Contact:

Enrique Lamadrid, 277-5907 Laurie Mellas-Ramirez, 277-5915

February 25, 2002

UNM PROFESSORS EARN SOUTHWEST BOOK AWARD

Three University of New Mexico professors were honored with a Southwest Book Award at the 31st annual awards ceremony Saturday in El Paso.

The book, "Nuevo Mexico Profundo: Rituals of an Indo-Hispano Homeland," (Museum of New Mexico Press / National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico, 2000), features photographs by Miguel Gandert, journalism, and essays by Enrique R. Lamadrid, Spanish.

Visiting UNM professor Chris Wilson, historian Ramón A. Gutiérrez and critic Lucy R. Lippard also contributed essays to the book.

The collection of photographs and essays document two regional cross-cultural celebrations of the Indo-Hispano peoples of New Mexico - the Matachines dance, which dramatizes the spiritual conquest of Mexico and the native response to it, and Comanche dances and folk theater, in which Nuevo Mexicanos celebrate the Comanche culture and peace achieved with the tribe in 1786.

The tradition of pilgrimage and sacred landscape is also explored in the book, which features Chimayo, Tome, and Tortugas, the three most significant pilgrimage sites in New Mexico.

Sponsored by the Border Regional Library Association, since 1971, the Southwest Book Awards have been presented in recognition of outstanding books about the Southwest published each year in any genre.

Gandert, a native of Española, New Mexico, is a fine art and documentary photographer. His photographs have been shown internationally in galleries and museums and are featured in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian and the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe.

Lamadrid specializes in Hispanic folklore, ethnopoetics, folk music and Latin American poetry (Mexican, Caribbean, Andean). He also teaches the culture, environment and bioregionalism of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo.

Wilson, the J.B. Jackson lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning, is establishing a certificate program in Historic Preservation and Regionalism within the school. He sees vast possibilities in cultural resource management.

A second book with a UNM connection, "Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico (UNM Press, 2001)," by Mary Montaño, was also honored with an award.

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The University of New Mexico
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