Roberto Rodriguez, Ph.D. – known as Dr. Cintli
He is an emeritus associate professor in the Mexican American Studies Department, at the University of Arizona. He is a longtime award winning journalist/columnist who returned to school in 2003 in pursuit of a Master’s degree (2005) and a Ph.D. in Mass Communications (2008) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. While there, he co-produced with Patrisia Gonzales, Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan, a documentary on origins and migrations. Prior to returning to school he was a nationally syndicated columnist, first with Chronicle features and then with Universal Press Syndicate – 1994-2006. He is the author of Justice: A Question of Race; it documents his 7 ½ year quest for justice in the courtroom, stemming from a case of police brutality that almost cost him his life. His research focus at the University of Arizona is on Maiz culture on this continent, which includes its relationship to the Ethnic Studies controversies nationwide. He teaches classes on the history of Maiz, Mexican/Chicano/Chicana culture and politics and the history of red-brown journalism. As part of his work, he has developed and published on the concept of Running Epistemology (International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 2012. In 2013, a major digitized collection of Mexican and Indigenous media was inaugurated by the University of Arizona Libraries, based on a class he created: The History of Red-Brown Journalism. His book, Our Sacred Maiz is our Mother: Nin Tonantzin Non Centeotl was published by the University of Arizona Press 2014. He works with the concepts of Elder-Youth Epistemology and Running Epistemology and was the 2013 Baker-Clark Human Rights award recipient from American Educational Research Association, for his work in defending Ethnic Studies. He recently completed another book for the UA Press on violence against the Black-Brown-Indigenous communities of the United States: Yolqui: A Warrior Summoned from the Spirit World (Fall 2019). He is working on the last of his trilogy: Smiling Brown, a book and project on color and color consciousness among Brown peoples in this country and on this continent. He is also working on a book on origins and migrations of Mexican peoples with his former co-author Gonzales. In 2016, he received an award from the National Association for Ethnic Studies, in recognition and appreciation as Conference Chair for the 44th annual conference at the University of Arizona. A recent collection of his work was recently published(2021) by Aztlan Libre Press – Writing 50 years (mas o menos) Amongst the Gringos. He currently writes a bi-monthly column for The Progressive Populist. He can be reached at: xcolumn@gmail.com
About this event series:
The Learning Without Borders Initiative is a hub that fosters collaboration between knowledge keepers, educators, community leaders, scholars, Elders, artists, activists, students and youth committed to Pedagogies of Liberation centering Black, Indigenous and voices from the global majority, aka as The Village. This is part of a political pedagogical initiative created and led by Dr. Clelia O. Rodriguez’s own commitment to the transformation of teaching/learning practices beyond the binary. The series is open to everyone. Whether you are affiliated to an institution or not, what is required in this space without borders is political listening. Through the use of technology and unconventional texts, we connect to co-create, co-teach and co-learn and not to pursue models of academic extraction that is done in the name of “research”.”
