UNM's English Department is holding its 12th annual Southwest Symposium titled "The Silicon Coyote: Where Past Meets Present in the American Southwest," Friday and Saturday.
This year's symposium will feature speakers on topics as diverse as "Irish Scholarship in the Desert" and "Writing the Southwest" at different areas on campus.
Other events include readings of works-in-progress by Holly Romero-Perez, Sonnin Waters and Kate Mortellaro at R.B. Winning Coffee Co., 111 Harvard Dr. S.E., Friday night.
The Southwest Symposium takes an interdisciplinary look at academia and focuses on the recreation people in the West undergo in order to survive.
The conference began in 1989 as an attempt to allow English scholars learn more about the work done in their community. The Symposium has grown steadily since its inception and now features work from graduate students and professors from all over the nation. Past keynote speakers have included Gloria Anzaldua and Leslie Silko.
John `Halcyon' Styn, one of two keynote speakers at this year's Southwest Symposium, is better known as a Cocky Bastard. Styn's Web site, www.cockybastard.com, won a "Webby," the Internet equivalent of an Oscar, for best personal Web site last year. Styn now lives in The Real House, a web-cam enabled home in San Diego, and runs a free web-cam site called CitizenX. Styn will speak about using the Internet as a tool of personal evolution Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
For more information about the Southwest Symposium and a schedule of events, visit its Web site www.unm.edu/~sws.
