Author, human rights activist on campus Oct. 9 for talks on Chilean coal miners, the Latino vote

Chilean author and human rights activist Emma Sepúlveda-Pulvirenti will be on campus Oct. 9 for two talks: “Seventy Days of Night, 33 Miners Trapped: The Hidden Story of a Rescue and the Women of the Miners, the True Heroines of the Story” and “Obama and the Latino Vote.”

Sepúlveda-Pulvirenti is a writer, columnist and professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she serves as the director of the Latino Research Center.

Her first talk, on the Chilean miners, will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Clark Hall 206. In her recent book, Seventy Days of Night, Sepúlveda-Pulvirenti interviewed the women connected to the 33 Chilean miners and had access to letters between them.

During her second talk, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Clark Hall 309, she will discuss why Latinos supported the first African-American president in the 2008 election, how President Obama responded to the support of the Latino(a)s during his presidency, and why Obama continues to hold their support in the 2012 election. Her latest book is titled Converging Dreams: Why Latinos Support Obama.

The event is sponsored by the ACES Distinguished Lectureship Series, Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Baker Nord Center for the Humanities, President’s Advisory Council on Minorities, the Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity, Ethnic Studies and the speakers committee of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.