
How can understanding stories help in the American border crisis?
“It’s in our best interest to make sense of the US and Mexico as places that receive and places that send—that goes for both countries,” says associate professor of history Ruben Flores, who will host acclaimed writer Valeria Luiselli in the latest Humanities Center Public Lecture Series.

Tracing the slave stories of colonial Mexico
Painstakingly searching through three colonial archives in Puebla, Mexico, assistant professor of history Pablo Miguel Sierra Silva reaches beyond traditional master-slave narratives in his latest study of afro-indigenous interactions in Mexico’s urban centers.

The mysterious aftermath of an infamous pirate raid
Just before dawn on May 18, 1683, pirates stormed the port city of Veracruz, capturing around 1,500 people and selling them to the slave markets of Haiti and South Carolina. Pablo Sierra Silva, assistant professor of history, is on a mission to trace what happened to them.

Catching some gamma rays in central Mexico
Physicist Segev BenZvi and scientists at an ambitious observatory are using simple but groundbreaking tools understand the workings of cosmic and gamma rays in the Earth’s atmosphere while also contributing to the search for dark matter.

Documenting a hometown’s history of slavery
History professor Pablo Sierra is working to document the forgotten history of the Africans who passed through the slave market in his hometown and contributed to the diverse culture of modern Mexico.

Rochester researchers on team behind new gamma ray observatory
Some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe produce high-energy gamma rays, and a new observatory in Mexico aims to expand the catalog of known gamma ray sources.