other climate-related hazards with little ability to protect themselves.

For David Ciplet, a sociologist in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Environmental Studies whose research focuses on climate change and inequality, that oversight represents a significant gap in both climate research and public policy. His recent paper in Environmental Politics examines U.S. incarceration in a changing climate, focusing on prisons as places where environmental vulnerability and social marginalization overlap.

As Ciplet sees it, climate-related threats such as extreme heat, flooding, hurricanes and wildfires can be especially dangerous for incarcerated individuals because they have very little control over their environment. They cannot choose where they live, leave an overheated building or escape a facility threatened by natural disaster, he notes.

David Ciplet is a sociologist in the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Department of Environmental Studies whose research focuses on climate change and inequality.

At the same time, Ciplet says people who are incarcerated are increasingly being called upon to fight wildfires and respond to other climate-related disasters, but often they don’t receive training and protection comparable to professionals, or fair compensation for their work.

“How we treat those who are most vulnerable says something about our society and priorities,” he says.

From studying climate equity to prison conditions

Ciplet did not begin his career studying prisons.

His earlier research focused on making climate policy more equitable. That included work with the Just Transition Collaborative at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��, which aimed to ensure that local governments’ climate policies not only prioritized addressing the environmental impacts of climate change but also didn’t contribute to rising costs or other adverse effects for low-income residents and other vulnerable communities.

As he explored questions about vulnerability and environmental justice, Ciplet says he began hearing about dangerous conditions inside Texas prisons during periods of extreme heat. Many of those facilities lack air conditioning despite increasingly extreme summers, which can result in incarcerated people enduring prolonged exposure to temperatures that can pose serious health risks, he adds.

That struck Ciplet as an obvious blind spot.

“My research has always focused on people who experience the greatest harms,” he explains. “Prisons are not the only place where that occurs, but they are one of the most severe.”

Because incarcerated individuals have no agency over where they live or control over the temperature in those facilities, Ciplet argues, it makes prisons impossible to ignore when considering who is most vulnerable to climate change.

A population largely hidden from public view

One reason the issue receives so little attention, Ciplet believes, is that most Americans never see prison conditions firsthand. Correctional facilities operate largely out of public view.

As a result, Ciplet says assumptions about prison life often differ significantly from what incarcerated individuals experience. That invisibility shapes public understanding—and ultimately public policy, he says.

Ciplet emphasizes that the American public should be concerned about climate conditions in prisons because incarcerated people are human beings deserving of basic dignity.

“I think it’s also important to point out that many (people in prisons) are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses and some were convicted under circumstances that are contested,” he says. “More broadly, there are all kinds of inequalities within our criminal legal system that disproportionately affect people who become incarcerated and how people are treated once they are in the system.

“Even if someone believes incarceration is appropriate in some cases, subjecting people to unbearable or dangerous conditions is not going to improve society, so it makes little sense.”

At the same time, Ciplet says there is the practical aspect of caring about prison conditions.

“Most people who go to prison will eventually return to their communities,” he says. “We should create dignified conditions that support successful reintegration, rather than exposing people to extreme physical and mental distress during confinement. Access to a healthy environment is a basic human right.”

Climate risks are growing

Climate-related threats to incarcerated individuals are not hypothetical, Ciplet says.

“Most people who go to prison will eventually return to their communities,” says ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� researcher David Ciplet. “We should create dignified conditions that support successful reintegration, rather than exposing people to extreme physical and mental distress during confinement. Access to a healthy environment is a basic human right.”

He points to rising temperatures in Colorado prisons as one example. He notes that the average temperature in Colorado has already risen by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1980s and is projected to increase by an additional 2.5 to 5 degrees by 2050.

“A few degrees may not sound dramatic, but if someone is already confined to a cell that reaches 95 or 100 degrees, those additional degrees matter,” Ciplet says. “We’re also seeing more extreme heat days and heat waves lasting for longer periods of time. The experience of enduring a single hot day is very different from enduring a week of extreme temperatures.”

Heat is only one concern.

“Beyond heat, incarcerated people are vulnerable to floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters. Because incarcerated individuals cannot leave those dangerous conditions, climate impacts can be particularly severe for them,” Ciplet says.

He adds that climate change magnifies the vulnerabilities already built into the prison system.

The complicated role of prison labor

Ciplet sees a certain irony in that incarcerated people are often not only victims of climate-related conditions but are also part of the response, as many states rely on prison labor during emergencies.

Incarcerated workers may clear debris after storms, assist with disaster recovery or serve on fire crews battling destructive wildfires. While supporters of those efforts might point to benefits such as work experience and valuable job training, Ciplet argues it should also spur deeper questions about prison work conditions.

“In many states, incarcerated people play important roles in disaster responses, including firefighting. Yet they often are not given the same equipment and training as people who are not incarcerated and typically they are not fairly compensated for their work,” he says. “If incarcerated people are playing a major role in protecting us from natural hazards associated with climate change, we should be providing them with training and protective equipment and fair wages, as well as career pathways when they come out of prison.”

Typically, once individuals who are incarcerated complete their sentences, they face barriers that prevent them from pursuing careers in firefighting despite the valuable experience they gained while incarcerated, Ciplet says.

Meanwhile, Ciplet has reservations about correctional facilities making use of prison labor to manufacture solar panels, wind turbines or other carbon-reducing technologies. While tasking people in prisons with manufacturing “green” technologies sounds like a positive development, Ciplet says there is an underlying concern.

“Any system that becomes dependent upon prison labor can create incentives to maintain or expand incarceration,” he says. “I think we should be moving in the opposite direction.”

It’s that same concern, he says, that gives him pause when distressed communities sometimes seek to host a correctional facility as an economic development project.

“Rural communities—especially those that may have lost major industries, such as coal mining—absolutely need strong economic opportunities. The question is: What kind of development best serves those communities over the long term?” Ciplet asks. “I think we should be investing in forms of economic development that create healthy, sustainable opportunities without depending on or expanding prison populations.”

If more people knew how harmful some of the conditions in prisons are related to climate impacts, I do think people would care. I think most people believe basic human rights should be protected.”

Imagining something different

Although much of his research focuses on examining systemic problems, Ciplet also looks for examples that challenge assumptions about what prisons can become once they are shut down.

For example, he notes that some communities have proposed converting former prisons into affordable housing, community centers or facilities serving unhoused residents. Others have explored using former prisons for renewable energy projects. Ciplet points to proposals of transforming New York City’s Rikers Island correctional facility into a site for a renewable energy project.

Such projects remain uncommon, Ciplet acknowledges. Still, he says they suggest that communities are not limited to choosing between maintaining prisons and building new ones, as other possibilities exist if policymakers are willing to consider them.

For his part, Ciplet’s goals extend beyond publishing academic papers. Through the Climate and Incarceration Research Collective, which he directs, he and his colleagues are partnering with formerly incarcerated individuals in Colorado to better understand how extreme heat and cold affect health during incarceration and what policy changes could reduce those risks.

Ciplet says that work reflects a broader philosophy that research should not just describe inequality but help to address it. He says he believes climate policy can unintentionally reinforce existing injustices if decision-makers fail to consider who bears the costs. At the same time, thoughtful policy can improve environmental outcomes while advancing fairness, he says.

Asked if he is optimistic about whether society is moving toward a more equitable and sustainable future, Ciplet offers a mixed assessment.

“We are seeing policy rollbacks related to climate action, including expanded drilling and mining and reductions in support for clean-energy initiatives. At the same time, there has been a return in some areas to criminal legal priorities focused more on punishment than prevention and restorative justice,” he says.

Still, Ciplet says he remains positive.

“”I’m always hopeful,” he says. “National politics make large-scale change challenging in the near term, but there is considerable potential at state and local levels. Also, major shifts can happen unexpectedly, and public opinion can change rapidly. I am particularly encouraged by younger generations, who consistently demonstrate a strong commitment to addressing climate change.”

In the near term, Ciplet says he believes the lack of public awareness regarding extreme climate conditions incarcerated people face remains one of the biggest challenges in terms of addressing the issue.

“If more people knew how harmful some of the conditions in prisons are related to climate impacts, I do think people would care,” he says. “I think most people believe basic human rights should be protected.”

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� sociologist David Ciplet explains why climate change and incarceration are deeply connected.

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Top photo: Pexels

Two artists walk into a palazzo…

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 23:07:55 +0000

Two artists walk into a palazzo… Rachel Sauer Mon, 08/31/2026 - 17:07

Rachel Sauer

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� alumna Martha Russo and Professor Emeritus George Rivera currently are displaying art pieces in Venice, Italy, in an exhibit organized by the European Cultural Centre

Let’s wander, as the title of Martha Russo’s work might advise, to a bright, airy space in the Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy.

There, on a short white platform, is “nomos (cube Venezia),” Russo’s three-dimensional piece sculpted from porcelain, paper clay, wood, metal and paper, among other materials. Its title is derived from the Greek root for “nomad” and can be translated as “to wander” and “to wonder.”

There are a lot of things to feel and question while observing this piece—in person or from every angle in photographs. Is it reaching for the viewer? Sending shoots and tendrils toward them? Does a brief glance from the corner of the eye reveal that it’s actually moving? Are its thousands of pieces a living ecosystem?

George Rivera (left) and Martha Russo (right) outside the Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy, where their works are featured in the Personal Structures – Confluences exhibit on display through Nov. 22.

In a gallery next door, a different experience: 16 two-dimensional, 11x14 pieces tiled on a wall in an array of earth tones that speak of the Amazonian plants from which the inks were made.

And in the images themselves, a journey through the liminal space between consciousness and unconsciousness, shapes and figures whose meaning may depend on the viewer, giving rise to the title “Mutations: Subconscious Reality Imagery.” Artist George Rivera writes, “These images appear as figurations resembling reality but manifest themselves as completely different in form and color.”

Both pieces are featured in the Personal Structures – Confluences exhibit on display through Nov. 22 in Venice, organized by the European Cultural Centre (ECC) and held concurrently with the famed Venice Biennale international art exhibition. And both pieces have long roots that stretch to the University of Colorado Boulder.

Russo (MFA’95), whose piece has been shortlisted for the ECC Awards that will be announced in November, is an art and art history alumnus who has shown around the world and who also teaches an interdisciplinary ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� course called Art, Design and Engineering, in which a cohort of upper-level art, environmental design and engineering students learn about sculpture and public installation.

Rivera is a professor emeritus of art and art history—a sociologist by training who pivoted to art and in 1996 became one of the founders, with several ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� colleagues, of the Artnauts collective, whose more than 220 participating artists, including Russo, have worked across art, activism, social practice, peace building and global issues around the world.

As for how their work came to be in a centuries-old palazzo in Venice, well, the art world is small, and it started with an interview.

Enjoying the physical challenges of art

In 2020, writer Ann Landi interviewed Russo for Sculpture magazine. By that point, Russo had grown an international reputation as an artist—showing around the world, known for large-scale pieces that blend media, particularly ceramics, and incorporate abstract shapes that reference the natural world, animal and human forms and fantastical imagery and imaginings.

"I really enjoy the physical challenges of my work,” Russo told Landi. “I also like the science behind it. I was a developmental biology and psychology major, and I had my eye on going to medical school or becoming a psychologist. I was drawn to the materiality and the chemistry of clay.

"nomos (cube Venezia)” by Martha Russo "explores how the abstraction of form, material and gravity couple with a cacophony of color and texture to generate openings for prolonged investigations and enticing a flood of interpretations," Russo explains. (Photo: Matteo Losurdo)

“I loved the idea that you could make clay do different things because of the molecular structure, and that structure made perfect sense to me because I was looking at molecules and thinking about how things generate in the body. The chemistry behind the glazes was also fascinating. To this day, I am drawn to those mysteries and all the infinite possibilities.”

Part of Russo’s interest in the mechanics of the body, she says, arose from a career-ending injury that took her from 1984 U.S. Olympic field hockey hopeful to a Princeton senior recovering from surgery and increasingly drawn to the physical nature of sculpture and ceramics.

In 1991, she and her husband, Joe Ryan, a ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� professor of environmental engineering, moved from New Jersey to Boulder, and several years later Russo began her MFA studies. She taught for 20 years at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, growing her art practice and reputation at the same time and becoming known for her large-scale pieces incorporating hundreds or thousands of pieces that allude to natural forms.

Then came the interview in Sculpture magazine—not her first, but it was the one that caught the eye of ECC curators. They contacted her and asked if she’d be interested in showing in Venice, and they also looked into her colleagues and collaborators, including Rivera.

“Obviously you say yes when you get an invitation like that,” Russo says with a laugh. She immediately began envisioning what she would create for Personal Structures – Confluences.

Celebrate the Artnauts!

The exhibit "Rhizome: Origins" opens with a community celebration Thursday, Sept. 3, and honors 30 years of Artnauts.

Learn more

“I was thinking, ‘I’m going to make a cube, but I want to have four very different experiences on each side,” she explains. “Venice is the most visually stunning place, full of texture, full of color, full of exuberance, so I took all the greatest hits from all past iterations of ‘nomos’ and made a piece that’s very vibrant, colorful, lots of movement with the pieces. I also asked if I could have natural light in the gallery, and they really gave George and me such great spaces.

“They did tell me that outside the (gallery) window I would see a very recently renovated pink and white palazzo and they sent me a picture, so I made a bunch of pink pieces that, when you’re looking at my piece, you see that palazzo. A lot of the time you put up your work and you’re like, ‘I wish I’d done this, I wish I’d done that.’ This is one of the few times I said, ‘I think I just did exactly what I wanted to do,’ and I couldn’t be happier, honestly.”

In “Mutations: Subconscious Reality Imagery” by George Rivera, "images appear as figurations resembling reality but manifest themselves as completely different in form and color," Rivera says.

‘This is reality’

For Rivera, the road to Venice began in Glidden, Texas, where he grew up in poverty with a Mexican mother and a Mexican-American father. He was the first in his family to attend college, where he was able to name and study the disparities and injustices he’d grown up seeing. He pursued sociology, he says, because he wanted to understand racism.

After coming to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� as a sociology faculty member, Rivera transferred to the Department of Art and Art History after disagreeing with how department decisions were being made, he says. He had studied Chicano art, but says he truly began to understand art as a force for activism, social practice and peace building when he was immersed in it.

In 1996, Rivera and colleagues Garrison Roots, Beth Krensky, Dennis Dalton and Luis Valdovino founded Artnauts, a collective that evolved over time into an artistic force that brings art into places fractured by violence, disaster or upheaval, Rivera explains. Artnauts shows frequently are comprised of two-dimensional prints that can fit into a suitcase on their way to places like Ukraine, Palestine, Colombia or the demilitarized zone at the North Korea-South Korea border.

“It’s the idea that art can be a language all people speak,” Rivera says.

In fact, the idea for “Mutations: Subconscious Reality Imagery” has as one of its roots an experience Rivera had while in Palestine with Artnauts: “We go to places where there’s been social trauma, where things have happened that represent the inhumanity of man against man. So, I was there staying at The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem that is owned by Bansky, and it’s located right next to the Aida Refugee Camp.

“While I was there, Israeli forces shot gas cannisters into the camp, and I was inside the hotel and hotel personnel told me, ‘Don’t go outside because your lungs are going to burn and eyes are going to burn.' So, I went back to my room, and I had olive oil made by Palestinians and wine made by Palestinians, and I always bring some paper and some brushes with me, so I used the wine and olive oil and started making images. That’s when the idea occurred to me, to use something that’s indigenous to the area to paint with.”

So, when he later was in Colombia at El Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliación in Bogotá and met a shaman of the Huitoto tribe who invited him into the Amazon rainforest, he learned about inks made from plants that grow there and since then has created a significant body of work with them.

Rivera’s work in Venice harkens to the Artnauts format of two-dimensional pieces that can easily be carried in a suitcase and is titled “Mutations” because, he says, he sees the pieces “as derived from the subconscious, and the subconscious to me is something that exists between consciousness and the unconscious. Right before consciousness enters in, the subconscious is trying to make sense of what it sees. It’s coming up with these images before it locks in and says, ‘This is reality.’

“To me, when I was in the rainforest that idea occurred to me, I looked at what was happening to the rainforest, and I was seeing these things that are not representations of what was in front of me; I was looking through a subconscious lens. That is when, to me, you turn to the spirituality of an object, of a people, you see the spiritual representations before we tell ourselves what reality is.”

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� alumna Martha Russo and Professor Emeritus George Rivera currently are displaying art pieces in Venice, Italy, in an exhibit organized by the European Cultural Centre.

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Exhibit celebrates 30 years of art not as usual

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 22:00:54 +0000

Exhibit celebrates 30 years of art not as usual Rachel Sauer Mon, 08/31/2026 - 16:00

Rachel Sauer

New CU Art Museum exhibit honoring the Artnauts collective opens with a public celebration from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday

In nature, rhizomes are plant stems that grow just beneath the soil surface, sending out shoots and sprawling root systems that can produce new plants. An expansive purple cluster of bearded iris, an early-spring patch of asparagus, a rustling stand of bamboo—all grow from the branching, interconnected system of a rhizome.

In art, rhizomes are collectives and communities that flourish in connection and collaboration, in exchange, in branching and spreading into new soil.

You're invited

What: Opening celebration for the exhibit “Rhizome: Origins," celebrating 30 years of the Artnauts

Where: CU Art Museum

When: 4-6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3

Who: All are invited

Learn more

The Artnauts are a rhizome.

Founded in 1996 at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Artnauts—a name that can be interpreted as “art not as usual” or as a play on the exploration and globe-circling of “astronaut”—are celebrating their 30th anniversary with the exhibit “Rhizome: Origins” officially opening Friday at the CU Art Museum.

A celebration of the exhibit and the Artnauts will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday at the museum, initiating a series of events through the fall semester that celebrate 30 years, hundreds of artists and almost as many exhibits in 27 countries that address themes of peace, human rights, climate, migration, cultural memory and other global issues.

The timing of the exhibit is perfect and poignant: George Rivera, professor emeritus of art and art history and a founder and longtime public face of Artnauts, recently announced that he is retiring from the collective for personal reasons and to make way for new leadership.

“(New leadership) already is having a great positive impact, as members are stepping up to acquire new exhibitions in new countries that we have not yet visited,” Rivera explains. “Wait until you see the new venues that they have planned for exhibitions. We need new visions that go beyond what I set up for us throughout the world. The mission will not change. That will stay the same. Just new places of ‘contention’ (as I call them) will be added to where we go with our vision for a better world.”

Rivera and other Artnauts will be featured in a documentary film about the collective, Art, Not As Usual: The Story of the Artnauts, scheduled for release this fall.

Art as connection

In fact, experiencing an Artnauts exhibit in the United States is something of a rarity. When Rivera and colleagues Garrison Roots, Beth Krensky, Dennis Dalton and Luis Valdovino founded Artnauts in 1996, an aim was to balance the aesthetics of art with its power to connect with people experiencing violence, oppression or disaster.

What else are Artnauts Martha Russo and George Rivera up to? Oh, only showing their work in Venice, Italy!

Ciao, amici!

It started simply if not easily, with Rivera cold calling galleries or schools in countries experiencing serious situations. Because of those situations, Artnauts exhibits needed to be two-dimensional and generally not larger than 8x10—a size that allows the work of 40 artists to fit in a carry-on suitcase.

Over three decades, more than 220 artists have contributed their work to exhibits in Bosnia and Rwanda, Colombia, Palestine and the DMZ between North Korea and South Korea—in all, 27 countries on five continents.

Though the points of commonality between the exhibiting country and the United States may not have been identical, Rivera says, Artnauts has always sought common themes, social issues and experiences.

For Martha Russo (MFA’95), who has been with the collective since 1996 and now serves as its board president, the Artnauts’ mission is about staying true to the essence of art. Its mission aligns with her ideas and beliefs about art and its ability to bring “us back to our rudimentary way of collecting information, namely, through the senses and the body,” she describes in her Artnauts artist statement.

Reflecting history and personal growth

In creating “Rhizome: Origins,” both Artnauts and CU Art Museum curators collaborated to envision an exhibit that reflects the history of the organization and reflects artists’ personal growth, says Hope Saska, CU Art Museum director and chief curator. Also uncommon for an Artnauts exhibit, quite a few featured pieces are three-dimensional, deviating from the idea of art that can fit in a carry-on suitcase.

In 30 years, more than 220 artists have participated in Artnauts exhibits, and they were invited to submit ideas for “Rhizome: Origins.” From these ideas, 22 artists’ work was curated for the exhibit, all of whom have ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� affiliation as faculty, staff or alumni.

The opening celebration Thursday will initiate a slate of events throughout the semester, including:

Artnauts at the CU Art Museum from 2-4 p.m. Friday, an event that will include making activity, artist-led gallery talks and an award ceremony for recipients of scholarships honoring past Artnauts.
Collective Visions: An Artnauts Panel Conversation from 1-2 p.m. Sept. 19 in room IB20 of the Visual Arts Complex, which will feature Artnaut founding members George Rivera and Beth Krensky, joined by Martha Russo, Pamela Beverly-Quigley and Eileen Roscina, in a discussion about the history and future of the artist collective.
Social Sculpture: Artnauts + YOU from 1-4 p.m. Nov. 7, an afternoon of hands-on artmaking activities, talks and art demonstrations with faculty and students from ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Unstable Design Lab.
“Rhizome: Origins” closing celebration from 1-3 p.m. Dec. 12.

Thursday’s opening event will also celebrate the CU Art Museum’s sweet 16th birthday and ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� 150th anniversary.

Works by Daniel Henry and George Rivera from the Artnauts "Borderlands" exhibit at the Russian Society of Artists Exhibit Hall and Khabarovsk Academy of Art in Khabarovsk, Russia, in 2001.

"Impermanence #2" by Tsehai Johnson

"Lateral Inheritance" by Michael Dixon

"Healing Grounds" by Valerie Albicker, courtesy of the Sunflower Dreams Project and the artists

"Branching as Mapping" by Barbara Colombo

"Objectal Intent" by Heather Hanson

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New CU Art Museum exhibit honoring the Artnauts collective opens with a public celebration from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday.

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Top image: "Raw Spots" by Suzanne Faris

It’s more than just feeling good or bad

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 21:23:04 +0000

It’s more than just feeling good or bad Rachel Sauer Mon, 08/31/2026 - 15:23

Rachel Sauer

In her recently published book, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholar Antje Richter explores health and the art of living through illness narratives of early medieval China

In his masterpiece The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Chinese monk and court librarian Liu Xie observed, “If we melt away our vital energies and cramp the harmonious flow of our vital breath, then holding the writing tablet will hasten our death, and moistening the brush will hack away at our life.”

This might have been a surprising observation from one of the most eminent writers of his time, but nurturing life has long been central to Chinese thought, says Antje Richter, a University of Colorado Boulder professor of Chinese in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. In fact, ideas about health and illness significantly shaped the literature and culture of the early Chinese medieval era—about 200 CE to 600 CE. And Liu Xie, who was mainly concerned with writers of literature, may have been the first to present advice about writers’ and knowledge workers’ occupational health.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholar Antje Richter is a professor of Chinese whose research focus includes early medieval Chinese literature.

In her recent book Health and the Art of Living: Illness Narratives in Early Medieval Chinese Literature, Richter explores how themes of health and illness are woven through the literature of the era, from informal letters between friends to sacred texts and the highly regarded genre of sickbed poetry.

“We as humans are not either healthy or unhealthy,” Richter says. “We are constantly adapting to new states of our body. This is interesting to me as a challenge that we are all facing in one way or the other. And it's not a binary; it's a graduated scale that's constantly evolving.

“In one of the chapters, I write about Sima Qian, the father of Chinese historiography, who was famously emasculated as corporal punishment but chose not to end his life, as was expected of him, but continued working on The Records of the Historian. He didn’t die of the punitive mutilation he suffered, but he coped. He finished this groundbreaking historical work, and everybody in China knows him and his story because we also have one of the letters he wrote. So, I use his example to say adaptation to new states of health is possible and that in the literature of this time we have a very nuanced understanding of what it means to be healthy or well.”

Discovering narratives of health and illness

Richter, whose research focus is the early medieval era in China, came upon this significant theme in Chinese literature while writing her previous book, Letters and Epistolary Culture in Medieval China.

“We have thousands of letters transmitted from that period, and among those letters there was a good portion that mentioned illness, and I found it quite interesting,” Richter explains. “There’s one celebrated calligrapher, Wang Xizhi, and much of what he wrote was transmitted and not thrown away. Even if he wrote, ‘I have terrible diarrhea,’ that letter was preserved.”

During her time researching that book, Richter collaborated with a longtime friend in Boulder, Charles “Chip” Chace, who was a Chinese medicine practitioner, to unlock those letters of Wang Xizhi that deal with illness.

Richter’s research of Wang Xizhi’s letters led her, in 2011, to apply for a grant to study for a semester at the Needham Research Institute, which was founded by famed sinologist and historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham.

“This was when I realized, oh, it’s not only letters that have these illness narratives, but also biographies and poetry and religious texts and stories,” Richter says.

“It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the hallowed writers of old clearly understood themselves as living, thriving, aging and, often enough, also suffering bodies,” says Antje Richter.

Richter points to the painting on the cover of her book to describe her main intentions in writing it. The painting, held in the Smithsonian’s collection, shows the beloved early medieval poet Tao Qian—also known as Tao Yuanming—being carried in a basket because he was suffering from a foot illness and could not walk on his own. This detail of Tao Qian’s life is reported in early biographies, and in later centuries became popular in painting as well.

Richter says that to her mind, this episode shows that illness sits right in the middle of life and in the middle of Chinese literature and culture—and that she wanted to emphasize this fact and to help connect medieval Chinese studies to the global medical humanities.

How to live

Surviving texts of the literature of early medieval China, including letters, indicate that openly discussing topics of health or illness carried little or no taboo in certain genres, such as letters, Richter says, while high-register poetry only alluded to mundane or graphic physical aspects of life.

Further, Richter believes that the growing esteem of the literary genre of sickbed poetry in medieval China was inspired by Buddhism, particularly the Vimalakirti Sutra, a Buddhist text expounding on ideas of emptiness and the appearances of the world as mere illusions.

Several chapters of the Vimalakirti Sutra are set at the sickbed of a lay Buddhist, who feigns illness so people will come to his bedside and he can preach.

“Then, he and the visitors that come to his sickbed have conversations about, oh, this body is like a bit of foam that cannot be grasped, this body is like a cloud which changes and disappears in an instant, and Chinese poets were very inspired by that,” Richter says. “So, we have this genre of sickbed poetry that first only reflects on the joys of sick leave and the company of friends during this time, but later also on illnesses that ravaged the body and the illusion of existence, the temporariness of our existence.”

Richter notes that while a significant body of illness narratives from the early medieval era have survived, they generally are the narratives of wealthy and connected men. Despite these limitations, Richter says, illness narratives wove with common threads of human experience.

She says she hopes that readers will come away from the book with a strong sense of the lived reality in the Chinese Middle Ages. “It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the hallowed writers of old clearly understood themselves as living, thriving, aging and, often enough, also suffering bodies,” she says.

“We share many of their concerns: how easy it is to overwork ourselves, how there are points in our lives and biographies where health and illness take center stage, how we are looking for a way to accept illness as part of the human condition. Trying to empathize across centuries and cultures is a good way to practice other types of empathy as well.”

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

In her recently published book, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholar Antje Richter explores health and the art of living through illness narratives of early medieval China.

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Top illustration: Scene of poet Tao Qian being carried from scroll "The Lotus Society." (Illustration: Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art)

Remembering Dolly in her coat of many colors

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:07:14 +0000

Remembering Dolly in her coat of many colors Rachel Sauer Fri, 08/28/2026 - 09:07

Rachel Sauer

For ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholar Shawn Trenell O’Neal, the outpouring of grief over Dolly Parton’s death in Black communities bespeaks the legend’s humanity and allyship

Shawn Trenell O’Neal was taking an afternoon walk Tuesday when Joanne Corson, program manager for the University of Colorado Boulder Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS) and his dear friend, texted him, asking him to call her right away.

He did, and the first thing she said was, “We just lost Dolly.”

There was no question of which Dolly. Is there any other? “So, we spent the next half an hour talking about Dolly, and right after that I called my mother,” he recalls.

Shawn O'Neal is a ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� assistant teaching professor of ethnic studies and the Center for African and African American Studies associate faculty director.

“My mother and the Black women in my family who raised me were big fans of Dolly Parton, and not necessarily her music, which makes it even more compelling. They were fans of who she was.”

Since she died Tuesday at age 80, people worldwide have united in grief and celebration of a singular songwriter, musician, philanthropist, actress and all-around icon and legend, frequently citing a 2019 New York Times headline: “Is There Anything We Can All Agree On? Yes: Dolly Parton.”

It should be no surprise, says O’Neal, an assistant teaching professor of ethnic studies, musicologist and CAAAS associate faculty director, that Black communities are mourning Parton just as deeply as fan bases, including country music fan bases, that traditionally have veered white.

O’Neal points to a 2020 interview Parton had with Billboard magazine, not long after George Floyd’s death and as the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum. “I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen,” Parton told the magazine. “And of course Black lives matter! Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”

“At that point we are screaming their names into the air, we don't know what else to do anymore, we are desperate,” O’Neal says. “And to have someone like that step up in that moment, someone who didn’t politicize things, who kept out of politics, but she came out at that moment and said something when we needed it the most?

“She didn't have to do anything and we still would have loved her, but no, she stepped up at that moment and did that, and it just reminded me again, oh, this is why the women in my family made me understand that I have to love this woman.”

Question: Since they weren’t really listening to Dolly’s music, what was it about her that the women in your family loved?

O’Neal: I think it started with her contradictions. She’s got the hair and the nails, the five-inch heels, sequins and rhinestones, you know? But then she comes in with this incredible mind, this talent. And Black people have to live with contradictions all the time, so I think a lot of Black American women were seeing her, like, ‘Oh, you tricky. I see how you playing these dudes, with the heels and the dress and the hair and everything else, and you just playing these dudes like a French horn.’ For the women in my family, Dolly Parton was someone who put a smile on their face.

Question: Do you remember when you first became aware of Dolly?

O’Neal: Around the time 9 to 5 came out, which was in 1980. We didn’t go see it in the theater, but we had cable television and (the women in my family) were so excited to watch this movie. So, I sat there and watched this movie with them, and they just loved it.

I realize now there’s layers to this. The first thing I realize is that we have to put it in a historical context. The movie 9 to 5 is all about women in the workforce and taking a stand to discrimination and taking a stand to misogyny, and all the women in my family worked. My grandmother and my great aunt, they were nurses and nurses’ aides at the VA hospital at Great Lakes Naval Base, my mother was a lab technician and my great-grandmother cleaned houses for rich people in Lake Forest, Illinois, and Highland Park, Illinois.

And this was during the Reagan years, where Ronald Reagan was destroying Black families, just eating us up alive, and at the same time Black women were really trying to insert themselves into the workplace. For the women in my family, at least, I think that movie empowered them, seeing Dolly have to put up with some of the things they were having to put up with. And the song ‘9 to 5’! I mean, that song is submerged in gospel. That line where she’s like, ‘It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it,’ is that not right out of church?

"This lady actually loves people and she’s actually sticking her neck out for women, for people regardless of their race and ethnicity," says ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholar Shawn Trenell O'Neal.

Question: So, you came to Dolly’s music on your own?

O’Neal: Yes, we watched the movie and I was like, ‘OK, who is this Dolly Parton?’ I gotta now figure out who this Dolly Parton was, so I started listening to some of her music. I remember hearing ‘Jolene’ and, oh, wow. And it was interesting, too, because a lot of Black R&B songs at that time, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, were about that subject matter—like, ‘I'll be damned if you come in here and mess with my family or my man, you got another think coming.’

Question: Speaking of ‘Jolene,’ you mentioned you played it during your African American History class Wednesday. Why was that?

O’Neal: For starters, because I'm the kind of person that likes to keep (my students) guessing. So, I put it on, I'm blasting it as I'm getting my notes and stuff out and together, and I know they're kind of looking around at each other like, ‘What's going on here?’ What I wanted to do is use it as an icebreaker, because I wanted to talk about the fact that I was raised by these amazing Black women who taught me to honor and love people based on their actions and not the color of their skin or whatever ethnicity that they were a part of.

We were going into a very, very difficult chapter about the triangular trade of the enslavement of African people, so I wanted that icebreaker of what Dolly represented.

Question: You mentioned that your great-grandmother would have called Dolly ‘a good Christian.’ Why is that?

O’Neal: She lived it. My great-grandmother would have said Dolly was a real Christian; like, this lady actually loves people and she’s actually sticking her neck out for women, for people regardless of their race and ethnicity. She was there for people, for humanity, so the women in my family saw her as a true humanitarian.

So, you know, Dolly let Whitney Houston sing (‘I Will Always Love You’) and she made over $10 million in royalties from Whitney’s version, but you know what? She never even collected that money. You know what she did with that money? She put it back into a historically Black neighborhood in Nashville. She was like, ‘This Black woman, Whitney Houston, took my song and sang it into the stratosphere, and that’s who deserves this money, is these communities.’ I mean, who does that? Only Dolly! She built an amusement park so people in the community where she grew up could have jobs. She sent something like 300 million books to kids.

Question: What are you remembering most about Dolly this week?

O’Neal: I think about, you know, I was a young Black man growing up in the Chicago area, and I adored her. I adored her ability to be brash, her ability to be a shrewd businesswoman. Here she was building an empire, but at the same time, going back to that idea of contradictions, being in some ways understated about it.

I think as Black folks we could see ourselves in her. We had to look sharp because we didn't have a lot else to go on. We had to roll in the Cadillac or the Lincoln because we didn't have a lot else to make us feel proud, but that didn’t really get to what was happening beneath the surface. And I know that for Black women, that level of beauty that she exuded, getting the hair done, getting the nails, all of it, they respected that. But they saw she was so much more. There were all these other things going on that were unsaid, but people knew about her, and the women in my family knew. And they were just, like … you weren't about to mush-mouth no Dolly Parton up in my house. You just weren't.

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

For ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� scholar Shawn Trenell O’Neal, the outpouring of grief over Dolly Parton’s death in Black communities bespeaks the legend’s humanity and allyship.

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Top image: Dolly Parton onstage at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia. (Photo: Leeann Cafferata/Wikimedia Commons)

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