Oct 10
2025 Frank G. and Jean M. Chesley Lecture in Anthropology
Jason De León, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Loyd E. Cotsen Endowed Chair of Archaeology, and Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA, will visit campus on October 10th to give this year's Frank G. and Jean M. Chesley Lecture in Anthropology (book signing to follow).
De León is the winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and is the author of The Land of Open Graves (2015) and Soldiers and Kings (2024). Through his work, he shines a light on the human consequences of U.S. immigration and border policies, offers a counterpoint to public media perception of migrants, and puts names, faces, and stories to the thousands of individuals who have died in their attempt to reach the United States. He has been recognized with a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his work as an anthropologist and scholar examining the inequalities and brutalities of human migration through a variety of lenses.
De León is also the Executive Director of the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a non-profit research, arts, and education collective that raises awareness about migration issues globally while also assisting families of missing migrants with being reunited with their loved ones. Since 2009, the UMP has been studying clandestine migration between Latin America and the United States using a combination of ethnographic, visual, archaeological, and forensic approaches to understand this violent social process.
For more information on Jason De León, visit http://www.prhspeakers.com.