Contact:

Cindy Tyson, 505-277-7688 Michael Padilla, 277-1816

March 26, 2002

UNM Center for the Southwest Hosts ‘Paradise Paved’ Conference

The Center for the Southwest at the University of New Mexico hosts “Paradise Paved: Utopian Imaginations and the Southwestern City,” a three-day conference Friday-Sunday, April 26-28 in Albuquerque. All “Paradise Paved” programs are free and open to the public.

“Paradise Paved” kicks off Friday, April 26, at 7 p.m. at the UNM Continuing Education Center, 1634 University Avenue NE, with a keynote address by Chris Wilson, J.B. Jackson Professor of Cultural Landscape Studies. Wilson’s slide lecture, titled “Return to the Walking City: New Urbanist Simulations of Utopia,” examines the utopian visions that fueled redevelopment in suburban Santa Fe, downtown Albuquerque and the village of Dona Ana.

“Paradise Paved” continues Saturday, from 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. in room 125 of Dane Smith Hall on the UNM campus, with a series of lectures by seven humanities scholars.

In the first morning session, two scholars discuss “Symbols and the City.” Judy Morley, of the UNM History Department, offers “Paradise Stuccoed: Historic Preservation and the Symbolism of Cultural Unity” a look at the re-creation of Old Town as a timeless New Mexico village in the midst of Albuquerque’s rapidly changing urban landscape. Jeffrey Sanders also of the UNM Department of History presents “The Madonna on the Road: Public Art, Memory, and Mobility in 1920s New Mexico,” a study of statuary in what was once McClellan Park, and is now the site of Albuquerque’s new Federal Courthouse.

The second morning session, “The Sacred and the City,” features UNM Anthropology professor Sylvia Rodriguez, presenting a slide lecture titled “‘Over Behind Mabel’s Land:’ Utopia and Thirdspace in Taos,” a look at the relation between the Mabel Dodge Luhan house and surrounding sites, structures, and geological formations. Amy Scott of the UNM History Department will speak on “Hip Paths to Paradise: Mountain Recreation, Health Foods, and Spirituality in the Republic of Boulder,” an analysis of the evolution of urban culture in Boulder, Colo., since 1967.

Conference participants are invited to lunch on Saturday at University House, courtesy of the UNM Office of Graduate Studies. For lunch reservations, call the Center for the Southwest, 505-277-7688, or email ctyson@unm.edu, by April 19.

After lunch, a session titled “Sex and the City” opens with a presentation by Assistant Professor Pablo Mitchell, Department of History, Oberlin College, on “Sex and Social Space in Modernizing Albuquerque.” Mitchell will discuss the career of Lizzie McGrath, Albuquerque’s infamous brothel-keeper, and explain how McGrath’s life and career shape Albuquerque’s landscape to this day. Assistant Professor Myla Vicenti Carpio of the Department of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University, will present “Paradise Hidden: Remaining Indigenous and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgendered in the City,” a look at the ways in which mobility between city and reservation enables Native Americans to negotiate multiple identities.

John Findlay, professor of History at the University of Washington and noted historian of the modern urban west, will offer a closing keynote address on “The Wishful West.” Findlay reveals how migration, the quest for community, and the planning of improvement reflect utopian ideas that tell us much about the West and Westerners.

On Sunday, “Paradise Paved” takes to the streets with a car caravan tour of four recently redeveloped sites in downtown Albuquerque, featuring “street talks” by historians and planners. The tour begins at the Federal Courthouse, with a talk by Jeff Sanders of the UNM History Department, who will describe the shifting history of McClellan Park.

For the second stop, the tour will proceed to the Sawmill Community Land Trust, where Professor Claudia Isaac of the UNM Department of Architecture and Urban Planning discusses the history and future of neighborhood revitalization. At the Sawmill CLT, community activists catalyzed the environmental cleanup and architectural revitalization of their neighborhood.

The third stop is the Joseph P. Baca Plazuela at 4th and Barelas, SW, a vest pocket park and public art project that replaced a historic building. Chris Wilson, J.B. Jackson Professor of Cultural Landscape Studies at UNM, will consider what we lose and what we gain as we clear space for public life.

The tour culminates in the heart of downtown, in front of the Alvarado Transportation Center on 1st St. SW. Pablo Mitchell, assistant professor of history at Oberlin College, will describe the role of the railroad in bringing commercial culture (with all its virtues and vices) to Albuquerque. Karen Marcotte, partner in Consensus Planning, one of the city’s most successful private planning firms, explores the crucial role of private capital in the transformation and revitalization of Albuquerque and other Southwestern cities.

The conference is made possible in part by a grant from the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities, with additional funding from the Center for the Southwest, the departments of History and Earth and Planetary Sciences, the Graduate and Professional Students’ Association, and the Office of Graduate Studies at UNM; the Western History Association; the Rio Grande Brewery, and Casa Rondena Winery.

For more information, call the Center for the Southwest at 505-277-7688, or email Cindy Tyson, Administrative Assistant at the CSW, at ctyson@unm.edu. Or contact Judy Morley, Project Director of “Paradise Paved,” at jmorley@unm.edu or Virginia Scharff, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Southwest at vscharff@unm.edu.

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