Division of Arts and Humanities

Sanctuary brims with happy tales (and tails)

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Sanctuary brims with happy tales (and tails) Rachel Sauer Tue, 12/02/2025 - 07:30

Clint Talbott

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary, founded and run by CU ��ý�� alumna Jess Osborne and her husband, CU ��ý�� Professor Myles Osborne, gives unwanted or neglected animals a safe, comfortable forever home

Why did this chicken cross the road? No one knew. And this was no joke.

Late last month, the chicken was strutting on Magnolia Road in the mountains near Nederland—a place inhabited by coyotes, fox and other canines. Three passersby stopped to help, and, together, they captured the bird by wrapping it in a shirt, whereupon one good Samaritan drove the bird to Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary.

Friends of the sanctuary posted the news to the local Facebook group, called Nedheads, hoping to find the chicken’s owner. No one claimed the bird.

Myles (left) and Jess Osborn founded Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary to rescue "unwanted and discarded animals and provide them with high-quality food and medical care to live out their natural lives.” (Photos: Clint Talbott)

It’s possible that the chicken wandered away from its home, through the forest, to this road. It’s also possible that the bird, which appears to be a rooster, was dumped on the side of the road because it won’t produce eggs. (Discarding roosters is common.)

Jess and Myles Osborne, who founded the sanctuary, have adopted the rooster and named it Chamonix, after the resort town in France. Like his namesake, Chamonix is striking, but why name a bird after a town? Thereby hangs a tale.

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit launched in 2021 by Jess, who graduated in 2005 from the ��ý�� with degrees in communication and fine arts, and Myles, CU ��ý�� associate professor of history.

The sanctuary, just south of Magnolia Road west of ��ý��, aims to rescue “unwanted and discarded animals and provide them with high-quality food and medical care to live out their natural lives.”

On the sanctuary’s 23-acre parcel, more than two-dozen animals—horses, pigs, goats, ducks, dogs, plus a cat, yak, donkey, turkey and, now, chicken—enjoy lives they otherwise would not have had.

And an oink-oink here…

Consider the pigs, named Bolton and Berlin, which a friend of the Osbornes noticed wandering on another roadside near Nederland. The pigs had broken out of their home because they were starving and didn’t have water, and their owner gave the OK to take the pigs. Bolton and Berlin now sleep, snort and snuffle, in the sanctuary’s loving embrace.

Each animal has a backstory.

Wilbur, a dog named for Wilbur, Washington, came to the sanctuary after his foster family refused to put him down, against the advice of three veterinarians, to join his biological brother, Ziggy, named after Zagazig, Egypt.

Chamonix the (suspected) rooster came to Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary in October after being found strutting alone on Magnolia Road near Nederland; attempts to find an owner were unsuccessful.

The brothers were both born with the same neurological disorder. Wilbur also has a dog version of Wilson’s disease, which makes him retain excessive amounts of copper. He takes medicine to remove copper from his blood.

Wilbur was in a wheelchair but now can walk, though unsteadily. Ziggy suffers from spells resembling seizures that prevented him from walking or standing at least 30 times a day. He often had to be carried.

Wilbur and Ziggy are clearly happy, though, and Jess dubs them the “wiggle brothers.”

Talkeetna (Alaska), a yak usually called “Tallie,” was born prematurely and was unlikely to survive. She was donated to the sanctuary, which took her to Colorado State University and gave her a shot at survival. These days, Tallie is hale and hearty and hangs around with the goats. She seems to enjoy gently headbutting people who walk by.

London and Brooklyn are mini horses who had been awfully neglected. Both had severely overgrown hooves when they were rescued from a kill pen at auction. Brooklyn had suffered some kind of trauma when she was younger, and her left eye has been removed once at Tails to give her the same standard of care as humans and dogs.

Both mini horses love being taken for walks and chomping as much roadside grass as possible in the broad meadow that sits under a stunning vista featuring James Peak, South and North Arapahoe Peaks.

A herd of elk often gathers nearby, drawing curious glances from many of the animals, perhaps none more than Rio, a 2,000-pound draft horse whose head is higher than the eaves of the sanctuary.

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary provides a loving home and high-quality care to animals in need and creates a welcoming place for humans to experience the love, joy and healing of connecting with animals.

When Tails adopted her from a rescue in Montana, Rio had a crooked foot and still needed extensive veterinary care to make sure she was comfortable and could walk comfortably. Now, she’s playful and mischievous, sometimes inadvertently crushing pieces of the aluminum fencing around the horses’ area.

Animals soothe the human psyche

Jess Osborne has always loved animals. As a kid in Gunbarrel, she collected the critters her mother could afford (and their home could accommodate): frogs, geckos, chickens and dogs.

Animals helped her feel better, much better. She has grappled with ADHD and anxiety since childhood. As she speaks, her focus can drift into several sometimes-related topics.

Jess Osborne with Tallie the yak (left) and Darwin the dog.

But focusing on animals is no problem. “Even though I can’t remember history or make it through any of Myles’ books without falling asleep, when it comes to medicines and animal care and stuff like that, I go down the hyper-focusing tunnel,” she told The Colorado Sun.

And the animals helped other people, too, Jess noticed. Nine years ago, when she was working at a nursing and memory-care facility in ��ý��, Jess brought her dogs Dublin and Brisbane. The residents loved the dogs.

After adopting Brisbane and Dublin, who died in 2023, Jess and Myles adopted a bunny and, later, the mini horses.

This was the seed of an idea: Elderly people often can’t care for (or aren’t allowed to have) pets. Unwanted and abused animals need forever homes where they can live their best lives. And rescued animals can bring comfort and joy to people who—for many reasons—don’t have animals in their lives.

This was true for Jess’ grandmother, whom Jess and Myles took care of and who died in 2021. It was also true for a neighbor’s boy, who was on the autism spectrum.

He rode and brushed the horses to build core strength and fine motor skills. Occupational and physical therapists have shown that movement and interaction with horses can improve physical, cognitive and emotional well-being in people with varying conditions.

In the career world, Jess had not found her place, but launching an animal sanctuary was her calling. She and Myles bought the sanctuary’s current home, which is large enough to allow the sanctuary to help more animals and humans. There, they have room for large horses and the rest of the menagerie.

But what to call the sanctuary? Happy Tails wasn’t quite right. Given Myles’ extensive travel and his English background, Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary seemed to fit, even though the place is not Dickensian.

The name reflects the fact that both Jess and Myles love to read and travel.

Of course, the place, which had been a regular home with a two-car garage and a large deck, had to be converted to serve its primary residents, the animals. The garage was turned into a barn, and an additional shelter for the goats was built adjacent to the newly fashioned barn.

Myles Osborne with several of the eight goats, who often lounge on the sunny deck and fall asleep, snoring.

A sunny enclosure next to the deck serves as a warm spot for the pigs and sometimes the eight goats, who often lounge on the sunny deck and fall asleep, snoring.

Below the deck, the chicken, Chamonix, the newest feathered child, and ducks (Louise, Abe and Albie, after Lake Louise and Lake Abraham, Canada, and Lake Albert, Uganda) have their own petite house called the Duck Tails Saloon, which resembles an Old West bar, next to a small fenced area.

Jess, Myles and sanctuary volunteers build and mend fences, string electric fencing (which keeps big horses in and bears out), fashion goat playgrounds, and spend their days raking muck, preparing special food for two-dozen different palates and attending to the animals’ medical needs.

Being as bold as your dreams

It’s a lot of work and, no doubt, a fair amount of stress. As he talks about this, however, Myles’ demeanor remains steady and calm, just as it does when he discusses the history of colonialism in Africa, the necessary steps to refashion a horse fence or his attempted climb of Mount Everest, which he abandoned in the “death zone” to save a man’s life.

Myles suggests that the decision to start a sanctuary was a no-brainer:

“If you have a dream and something that you are excited about, you have to lean into it. And if you are in your early 40s and financially secure, if you're not gonna do it, then when are you gonna do it?”

He observes: “I do think that generally when people are brave and people lean into things that seem intimidating, it works itself out. … And why not be brave? Why not go for it? And it clearly is Jess’ passion in life. It's what she was put on the earth to do, very clearly. So it wasn't that tough of a decision.

“Now, keeping the numbers reasonable is a bit more of an ongoing conversation,” he adds. There are bills for veterinarians, racks of hay, tons of animal feed, walls of sawdust (for sleeping and padding) and more. The operation is 40% self-funded (down from 70% self-funded last year).

But it’s worth it, they say.

The couple still visit elder-care facilities in which there will be 25 or 30 people in wheelchairs in a circle. “And we just release 2,000 pounds of goats and yak and the dogs. And they all know exactly how to behave, how careful they need to be. And (the animals) will walk around the circle, they will greet everybody, everyone pets them.”

Tallie the yak was born prematurely and given scant odds of survival, but these days she is hale and hearty and hangs around with the goats. She seems to enjoy gently headbutting people who walk by.

Myles also relates a story about a blind woman who came to the sanctuary and walked onto the deck. Goats quickly crowded around her. The woman petted them and marveled aloud that four goats were pressing into her.

Myles told her there were actually six goats. Goats (seeking treats) can become pushy around fully able-bodied people, but they took it easy on this visitor.

“And then we said to her that there has actually been a 500-pound yak who has been two yards away from you for the past 15 minutes, who clearly understands that you have some issue that she's not familiar with and she's holding back and she's waiting.”

The animals, he adds, “understand instinctively when people are old or disabled or young or blind or something, they get it.” And for the woman, the experience was “profound.”

The next horizon

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary has more its leaders hope to do. Chief among them is to build a “proper” barn that has more room for the animals, whose design facilitates feeding, cleaning, visitors’ experiences and volunteers’ work.

While that’s on the horizon, more immediate tasks remain. On a recent evening, Myles and three volunteers worked to rearrange and refashion the fence that keeps the horses from wandering away and separates the minis from the large horses and Murphy, the donkey.

As Myles worked here and there, tools usually in hand, Stanley, the turkey (named for Istanbul), followed Myles around.

Stanley came from a backyard homestead whose owners didn’t have the heart to slaughter him. And no wonder. Jess describes him as “the friendliest turkey on Earth.”

Stanley’s gobble, a cheerful trilling song, often punctuates the background sounds of barks, whinnies, bleats, clucks and snorts. Stanley tends to follow people around the sanctuary.

With Myles in the horse pen, Stanley performed some “turkey dances,” with Myles’ gentle encouragement and praise.

So there they were, human and animal, working and strutting, talking and gobbling. Two tales as one.

Learn more about Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary at this link.

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Rosa Parks: 70 years beyond the bus seat—a lifetime of activism

Julie Chiron — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:14:17 +0000

Rosa Parks: 70 years beyond the bus seat—a lifetime of activism Julie Chiron Mon, 12/01/2025 - 11:14

Bradley Worrell

CU ��ý�� historian Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders delineates misperceptions surrounding ‘the mother of the Civil Rights Movement’ and the Montgomery Bus Boycott while highlighting Parks’ enduring legacy

When people hear the name Rosa Parks, they likely picture a quiet, tired, older African American seamstress who refused to give up her seat to a white patron on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus on Dec. 1, 1955.

Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders

But as ��ý�� historian Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders explains, 70 years after Parks’ act of civil disobedience—and the Civil Rights Movement it helped ignite—there is a lot Americans tend to get wrong about that defining moment, which she says is far more complex, courageous and enduring.

“Many people still think of her as a tired seamstress and an old lady, but she was just 42 years old, she was the secretary of the local NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) chapter and she had been politically active in campaigns previously,” says Lawrence-Sanders, a History Department assistant professor who specializes in African American history, including the Civil Rights Movement.

Notably, Parks was not the first Black person to be arrested for violating Montgomery’s segregated bus seating rules, Lawrence-Sanders says. She explains that civil rights activists had been looking for a test case to initiate a city-wide boycott to push for integration of the bus system and Parks was deemed a promising candidate.

“In class, I tell my students why Rosa Parks was chosen—because she was considered a respectable older woman who was married. Also, although she grew up in a working-class family and worked as a seamstress, she had completed high school, which was a rare achievement for Black Southerners then,” Lawrence-Sanders says. “There were teenage girls like Claudette Colvin who had been arrested before but weren’t chosen because, unfortunately, movement leaders did not view them as the right public face for a court challenge.”

Arrest prompts the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Days after Parks’ arrest, Black leaders in Montgomery organized a city bus boycott. On Dec. 5, 1955, about 40,000 Black bus riders—representing the majority of the city’s bus commuters—boycotted the city transit system.

Seven decades after the bus boycott, Lawrence-Sanders says many people don’t fully appreciate the herculean task of organizing the endeavor, the sacrifices it required and its duration. She says that when she asks her history students to guess how long the bus boycott lasted, they typically say about a few weeks or a month. In truth, it lasted 381 days.

There also tends to be a misperception that the bus boycott was a spur-of-the-moment act—but that was not the case, Lawrence-Sanders says.

Black leaders working for civil rights in Montgomery had been waiting for an opportunity to challenge the city’s segregated bus system—and after Parks’ arrest, they leapt into action with astonishing speed—all without email, social media or other modern technologies. Flyers were printed and distributed by hand by the Montgomery Women’s Political Council, and churches became organizing hubs.

“The Montgomery boycott was planned—not spontaneous,” Lawrence-Sanders says. “Activists were organized and strategic.”

Organizers established vast carpool systems that operated as shadow transit networks, but many Black men and women trudged on foot for miles to and from work every day rather than use the city’s segregated bus system, Lawrence-Sanders says. In some cases, wealthy white women offered rides to their Black domestic workers, which sparked some controversy within Montgomery’s white community, she notes.

And while leaders were chosen for the movement, including a young Martin Luther King Jr., decisions were democratic: at mass meetings, ordinary citizens voted to continue the boycott despite the challenges, Lawrence-Sanders says.

“There are obviously people who are considered leaders of the movement, but ordinary people in the community are making these sacrifices to try to overturn a really unjust system,” she adds.

Montgomery amid the broader struggle for civil rights

Lawrence-Sanders says it’s important to understand the Montgomery bus boycott in the scope of the larger Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s.

“At the time, we’re just about one year in time removed from the Brown vs. The Board case, which sets off initial school desegregation battles. In my African American history course, I try to make clear (the idea) that ‘The Supreme Court decides it, but it is not decided,’” she says. “There is not a single moment where all of the schools in the South have abandoned segregation; there are multiple local battles for the next two decades or so.”

“We know from images at the time how violent some of those battles became in Little Rock, Arkansas, and in Mississippi and other places.

And then, just months before the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago was abducted and lynched after allegedly flirting with a young white woman while visiting family in rural Mississippi, in violation of Southern societal norms at the time.

The brutality of Till’s slaying and the acquittal of the men charged with his murder drew international attention to the long history of lynching in the South in particular, Lawrence-Sanders says. What’s more, Till’s murder laid bare the limitations of U.S. democracy at a time when the United States was engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, where America was portraying itself as the home of liberty and justice, she adds.

“I think the Cold War context is really important, as international media actually picks up what is happening in the United States surrounding the lynchings and murder of Black people and Black children,” Lawrence-Sanders says. “Emmett’s mother’s decision to have an open casket to show what happened to him is a turning point, I think, for some people who may have been unaware of the brutality of the violence of the Jim Crow South.

“The fact that the men that are charged with his murder are acquitted was not a surprise to most people who were familiar with the Jim Crow legal system, but it may have been shocking to those people seeing it for the first time.”

It was against that backdrop that civil rights activists pushed for desegregated busing in Montgomery, often facing intimidation, violence and arrests, Lawrence-Sanders notes. It bears mentioning 70 years later that there was no guarantee their efforts would ultimately prove successful, she adds.

Victory in Montgomery comes at a cost

Handwritten reflections from Rosa Parks on her arrest.
Click to see full document.

On June 5, 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees all citizens—regardless of race—equal rights under state and federal laws. The city appealed that ruling, but on Dec. 20, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling.

Montgomery’s buses were officially integrated the next day.

Lawrence-Sanders says the success of the Montgomery boycott is now seen as one of the first successful mass protests on behalf of civil rights in the United States, setting the stage for successive actions to bring about legal protections for African Americans. It also resulted in Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a national civil rights leader and solidifying his commitment to nonviolent resistance, she notes.

At the same time, Lawrence-Sanders says it’s important to recognize that there was a cost to be paid for the people who participated in the Civil Rights Movement.

“Activism was never glamorous, protests like sit-ins were disruptive and unpopular at the time,” she says. “Activists faced danger and hostility. We praise them now, but they weren’t celebrated then. We fail to recognize that many people involved in the Civil Rights Movement either died young or struggled for the rest of their lives.”

A number of civil rights leaders had their homes bombed or were killed for their activism, including King. As for Parks, she and her husband moved to Detroit in 1957 after they both lost their jobs and she received death threats.

“She never stops being an activist, though,” Lawrence-Sanders says. “She was involved in the Black Power movement in Detroit, in the anti-apartheid movement and pan-African causes well into the 1980s and 1990s. Like a lot of activists then and now, Rosa Parks protested segregation, sexual violence, unjust imprisonment and apartheid; she understood that solving one issue didn’t end the struggle.”

Parks was later recognized for her efforts, receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in 1992—the highest honor the nation bestows on citizens. At the same time, Lawrence-Sanders says that Parks spent her last years in near poverty, living in a modest Detroit apartment and at one point facing eviction before a rich benefactor came to her aid.

An enduring legacy for civil rights

Lawrence-Sanders says that when she teaches students about the Civil Rights Movement, she instructs them to avoid the trap of seeing those leaders one-dimensionally, in that one moment of their lives.

“History tends to freeze these activists in these celebrated moments, like Rosa Parks in 1955—but she lived for 50 more years and never stopped being an activist,” Lawrence-Sanders says. “The most important part of Rosa Parks’ legacy is her long life of activism—not just the one act we all know about. She made a decision that ignited one of the most important acts of civil disobedience in U.S. history—and then she kept fighting for justice for five decades more.”

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Rosa Parks was arrested, fingerprinted and briefly jailed for "refusing to obey orders of a bus driver."

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Why Skinner Myers isn’t chasing Hollywood glory

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Why Skinner Myers isn’t chasing Hollywood glory Rachel Sauer Wed, 11/19/2025 - 07:30

Cody DeBos

The CU ��ý�� Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts assistant professor is finding success as an independent filmmaker

When Skinner Myers shoots a movie, he doesn’t need a Hollywood backlot, a multi-million-dollar budget or even a month-long shooting schedule. For Myers, a career in film isn’t about glitz and glam. It’s an opportunity to tell stories he’s passionate about while adhering to a moral code.

That dedication to his craft has carried him on a lengthy path full of unexpected twists to who he is today: an award-winning filmmaker and recipient of the prestigious Amplifier Fellowship.

“I submitted an original pilot and I got selected. It’s really opened up my network to individuals that I probably could reach as … an indie filmmaker professor,” Myers says of the opportunity. “So, it’s been good. The timing has been really good.”

Skinner Myers, a CU ��ý�� assistant professor of cinema studies and moving image arts, recently received an Amplifier Fellowship from Film Independent.

He’s currently in the middle of two projects, including Tragic Boogie, a pro-wrestling crime drama, and a feature film called Mood Swing Whiskey.

“We shot the latter in March of this year in Los Angeles during CU’s spring break. It’s a slow-cinema, avant-garde horror thriller shot on black-and-white Super 16 film,” he says.

Earlier this year, another of Myers’ films premiered at the Berlin Critics Week film festival and was quickly picked up by a distributor, with a release planned for 2026.

But for Myers, an assistant professor of cinema studies and moving image arts at the ��ý��, these are more than artistic milestones. He sees each one as proof that it’s still possible to make bold, personal work outside the traditional Hollywood system.

Rewriting his own script

Myers didn’t originally set out to be a filmmaker. In fact, he spent much of his early career pursuing gigs on the other side of the camera.

“I was originally an actor, starting at the age of 18,” he says.

He moved to New York City to study acting, performed in off-Broadway plays and started a band. After 9/11, he relocated to Los Angeles in search of commercial work but found the industry disheartening.

“I got quickly disillusioned with the idea of making it as an actor,” Myers recalls.

Rather than ending the story there, Myers decided to pick up the camera for himself. He began experimenting with documentaries, including a self-financed trip to Uganda to shoot a vérité-style doc in the slums of Kampala.

“After that, I applied to film school, which was a big change for me, because this entire time I was an actor, I didn’t know much about filming,” he says.

“I remember one of the teachers who had seen my feature doc during the admissions process asked me, ‘Why do you want to come to film school? You’re already making films.’ At the time I didn’t really understand the question, which I do now, but I wanted connections, so I went anyway,” he adds.

After stints in graduate school, work on the TV series True Detective, and a job teaching film to middle and high schoolers, Myers began producing short films on the side. Eventually, he landed a full-time role at Loyola Marymount University, which allowed him to finance his first feature, The Sleeping Negro, shot in just six days and on a $40,000 budget.

The film went on to play at Slamdance in 2021, receive coverage in the Los Angeles Times, and score a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes after being screened in 20 countries.

Filmmaker Skinner Myers shot his film The Sleeping Negro in just six days and on a $40,000 budget. It went on to play at Slamdance in 2021, receive coverage in the Los Angeles Times and score a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes after being screened in 20 countries. (Photo: Josiah Myers)

“It won lots of awards, and that was when I started to apply for tenure-track positions outside of LA, just because LA was really expensive for my growing family,” Myers said.

His momentum carried him to ��ý�� and gave him the confidence to keep shooting films.

A radical approach to independent cinema

Myers is committed to a filmmaking approach he describes as deeply personal, politically intentional and structurally independent.

“One of the things that makes my approach unique is the lack of resources I’ve had,” he says. “I’ve never had more than six days to make a feature.”

Efficiency—often forced by that lack of resources—is reflected in his poignant, narrative-driving scripts and his low shooting ratio. One thing he splurges on is shooting exclusively on film. These decisions are as much logistical as they are part of his larger philosophy on telling a meaningful story, Myers says.

“I’m also a huge fan of the Black radical cinematic traditions that come before me,” he says, citing the influence of Oscar Micheaux, Haile Gerima and Charles Burnett.

“I want to create films that connect the traditions from the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s to today, because I feel like that bridge has not been connected,” he adds. “These are the things I think about as I’m writing, as I’m thinking through visuals, as I’m thinking about characters, making something that is not only equitable to the crew and cast financially, but is unique in its own way.”

His latest project, Tragic Boogie, is a crime thriller set in the world of professional wrestling.

“We just finished the script on that one. I’m really stoked on it because I think it’s something that, for pro wrestling fans, they’ll totally attach to, but it’s still me and still the type of film I want to make,” Myers says.

Thematically, the film explores how bodies, especially those of Black athletes, are commodified and discarded in entertainment industries.

Myers also sees it as a community project.

“Really, my goal is to make the film here in Denver and really try to bring the local community together and have everyone involved, and even have some students involved,” he says.

Amplifying voices from screen to classroom

Earlier this year, Myers received an Amplifier Fellowship from Film Independent, a nonprofit arts organization that supports emerging filmmakers. The program, sponsored by Netflix, is designed to elevate underrepresented voices in film.

“I try to use my work to show students that, ‘Hey, this is totally doable.’ I try to bring in these real-world experiences as they’re happening to me. And I’m very candid and open with my students."

“It’s been great,” Myers says. “Materialistically, I got financial support. But more importantly, I’ve gotten some new mentors in my life who really understand what I’m trying to do.”

“They have a lot more experience than I do. They’re a lot older. And that’s been really nice, getting some of that wisdom and guidance,” he adds.

The fellowship also has given him precious time. It’s a gift he’s using to write, to collaborate and to think about what kind of artist and educator he wants to be as his career continues to develop.

At CU ��ý��, Myers sees filmmaking and teaching as two parts of a whole. He makes a point to include students in real productions and to demystify the business side of the industry by sharing real stories from his own work and that of his colleagues.

“I try to use my work to show students that, ‘Hey, this is totally doable,’” he says. “I try to bring in these real-world experiences as they’re happening to me. And I’m very candid and open with my students.

“I’ve made three features at this point. I’ve gone through the distribution process (and) the festival process,” he says. “That way, they can see, all right, there’s a way to balance some type of life where you make money and your artistic life.”

Staying true to the story

As for what’s next, Myers is passionate about continuing to create projects that don’t always fit into a press kit.

“I’m not trying to make a Hollywood film; that doesn’t interest me,” he says.

He also encourages young filmmakers to choose their medium with purpose and not to be afraid of change.

“There are a lot of artistic mediums out there other than film,” he says. “So, really know why you need to use that medium to say what you want to say and not something else.”

And if that calling ever changes?

“It’s OK to not do this forever,” he says. “Maybe you say what you want to say in five films. It’s OK to say, ‘OK, I’m going to do something else in my life.’ That’s totally OK.”

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The CU ��ý�� Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts assistant professor is finding success as an independent filmmaker.

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Top image: Skinner Myers in his film The Sleeping Negro (Photo: Josiah Myers)

CU ��ý�� launches research initiative with Israeli and German partners

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 23:13:49 +0000

CU ��ý�� launches research initiative with Israeli and German partners Rachel Sauer Tue, 11/18/2025 - 16:13

Collaboration between the Department of History, Open University of Israel and Berlin’s Center for Research on Antisemitism brings scholars and graduate students together in joint research

Scholars in the ��ý�� Department of History recently launched a first-of-its-kind international research initiative to bring U.S., Israeli and German graduate students and scholars together to partner on collaborative research.

The partnership is between CU ��ý��, the Open University of Israel (OUI) and the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) at the Technical University Berlin (TU Berlin), and this semester the three institutions launched a tri-university graduate course on modern German-Jewish ego-documents, or autobiographical writings, team-taught by faculty across all campuses.

The course, which is currently underway, brings together students and professors from the United States, Israel and Germany in a hybrid format that blends synchronous Zoom meetings and asynchronous Canvas Networks coursework with an intensive, eight-day in-person seminar in Berlin that ended last week.

Thomas Pegelow Kaplan (standing, wearing glasses) and students from CU ��ý��, Open University of Israel and the TU Berlin work with ego-documents at the archives of the Jewish Museum Berlin last week. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

The initiative originated in spring 2024 discussions between Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, professor and Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History, and Guy Miron, OUI vice president for academic affairs and faculty member in the Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies. They envisioned creating a research program that would connect U.S. and Israeli students and scholars through collaborative, cross-cultural study, Pegelow Kaplan says.

He adds that OUI, which was founded in 1974 with an open admissions model and a distance-learning structure intended to democratize access to higher education, is an ideal research partner because it serves one of Israel’s most diverse student populations, ranging from ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities to Druze and Israeli Arabs. In the wake of the upheavals following October 7, 2023, he says, this diversity made OUI an especially compelling partner for a project aimed not only at academic cooperation but also at fostering understanding among students from different backgrounds.

The CU ��ý�� Graduate School and Department of History were early champions of the partnership, Pegelow Kaplan says, and discussions soon expanded a dual partnership between CU ��ý�� and OUI to include the ZfA at TU Berlin. Established in 1982 and rooted in a university founded in 1770, the ZfA is one of the world’s leading centers for the study of antisemitism. Its recent launch of an interdisciplinary MA program added further momentum to the emerging partnership, Pegelow Kaplan says.

Expanding a research network

A key piece of the initiative is the recently completed in-person seminar in Berlin, which is home to Germany’s largest Jewish community and is a global center for Jewish and Holocaust studies and served “as a living classroom,” Pegelow Kaplan says. Participants worked directly with archives and institutions, including the Jewish Museum Berlin and the New Synagogue Berlin–Centrum Judaicum. Students met with leading scholars, archivists, memory activists, city officials and Jewish community representatives for learning and broad-ranging discussion.

The seminar coincided with Germany’s annual commemoration of the November 1938 anti-Jewish pogroms, also known as Kristallnacht —events that marked a turning point in the Nazi regime’s persecution of Jews. Students served as “participatory observers,” analyzing contemporary memory practices during the commemorations as part of their research.

The CU ��ý�� Department of History, Graduate School, Research and Innovation Office and Benson Center, as well as several new donors who joined the trip as auditors, contributed to student travel costs for the Berlin seminar.

Pegelow Kaplan emphasizes that the Berlin seminar was the first step of many. Plans are already underway for future course offerings, an international conference in Berlin in June 2026, expanded research trips—including, once conditions allow, to Jerusalem—and broader disciplinary participation extending beyond the humanities and social sciences into fields such as engineering.

The initiative also aims to establish exchange pathways to bring Israeli and German students and faculty to ��ý�� and to send CU affiliates abroad for both short- and long-term stays. More ambitious possibilities, including joint degree programs, are being explored, Pegelow Kaplan says.

Throughout its development, the project has remained closely aligned with CU ��ý��’s mission, he says, to be “a global research and education leader intent on transforming individuals, communities and the entire human experience.”

As this international partnership grows, Pegelow Kaplan says he and his colleagues in Israel and Germany are aiming to make it not only a model of collaborative scholarship but also an avenue for fostering meaningful connections among students navigating a rapidly changing world.

Professor G. Miron (left, gray jacket) of Open University/Yad Vashem introduces students to the most pertinent debates at the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial in Berlin. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

Program participants at the Gleis 17 Memorial in Berlin, which commemorates the 50,000 Berlin Jews deported to their death in the East. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

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Collaboration between the Department of History, Open University of Israel and Berlin’s Center for Research on Antisemitism brings scholars and graduate students together in joint research.

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Top image: CU ��ý�� MA students working with archival collections at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

It was a very good year (for movies)

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 20:51:36 +0000

It was a very good year (for movies) Rachel Sauer Wed, 11/12/2025 - 13:51

Rachel Sauer

The films of 1975, currently featured in CU ��ý��’s International Film Series, reflected the times and the culture in ways that hadn’t been seen before, says film scholar Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz

It wasn’t all bad news in 1975. On July 5, Arthur Ashe became the first Black man to win Wimbledon, and several months later, on Oct. 11, Saturday Night Live debuted, the same day that Bruce Springsteen earned his first Top 40 hit with "Born to Run."

But then…

It was also the year that Saigon fell, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, two assassination attempts were made on Gerald Ford and U.S. unemployment peaked at 9.2%. Jimmy Hoffa was reported missing, and Patty Hearst was captured in San Francisco.

“Between the political context and the historical context and technological developments 50 years ago, it created this environment for a lot of exceptional filmmaking,” notes Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz, a CU ��ý�� professor of cinema studies and moving image arts.

The times felt raw and upside-down, so filmmakers responded by making indelible, groundbreaking art.

Of course there have been other momentous years for films now considered classics, but perhaps none so densely populated as 1975: Jaws, Nashville and Dog Day Afternoon. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Barry Lyndon and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Shampoo, The Stepford Wives and 3 Days of the Condor.

“Between the political context and the historical context and technological developments 50 years ago, it created this environment for a lot of exceptional filmmaking,” says Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz, a ��ý�� professor of cinema studies and moving image arts.

A new era

Some might argue, Acevedo-Muñoz says, that the films of 1975 had their genesis in November 1963 with the assassination of John F. Kennedy: “It’s seen as this breaking point in American history that leads to a decade of cynicism and that ends with the fall of the Nixon administration. From ’63 to ’75, a number of historical events—from Kennedy to Johnson to the Tet Offensive, My Lai, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the end of Vietnam, the end of Nixon—we haven’t had, I don’t think, that amount of public and social turbulence in such a compact amount of time since then.”

The filmmakers who began creating during this time—including Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and others now considered legends—were not only embedded in and products of the times but represented the first generation to study the history and craft of filmmaking and cinema at university, Acevedo-Muñoz says.

Further, they came of artistic age during a time that wrote the epitaph for Hollywood’s Golden Age, when the producer was king and the studio system ruled everything from actors’ contracts to production and distribution deals with movie houses. This new generation of filmmakers ushered in the era of the director and the so-called American New Wave, because they were not only studying filmmaking, but were strongly influenced by international films and filmmakers.

This was the time that also saw the end of the Hays Code—Hollywood’s self-imposed morality guidelines that some say creatively cowed the industry from 1934 to 1968—and the “rise of the rating system that we know, which allowed for more frank representations of sex and violence,” Acevedo-Muñoz says.

See the films of 1975

The International Film Series is ��ý��'s first arthouse series and has been locally programmed since 1941. Its main venue is Muenzinger Auditorium, with a secondary venue in the Visual Arts Complex Auditorium.

This semester, CU ��ý��'s International Film Series has highlighted notable films from 1975 among the other films on its full schedule and will feature two more before the winter break: Barry Lyndon Sunday, Nov. 16, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show Thursday, Dec. 4.

Learn more

“So, there’s this context of general pissed offness, there’s the generation gap of the ‘60s, we’re getting our asses whupped by guerillas in Vietnam, we’ve seen a U.S. presidency collapse, and there’s this sense of, ‘Let’s be pissed off and make movies that rattle cages.’”

‘Nothing to compare it to’

For Acevedo-Muñoz, one of the great examples of this evolution is Robert Altman’s Nashville, which he considers the best movie of the ‘70s because “there’s nothing to compare it to. It’s sui generis. This movie was in production in 1974, and it’s about a presidential primary with a third-party candidate who’s challenging the establishment. And then it’s got this massive scope of 24 principal characters and five days of continuous action and this music that goes from magnificent to abject—I think some of the advertising for Nashville said it’s ‘the damndest thing you ever saw’—and it ends with the assassination of a celebrity by a nut with a gun.”

The films of 1975 not only mirrored the political and social upheaval of the times but represented a certain creative daring and willingness to explore previously taboo topics. The Rocky Horror Picture Show—which wasn’t an American movie but made its way to Hollywood via Australia, the West End and Broadway—made the case that “everybody’s queer and it’s perfectly fine and even monsters are not really monsters, it’s the normal people who come off as squares and weird," Acevedo-Muñoz says. "It’s one of the reasons why Rocky Horror has never really gone away, and if anything has become more and more of an anthem for all things marginalized and all things kicked off center by The Man and a sign of rebellion.”

The events and themes in Dog Day Afternoon, including robbing a bank to help pay for a character’s gender-affirming surgery, had never really been seen in a major Hollywood production before, said CU ��ý�� film scholar Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz. (Photo: Warner Bros.)

And the events and themes in Dog Day Afternoon, such as robbing a bank to help pay for a character’s gender-affirming surgery, had never really been seen in a major Hollywood production before, Acevedo-Muñoz says.

“Sidney Lumet directed it, and he was bringing to the discussion topics that would have been unthinkable a decade before, starting with a trans character,” Acevedo-Muñoz says. “And he was highlighting the frustration and the anger of the times, and we see that evolve into the street crowd that starts being curious about what’s happening in the bank and then ends up cheering for Al Pacino’s and John Cazale’s characters and applauding as they drive away to the airport.

“That anger from a criminal element previously would have been completely marginalized, not just in the decade and a half before, but also in the censorship system that predated the current rating system, where the bad guys could never be sympathetic. They could be charming, which Hitchcock did in the ‘40s, but they couldn’t be sympathetic. But here everybody’s heartbroken when Al Pacino’s character gets caught. The crowd outside of the bank are you and me in the movie theater, and the bank is a symbol of The Man, of the establishment, of capitalism. It’s a beautiful and, in so many ways, a beautifully shocking movie.”

Irreverence and creativity

The filmmakers of 1975 also saw the introduction of the Steadicam, a revolutionary camera stabilizer mount invented by Garrett Brown that entered the market that year. The technology allowed for greater movement and mobility in shooting and was notably used in filming Rocky the following year.

Even if filmmakers weren’t using the Steadicam, the growing preference for dynamic shots with more movement was still evident in many of the films of 1975, Acevedo-Muñoz says. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is noted for its gritty, almost handmade quality. “Suddenly movies didn’t have to be so pretty anymore, and they could do things like lens flare, they could play with grain in ways we hadn’t seen before.”

He adds that it wasn’t all gritty political and social commentary in 1975. Shampoo, for example, could best be described as a sexy romp—women and men having fun in a hair salon, legendary actors at their height of beauty, a loving farewell to the hippie era.

The films of 1975 are bookended by other exceptional films released in the previous and following years but symbolize the core of a decade when everything seemed to change, Acevedo-Muñoz says, adding that subsequent eras have seen the events of the times reflected in their films, but not in the way that they were in 1975.

“Take September 11,” he says. “It was a traumatic event, and what did it lead to? It led to more Marvel movies, it led to vision after vision after vision of New York being destroyed and a group of good ol’ Americans dressed in red, white and blue kicking alien ass. We’re now getting a couple of good movies that appear to address January 6—Civil War is the best, I think—but we’re not seeing a wave of it and we’re not seeing a concentration as we did, not coincidentally, a year and a half after the collapse of the Nixon administration. (The year 1975) was exciting because anger brings irreverence and also creativity.”

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Readers still traveling through the wardrobe to Narnia

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 21:11:45 +0000

Readers still traveling through the wardrobe to Narnia Rachel Sauer Mon, 11/10/2025 - 14:11

Bradley Worrell

Marking its 75th anniversary this autumn, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has become a cultural touchstone for fantasy and faith, says CU ��ý�� religious studies Professor Deborah Whitehead

When it was first published in 1950, few could have imagined the lasting impact that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by author C.S. Lewis would have 75 years later—not only on children’s literature, but also on religious thought and popular culture, says Deborah Whitehead, associate professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the ��ý��, whose focus includes religion and its intersection with media and popular culture.

The book’s broad appeal today is even more impressive considering that when it debuted the initial response was muted, as fairy tales and fantasy at the time were viewed as indulgent and only appropriate for very young readers. At the same time, fellow Oxford scholar and Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, also one of Lewis' best friends, was famously critical of Lewis’s approach to fantasy, Whitehead says.

CU ��ý�� scholar Deborah Whitehead, associate professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies, studies religion and its intersection with media and popular culture.

“Tolkien is the consummate world builder. He creates these entire races with their own kinds of distinctive personalities, characteristics and languages and these very detailed backstories in his books,” she notes. In contrast to the detail Tolkien took to differentiate elves, dwarves and hobbits with their own attributes and personalities, the fauns, centaurs and other creatures inhabiting The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were fairly indistinguishable personality-wise, she says.

Additionally, Lewis didn’t attempt to provide the same level of detail about Narnia’s history as is found about Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings books.

“I think one of Tolkien’s criticisms of Lewis’s book is there is no backstory,” Whitehead says. “For Tolkien, I think he was a little perplexed at the less exacting nature with which Lewis built his story.”

Book enjoys wide appeal

Still, Lewis’s looser structure may have been precisely what allowed his story about the magical world of Narnia to be more approachable, especially for young readers, Whitehead says, noting that while it’s possible to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a Christian allegory, the story can be appreciated simply as enjoyable fantasy.

“It’s a great example of how a text can mean different things to different audiences, depending upon how it’s framed,” Whitehead says. “The Narnia books, since their publication, have had this broad-based appeal. There is a way to appreciate them as children’s literature and fantasy literature and to enjoy the characters and the story and not take the Christian theological elements as foreground—even though they are there.

“I think that’s exactly how Lewis intended them to be. He said he intended for the books to make it easier for children to accept Christianity when they are older and for the books to provide the ‘seed beds’ for ideas about atonement and faith, which you can see in the figures of Aslan the lion and Lucy, respectively.

“But at the same time, he was not intending for the books to be didactic or only read within a religious context, so they do have that broad appeal,” she adds.

While many Christian readers interpret Narnia as allegory, Lewis himself described it as a “supposal”—a reimagining of what it might look like if Jesus were incarnated in a different world. Whitehead says Aslan, the noble lion, is a clear Christ figure, sacrificing himself for Edmund, one of the four siblings magically transported from World War II Britain to Narnia via a magical wardrobe.

Lewis’s decision to depict Christ as a lion rather than a lamb is significant, Whitehead says, because both are biblical, but the lion conveys majesty, power and triumph in battle—qualities that she says align with Lewis’s vision of Christianity’s victory over the forces of evil, as personified by Aslan’s victory in battle over the evil White Witch.

In the 75 years since it was first published, C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has had a lasting effect on children’s literature, religious thought and popular culture. (Image: original book cover by illustrator Pauline Baynes)

Lewis in his time—and ours

Starting with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis went on to write six additional books in the series, which came to be known as the Chronicles of Narnia. He also wrote several works of Christian apologetics, perhaps most notably Mere Christianity, which resulted from a series of BBC radio addresses he gave to the British public during World War II in defense of Christianity.

“In those addresses, he’s representing Christianity as this shared cultural and moral heritage that was a bulwark against the forces of evil that, to him, were very active in world during World War II in the form of the Nazis,” Whitehead says. “His radio addresses during the war were very popular, and he sort of became the public face of British Christianity as someone who reinterpreted Christianity for a 20th century audience.”

In his day, Lewis was an exemplar of high-church liberal Anglican Christianity and ecumenism, but Whitehead says the image of Lewis has morphed over time. Evangelical Christians came to embrace the British academic and lay Anglican theologian as a defender of the faith in an increasingly secular world, interpreting his works as tools for spiritual formation and cultural resistance. By the 1970s, his works—including the Narnia series and Mere Christianity—became staples in Christian bookstores, in part contributing to their continued popularity, she says.

Gender and race in Narnia

While The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been celebrated for its imaginative storytelling and how it conveys biblical concepts in approachable ways, in more recent years it has also faced scrutiny for its portrayals of gender and race.

One of the most vocal critics of Lewis’s work is Philip Pullman, author of the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, who has described the Narnia books as “monumentally disparaging of women.” Whitehead acknowledges the series is largely male-dominated, with female characters often relegated to secondary roles or portrayed in stereotypical ways.

Separately, in the Narnia book The Horse and His Boy, some scholars have taken issue with the depiction of the evil Calormenes as conquest-driven, dark-skinned savages and culturally “other,” possibly reflecting colonialist ideas. In that book, Aslan destroys Narnia rather than allow the Calormenes to conquer it, Whitehead notes.

These critiques potentially complicate Lewis’s legacy. While he was progressive on certain social justice issues within the context of liberal Christianity, Whitehead says his work also reflects the bias of his time—particularly in its idealization of British culture and Christianity as the pinnacle of civilization.

Theatrical adaptions and generational nostalgia

Over the years, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been adapted into numerous plays, musicals and films. The book’s association with Christmas, because the White Witch bans the holiday, makes it a seasonal favorite, and the story’s visual richness—with Turkish Delight, talking beavers and epic battles—lends itself well to theatrical production, Whitehead says.

Meanwhile, the 2005 film adaption by Walden Media exemplifies how Lewis’ work has been repackaged for contemporary audiences.

"There’s something just so magical in itself about learning to read, or having your parents read to you, and discovering these fantasy worlds through reading,” says CU ��ý�� scholar Deborah Whitehead. (Narnia illustration: Galchi/Deviantart)

“There was the mass marketing, which was like, ‘Rediscover the magic of these classic children’s books,’ but then there’s marketing specifically to Christian audiences following the model of the niche religious marketing for The Passion of the Christ,” Whitehead says. That marketing for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe positioned the film as a safe, faith-affirming alternative to secular films such as the Harry Potter wizard series, which some Christians criticize for its portrayal of witchcraft, she says.

At the same time, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is, at its core, a classic story about good versus evil and about sacrifice and redemption. Those themes are timeless and continue to resonate with readers of all ages and backgrounds, Whitehead says, recalling her own emotional response to the book as a child—mourning Aslan’s death at the hand of the White Witch and marveling at the idea of a magical wardrobe that led to another world.

Whitehead says the book’s status as a children’s classic is reinforced by generational transmission. Parents and grandparents pass it down, creating a shared cultural memory that keeps the story alive.

To her knowledge, no other modern Christian thinker and author has had a similar level of success bridging the gap between Christian literature and children’s fantasy literature. It’s a feat made even more impressive given that Lewis did not have children of his own and was not particularly fond of spending time with young children, which he confessed was something of a defect on his part, Whitehead says.

Will Narnia endure?

During his lifetime, C.S. Lewis published more than 30 books, including fiction, non-fiction and academic texts. While there is nothing to suggest that Lewis primarily set out to be a successful children’s book author, Whitehead says she thinks Lewis would be fine with being primarily remembered that way—with the hope that readers would understand the underlying message he was attempting to convey. She adds that Lewis was a big believer in the idea that “good stories” by definition are those that appeal to children as well as adults.

As for whether children will still be reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in another 75 years, Whitehead says, “I hope so. I hope we’re all still reading in 75 years and not having Speechify and ChatGTP do everything for us. There’s something just so magical in itself about learning to read, or having your parents read to you, and discovering these fantasy worlds through reading.”

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Marking its 75th anniversary this autumn, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has become a cultural touchstone for fantasy and faith, says CU ��ý�� religious studies Professor Deborah Whitehead.

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Top illustration: Aslan the lion in a scene from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Illustration: ChrisStarkiller/Deviantart)

Players roll the dice on the healing power of collaborative fantasy

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 22:22:42 +0000

Players roll the dice on the healing power of collaborative fantasy Rachel Sauer Fri, 11/07/2025 - 15:22

Cody DeBos

At the D&D table, says CU ��ý�� humanities scholar and gaming podcast host Andrew Gilbert, everyone has a voice

You can often find Andrew Gilbert behind a cardboard dungeon master’s screen, scheming up new ways to derail the carefully laid plans of the other players at his Dungeons & Dragons table. The game has been part of his life for decades, and as D&D gains a larger foothold in the mainstream, it has also become a powerful avenue for friends to connect, laugh and heal.

“It’s such a fascinating way to connect people through story. But it’s a story with limitations and rules,” says Gilbert, a teaching assistant professor of humanities, game studies and media at the ��ý�� Department of Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts.

In September, Wizards of the Coast studios released Heroes of the Borderlands, the game’s most expansive beginner-friendly box set yet. It arrives with the goal of helping a new generation of players roll their first d20s.

Andrew Gilbert is a CU ��ý�� teaching assistant professor of humanities, game studies and media in the Department of Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts.

Gilbert and a group of friends have been doing so together since 2018, broadcasting play sessions from their campaigns online via the Goats & Dragons and Helpful Goat Presents podcasts.

“When we created the show, we knew we wanted to play games in a way that centered player experiences and collaborative storytelling,” he says.

The group’s campaign is now approaching the end of a years-long adventure, which has included guests like The Lord of the Rings actor Dominic Monaghan along the way.

The hobby has brought them closer together and created no shortage of memorable moments. But that’s just one facet of Gilbert’s connection to Dungeons & Dragons.

After years of rolling dice and telling stories, he’s come to see the game as something far bigger than fantasy. But why does D&D, a game first published in the 1970s, still captivate us today? How can a tabletop game rooted in imagination compete with video games, AI content, and near-constant digital simulation?

Gilbert has a few ideas.

Still captivating after 50 years

At its heart, D&D is a storytelling engine. Unlike books or movies with fixed narratives, tabletop roleplaying games ask players to improvise solutions, make moral decisions, and stay in character. Players sit around a table (or communicate virtually) and collaborate to tell a story where no one knows how it will end.

“It’s a fascinating form of media where, to a certain extent, the audience are the creators of the media at the same time,” he says. “There’s something wild and magical and fun about giving up control of a story to the group and to chance itself with die rolls.”

Gilbert first encountered D&D through a cousin who taught him to play when he was just 7 years old.

“I was hooked right away,” he recalls.

Years later, as both a scholar of games and a long-time player, Gilbert is fascinated by the emotional and social experiences D&D fosters. No longer seen as just an escapist fantasy game, D&D has become a catalyst for community building.

“There are social and emotional dynamics happening in every game,” he says.

That community is what makes Dungeons & Dragons so special, says CU ��ý�� scholar Andrew Gilbert; whether players are battling monsters in an imagined fantasy world or conquering their own internal demons, the table becomes a shared space where anything can happen. (Illustration: Wizards of the Coast)

At the same time, D&D is incredibly accessible for newcomers. Today, with an updated rule set and a plethora of digital tools to simplify the experience, that’s truer than ever, Gilbert says.

“Literally, you can know nothing about Dungeons & Dragons, and I can teach you how to play by just doing it. All you have to do is tell me what your character wants to do, and then someone who knows the rules can say, ‘Great, roll this dice, add this number to it.’ You really don’t even need to know the rules before you start playing,” he says.

He believes that’s a big reason why the game has endured for half a century and is still growing.

“A lot of us were worried the growth we saw in 2015 and 2016 was a fad that would sort of fade. But then we got the pandemic, and a lot of people started playing as a way to connect with friends when there was nothing to do but play games at home. And, of course, you have a ton of content creators making content about the game professionally,” he says.

“It’s just a perfect storm of factors that have shot the popularity of D&D through the roof.”

Healing through character

Sometimes, though, the game is about more than enjoyment or even storytelling. For many, D&D and games like it have become tools for healing from past traumas or building crucial social skills in a safe environment, Gilbert says.

“There are so many stories about people using the game to work through trauma, including some really cool research about games and PTSD specifically. You can just not be you for a little bit,” he says. “I’m not always a proponent of pure escapism, but it releases a tension. Whether you’re remembering your character doing something or remembering something that actually happened, your brain goes through the exact same process.”

He adds, “With D&D, you can create all these beneficial, healthy memories of not being the victim of some trauma but the one who solves the problem.”

"There’s so much good. The act of collaboration, of creation, of working through issues in the game. It’s something we talk about in my class a lot. These things are hard to navigate, but it’s incredibly helpful to learn how to navigate them."

Gilbert also acknowledges how roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons can be deeply meaningful to people who don’t always find social interaction intuitive.

“The idea of how to just construct scenes and conversations is really, really helpful for individuals on the autism spectrum,” he says.

Part of that comes from the game’s structure. Unlike everyday conversation, which can be unpredictable and overwhelming, D&D provides a clear set of rules and roles.

“There’s an element of learning how to pass the microphone, which on a very basic level is just good practice for conversation,” Gilbert says.

Indeed, research suggests that D&D and similar games can be used therapeutically to build communication skills, reduce stress, and foster a sense of community among people who may struggle to connect.

That community, Gilbert says, is what makes the game so special. Whether players are battling monsters in an imagined fantasy world or conquering their own internal demons, the table becomes a shared space where anything can happen.

“There’s so much good. The act of collaboration, of creation, of working through issues in the game. It’s something we talk about in my class a lot. These things are hard to navigate, but it’s incredibly helpful to learn how to navigate them,” he says.

As new players crack open Heroes of the Borderlands or learn the game from a friend, they become part of a decades-long tradition that values creativity and connection in a world that is too often devoid of these qualities, Gilbert says, adding, “We keep finding new amazing things about this game, and it’s only getting better. The possibilities are just limitless.”

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At the D&D table, says CU ��ý�� humanities scholar and gaming podcast host Andrew Gilbert, everyone has a voice.

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Looking at the big picture (book) of East Asia

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 16:11:56 +0000

Looking at the big picture (book) of East Asia Rachel Sauer Wed, 10/15/2025 - 10:11

Alexandra Phelps

An innovative project in the Program for Teaching East Asia brings culture and history to Colorado K-12 students

Colorado students don’t need to book a flight or get a passport to experience East Asia, because a program from the ��ý�� is bringing the region’s culture and history to them.

For the past two spring semesters, students participating in a CU ��ý�� outreach program to K-12 classrooms have been using a favorite childhood medium: picture books.

The program is coordinated by Lynn Kalinauskas, director for the Program for Teaching East Asia (TEA); Catherine Ishida, assistant director for Japan and Korea Projects; and Christy Go, the program’s graduate student assistant. They have varied their program to involve many East Asian countries, yet the central goal of their program has always been to develop students' cross-cultural understanding.

Lynn Kalinauskas (left), director for the Program for Teaching East Asia (TEA), and graduate student assistant Christy Go (right), along with colleague Catherine Ishida, assistant director for Japan and Korea Projects, coordinate a CU ��ý�� CU ��ý�� outreach program to K-12 classrooms that uses a favorite childhood medium: picture books.

Building a program

Three years ago, Kalinauskas, who is also the co-director of the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, envisioned a new classroom outreach program that would bring East Asia into K-12 Colorado classrooms via picture books.

In spring 2024, with funding support from the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship and the Freeman Foundation, the program used books that taught elementary and middle school students about natural science. Books in the program, such as Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean and When the Sakura Bloom, allowed students to see agriculture and plant cycles within an East Asian context.

“Picture books offer a wealth of information. You can look at an image and learn so much,” remarks Kalinauskas. Go noted in an article about the first run of the program that teachers were receptive to the medium that offered a beautiful window into another culture. One educator who is grateful for what the program has done for their classroom said, “The carefully chosen picture book prompted interesting reflections and questions. The artifacts enhanced children's understanding and appreciation of the topic. I appreciated how the presenter drew connections between the children's lives and the experiences of the protagonist of the story.”

As the program progressed, Kalinauskas and her colleagues expanded its scope to cover a new topic. In spring 2025, students learned about the geography of East Asia, and the spring 2026 semester will center on learning about the contributions of famous Japanese people.

Pictures of East Asia

The process of choosing which picture books will be used involves a number of factors. At CU ��ý��, the Program for Teaching East Asia is a coordinating site for the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. This national organization administers the Freeman Book Awards that recognize quality books for children and young adults that contribute meaningfully to an understanding of East and Southeast Asia. Many of the books chosen for the project have won the Freeman award.

In the spring 2025 semester, the five books chosen were The Ocean Calls: A Haenyeo Mermaid Story by Tina Cho, Warrior Princess: The Story of Khutulun by Sally Deng, The Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito, Rice by Hong Chen Xu and Mommy’s Hometown by Hope Lim.

A book such as Rice can be an important addition to the curriculum as it highlights agricultural practices in southern China, informing the reader about the impact geography has on people’s daily lives, their environment and cultural practices.

Lily Elliott (EBio, AsianSt'25) reads Rice to elementary school students. (Photo: Christy Go)

Students teaching students

Organizers note that the program is innovative not because it teaches students through picture books, but because it gives an internship opportunity to CU ��ý�� students of all disciplines and brings these new interns into Colorado classrooms.

Every fall, TEA staff begin recruiting for the spring outreach. Applicants have to submit short essays and participate in an interview. It is important that students selected be excited to teach about East Asia.

The process of working with the CU ��ý�� students is individualized and collaborative. Go says she works as a mentor for the students, adding that the staff work with student interns on multiple levels from how they should dress when presenting in classrooms, school procedures and what to expect when teaching children. Students work with the staff to identify the important characteristics of their assigned book and develop a lesson plan. Because students may visit different grade levels, they also learn to adapt their lessons to different age groups.

Teachers participating in the program often try to align the book selection with the material they’re already teaching. “We had kindergarten and second grade classrooms that were learning about the life cycles of plants, so they chose When the Sakura Bloom because they wanted to talk about the connection (between the East Asian representation and their science),” reflects Go. “Tracing the life cycle of the Sakura (cherry blossom) tree in the story not only reinforced student learning of the plant life cycle but also engaged students in discussing cultural events inspired by these natural processes through the presentation of hanami (cherry blossom–viewing picnic events) in the story.”

In the classrooms, CU student interns provide background information for students. The CU interns each read aloud while pointing out cultural representations, key characters and concepts, location, relationships between characters and relevant context related to the themes, science or geography. One CU student teaching The Ocean Calls introduced different sea life and later asked students while they were reading to point out the animals. This is followed by a lesson plan and an interactive activity. For one student teaching Sound of Silence, a book about a boy trying to find silence in the city of Tokyo, “our student found sound clips of different places in Tokyo and had students listen and guess where they were,” remembers Go. “Students loved it!” The presentations are like “a traveling show,” says Kalinauskas, who oversees each step of this process.

Beyond their involvement in coordinating with teachers, choosing books and mentoring student interns, staff take their commitment to the program one step further by driving student interns to schools all around Colorado.

"Picture books offer a wealth of information. You can look at an image and learn so much."

More than a cup of noodles

In the first year, 64 classrooms participated; the following year, interns presented in 49 classrooms. The classes are usually in the Denver-��ý�� metro area but have reached as far as Greeley. While mainly aimed at elementary classrooms, program organizers have also brought their CU interns to middle schools and one high school classroom. Additionally, if a school is too far to be reached by car, like one school in Grand Junction, interns have done interactive Zoom presentations.

This program has been enriching for Colorado K-12 students while simultaneously being a great educational experience for the CU ��ý�� student interns. Kalinauskas and Go have found that through this program, many students have gained professional skills and experience that have expanded their career pathways. Two former graduate students in education are now teaching in local schools. Another student intern, who taught a book on Korea, was so inspired that she moved to Korea to teach English.

For Colorado teachers, the program doesn’t end when interns leave their classroom. Although the presentations cover only one book, each classroom receives a copy of every book in that semester’s program for students to read for years to come. Teachers also receive cultural information and teaching resources to engage students in learning about all the books in the program. TEA also hosts a fall in-person workshop for Colorado teachers focused on the same books. Kalinauskas and Go note that although they aim to expand their program to many new classrooms, some teachers love it so much they have participated in multiple semesters.

TEA is bringing its program into Colorado schools next spring. The focus for Spring 2026 will be on the biographies of famous Japanese people and Japanese culture. The program features the story of a young female artist in Japan during the Edo period, the first woman to summit Mount Everest and a story about how Momofuku Ando created one of the world’s most popular foods, instant ramen.

“The picture book Magic Ramen not only teaches us about how instant ramen was created but takes us back in time to Japan post-World War II, where a young man was trying to feed people in Osaka,” says Kalinauskas. “We don’t always think about that historical context when we are just having our cup of noodles.”

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An innovative project in the Program for Teaching East Asia brings culture and history to Colorado K-12 students.

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Top image: Isaac Kou (CompSci, EBio'25) reads "The Sound of Silence" to first-grade students. (Photo: Christy Go)

Lights! Camera! Action! Cherry Yogurt!

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 23:04:09 +0000

Lights! Camera! Action! Cherry Yogurt! Rachel Sauer Mon, 10/06/2025 - 17:04

Bradley Worrell

Aspiring filmmaker and CU ��ý�� senior Francesca Hiatt’s short film, Cherry Yogurt, relies on subtlety to touch on grief and support, viewed through children’s eyes

Sitting alone on a wooden pew in a quiet church, a 7-year-old boy stirs cherry yogurt in a cup with his spoon. He seems distraught.

Entering the ornate church, a young girl approaches the boy. She asks if he has been crying. He tells her he has a headache, and he points to a pill mixed in the yogurt that he says is for the pain.

Nearby, behind closed doors, adult voices murmur. At one point, a woman can be heard crying softly.

Francesca Hiatt, a CU ��ý�� film major, received an Office of Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) Tier 1 micro grant to make her short film, Cherry Yogurt, which began as an assignment in a screenwriting class.

The scene marks the opening of Cherry Yogurt, a short film written, directed and produced by Francesca Hiatt, a ��ý�� film major. With her short film, Hiatt didn’t set out to create a neatly packaged story. Instead, in just less than seven minutes, she constructed what might be considered an emotional memory, loosely defined and quietly observed.

The idea: kids watching the world

Hiatt began Cherry Yogurt as a script for a screenwriting class in November. However, the kernel of the idea had been forming long before that.

“I like to write films about adult themes put into children’s perspective,” she says. “I work with kids a lot, and I’m the oldest sibling of four. Just seeing what adult scenarios look like through their eyes always intrigued me, so that’s typically what I write about.”

That approach became the foundation for Cherry Yogurt. In the film, the adult world remains mostly off-screen. It’s hinted at—through murmured conversations off camera. The children in the film aren’t unaware, but they don’t fully comprehend, either. That gap in understanding is central to the short film, Hiatt says.

“Subtlety is really important in this piece. Any time you’re writing from the personal perspective of children, you paint the world how they view it,” she explains.

One thing that is clear to the boy and girl is how slowed down time feels as they wait for the adults to emerge from behind closed doors, as children and adults experience time differently, Hiatt notes.

“Maybe it’s only an hour long, but if you’re a child kept waiting it feels like it’s four hours long,” she says.

Making the film was a family affair

As intimate as the short film’s story is, the production of Cherry Yogurt was even more so. Hiatt cast her younger brother, Victor, in the lead role. Her mother, an actress, also played a part, as did her father, despite not being an actor.

“My whole family are actors. My dad is not an actor—but I made him do it anyway,” she says with a laugh. “It was a family effort for sure.”

Get your spoon and enjoy some Cherry Yogurt.

Watch Cherry Yogurt

In that respect, making the short film felt very familiar, as Hiatt previously directed her siblings in several short homemade movies.

“Back in the COVID days, I was making movies with my siblings in our basement. Honestly, they were not great, but they were very funny to me and I learned a lot from making them,” she says. Later, at CU ��ý��, Hiatt participated in a number of student filmmaking projects, some of which she had a supporting role in and some that she spearheaded.

“I had previously done a couple of other films at CU ��ý��, but Cherry Yogurt was the first film that I made from inception and writing the script all of the way to completion,” she says.

Filming took place over one hectic day, following a prep day that involved doing camera tests for lighting at the ornate Denver church. “It was insane. We only had eight hours to shoot because of a time limit on making use of the location, so we had to just get one solid take and move on,” Hiatt explains.

Despite the rush, Hiatt says the results were effective. She credits her cast—especially the two child actors—for bringing an authentic spirit to the film.

Student filmmaker Francesca Hiatt cast her younger brother, Victor (seated, wearing red hoodie), in the lead role of her short film Cherry Yogurt, which she filmed in one hectic day at a Denver church. (Photo: Francesca Hiatt)

“Flubbing a line is a totally different universe when they’re 7 years old and just laughing,” she says, explaining that laughter and innocence are exactly the point.

The crew and the gear came together

While the film’s cast was largely made up of family members, the crew came from Hiatt’s close circle of collaborators at CU ��ý��.

“It’s a group of four of us,” she says, referring to her fellow film students. “We’ve worked on every single one of each other’s films since the first day.”

Hiatt also tapped into Denver’s professional film community, recruiting a professional director of photography with whom she had previously worked. In turn, he brought a few seasoned crew members to elevate the film’s production value, she says.

All of this was made possible by a CU ��ý�� Office of Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) Tier 1 micro grant for $2,000. The funding was awarded to Hiatt’s Action! Film Club, which she created to provide middle school students opportunities to be part of film projects.

“The grant was huge,” Hiatt says. “I honestly don’t think the film would have been made without it.”

The PACES funding covered the location fee, catering for a 20-person shoot and, crucially, a rented gimbal—a stabilizing camera rig that made handheld shots smoother and more professional looking. The grant funding also paid for all of the costumes and props.

The cherry yogurt of it all

The film’s title, Cherry Yogurt, seems whimsical—almost trivial—at first glance. That, too, was intentional.

“It was something youthful and it was a symbolic item throughout the film,” Hiatt says. “You hear ‘cherry yogurt’ and you think of something bright, but it doesn’t hint at how heavy the other parts of the theme are.”

Francesca Hiatt credits her cast—especially the two child actors (above, in a scene from the film)—for bringing an authentic spirit to the film. (Photo: Francesca Hiatt)

Some scenes leave questions unanswered. Is the boy distraught solely because of a headache or are there other reasons? Is the pill in the yogurt simply intended for pain relief or possibly for something else? In a later scene, the girl, wearing several friendship bracelets, gives one to the boy, saying they offer protection. But protection from what, exactly?

Hiatt kept those elements intentionally ambiguous.

As for what the adults are meeting about behind closed doors, Hiatt says she originally specified in the script that they were attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. In the final version of the film, the nature of the meeting is left unspecified, but Hiatt says it is made clear through the hushed tones of the adults that it’s something serious.

Post-production offers time for reflection

Final editing of the film wrapped in August, more than a year after Hiatt first wrote the script.

“It’s crazy how long it takes to make even a short film,” she says. “After finding the (PACES) grant funding, I started all of the pre-production work, which includes establishing the timelines, location scouting, producer work, getting a crew together and securing the cast. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of work getting people to respond, and I was doing all of this on top of being a full-time student and working full-time, so it was definitely a big project.”

Even during post-production, Hiatt says she kept learning.

“I look back and think, ‘Wow, I already know so much more now than when I shot this,’” she says. “I’m lucky to have opportunities to learn quickly and it’s hard for my art to keep up with how much I learn—even on a daily basis.”

Hiatt recently screened Cherry Yogurt for cast and crew members. Meanwhile, she has submitted the short to a handful of film festivals in hopes of attracting a larger audience for the production. The short film can be viewed here.

Exit, stage left

Hiatt is graduating a year early and will walk with the class of 2026 in May. She has worked with several Denver and ��ý�� film production companies already and sees herself continuing freelance video work while aiming for her long-term goal: destination Los Angeles.

However, Hollywood is just one possible path to what is most important to Hiatt: “The big goal for me is to get a job that I’m passionate about—something that makes me happy, drives me creatively and where I can make money. Something that makes me excited to go to work every day.”

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Aspiring filmmaker and CU ��ý�� senior Francesca Hiatt’s short film, Cherry Yogurt, relies on subtlety to touch on grief and support, viewed through children’s eyes.

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Hope Saska named director of CU Art Museum

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:42:53 +0000

Hope Saska named director of CU Art Museum Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/26/2025 - 07:42

In addition to serving as interim director, Saska has served as the museum’s chief curator and director of academic engagement

Hope Saska, CU Art Museum chief curator and director of academic engagement, has been named director of the CU Art Museum after serving as interim director for more than two years.

Saska was named director following an internal search as well as an assessment and advisory report issued last spring on the future mission, structure and goals of the museum.

Hope Saska, CU Art Museum chief curator and director of academic engagement, has been named director of the CU Art Museum after serving as interim director for more than two years.

“I am thrilled and honored to be named director of the CU Art Museum,” Saska says. “With its rich collections and a mission to build community through exhibitions and programming that promote, inspire and generate interdisciplinary scholarship and cultural expression, the museum serves as a vital center for arts and culture on campus and throughout our region. I eagerly look forward to collaborating with museum staff, students, faculty and partners both on and off campus to build on our strengths and uphold our commitment to being an inclusive and welcoming space for all.”

A specialist in works on paper, Saska earned her PhD at Brown University with a dissertation on 18th-century graphic satire and caricature. While serving as the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Detroit Institute of Art and the Samuel H. Kress Curatorial Fellow at the Lewis Walpole Library, Saska honed her curatorial expertise working on a number of exhibitions and research and digital humanities projects. Saska embarked on her CU ��ý�� career in 2015, when she accepted a curatorial position at the museum and was promoted to chief curator and director of academic engagement in 2021. At CU ��ý��, she has since curated over 30 exhibitions, many in collaboration with faculty and students.

In 2019, Saska co-authored a response paper to the CU ��ý�� Academic Futures Interdisciplinary Teaching, Research, and Creative Work Report: Is It an Academy? A Proposal to Expand Interdisciplinary Scholarship and Teaching at the CU Art Museum. The previous year, Saska co-authored a white paper for CU's Academic Futures Initiative: Is It An Art? A Case Study of Teaching at the CU Art Museum.

Saska teaches a graduate-level curatorial practicum with the CU ��ý�� Museum Studies program bi-annually. Deeply committed to the transformative role academic art museums play on college campuses, Saska serves on the board of the national Association of Academic Museums and Galleries as a co-representative for the Mountains-Plains region.

“Hope brings many years of experience in museums nationally and here at CU to this position, and I am excited for her expertise and leadership to drive CU Art Museum towards a sustainable future that is central to student and faculty engagement with the arts on campus,” says John-Michael Rivera, dean of arts and humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences. “I also want to thank Hope for her leadership through her long stint as interim director of the museum. Throughout many difficult transitions and assessments, her stewardship stabilized and positioned the museum for great successes in the future.”

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In addition to serving as interim director, Saska has served as the museum’s chief curator and director of academic engagement.

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