Associate Professor Stephen Lekson of the University of Colorado at Boulder will kick off the 2003-04 Chancellor's Community Lecture Series on Sept. 3 with a talk on "Ancient Traces in the Wilderness: The Pleasure of Ruins."
The event is the first of nine public lectures to be presented by CU-Boulder faculty on the theme of "Healing the West." The series is sponsored by the CU-Boulder Chancellor's Office, the CU-Boulder Center of the American West and the Colorado Chautauqua Association. This is the second year of the "Healing the West" series.
All lectures will begin at 7 p.m. in the Chautauqua Community House at 900 Baseline Road in Boulder. The talks are free and open to the public and no reservations are required. However, seating is limited.
During his lecture, Lekson will talk about the varying response to ruins in the West. For some human structures, with little appeal or charisma, "healing the West" would mean getting rid of the buildings, but for others it means preserving or even restoring the buildings before they are lost from collective heritage. Using archaeology's particular perspective, Lekson will cover four famous places that evoke Colorado's past: Mesa Verde National Park, Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings, Bent's Old Fort and The Fort restaurant.
Lekson is an associate professor in CU-Boulder's anthropology department and curator of anthropology at the CU-Boulder Museum of Natural History.
Following Lekson's Sept. 3 lecture, the series will continue from October to May on the first Wednesday of every month, except for lectures on Nov. 12 and Jan. 14. The series will feature CU-Boulder faculty members from disciplines including journalism and mass communication, biology, business and law.
For more information call the CU-Boulder Office of Community Affairs at (303) 492-8384.