The Forum on Contemporary Cultures provides a public platform for timely political and social debate by inviting national and international literary figures to the UNLV campus to engage members of the University and surrounding communities.

The Forum aims to create dialogue, in opposition to monologue, as a necessary tool in the worldwide fight against extremism. To that end, the Forum creates venues in which lively communication between people of unlike minds occurs, and often invites speakers in tandem to ensure the success of that goal. All visitors to the Forum contribute to establishing a climate of tolerance for multiple perspectives through a cycle of colloquia, writing, and publication that leaves its mark on current thinking and helps to bring Las Vegas into the larger world of human struggle and conversation.

In its inaugural year, the Forum hosted a diverse and lively array of events, including lectures by Toni Morrison and John W. Dean, readings by Robert Stone, Tim O'Brien, Richard Wiley, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott, and a panel presentation on "The Vietnam War in Light of Iraq." For more information on these and other past events, visit our news and events archive.

The 2007-2008 Forum season featured "From Apartheid to Darfur: Africa‘s Struggle Against Disdain" with writers Chris Abani, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alexandra Fuller, and Chenjerai Hove; "The (failed?) State of American Politics" with journalists Aaron Brown, Ryan Lizza, and George Packer; "The Imagination in Exile" with BMI's Fellows; and "Warring Perspectives: Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon" with novelists A.B. Yehoshua and Elias Khoury.

Please visit the news and events section of this web site, or join Black Mountain's mailing list, to learn about upcoming events.