Internationally renowned human rights activist and photographer Alan Pogue will be speaking at the University of New Mexico’s Student Union Building on Wednesday, March 26, at 7 p.m. Pogue is speaking at UNM as a guest of the UNM Peace Studies and University Honors programs.
Pogue’s photographs have appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the world, from Japan’s Asahi Shinbum to the UK’s Independent and the Washington Post. Recently, the University of Texas Press published a coffee table book with over 100 photographs representing Pogue’s body of work called “Witness for Justice.”
A former Vietnam battlefield medic prior to becoming a photographer, Pogue will show pictures he has taken throughout his 40 years of photography during his lecture, entitled “Connecting the Dots and Focusing on a Peaceful Future: Vietnam, El Salvador, Haiti, Iraq, Palestine, the U.S./Mexico Border and Death Row.”
Not long after returning from Vietnam in 1968, Pogue began working with migrant farm workers in south Texas while Cesar Chavez was organizing in that area for wage and working condition reform.
Since that time, Pogue has traveled repeatedly to Iraq, worked among Afghani refugees in Pakistan, and documented the continued struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. He was in Haiti during the time of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and after the president was deposed by rebels. Over the years Pogue has also documented prison conditions in the United States and South America, and on Death Row in Texas.
In addition to his lecture, Pogue will also guest teach two Peace Studies classes on Thursday, March 27. The first class, “Causes of Crime,” is at 9:30 a.m. in room 328 of Dane Smith Hall, and the second class, “Nonviolent Alternatives,” is at 11 a.m. in room 132 of Dane Smith Hall. Pogue will also be signing copies of his book “Witness for Justice” at Barnes and Noble in Coronado Mall at 7 p.m. Thursday evening.
These events are co-sponsored by the University of New Mexico Peace Studies Program, University Honors Program and the UNM campus chapter of Amnesty International, as well as Veterans for Peace and the Albuquerque Peace and Justice Coalition.
For more information, please contact Stuart Heady at (928) 724-3091.
Posted by scarr at March 24, 2008 04:06 PM