Distributed Presses

Alicia Borinsky will read from her new book, Frivolous Women and Other Sinners, at the Instituto Cevantes of Chicago, 31 W. Ohio St., on April 19, 2009.

Borinsky is a literary scholar, fiction writer, and poet. She has published extensively in Spanish and in English in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Frivolous Women and Other Sinners is her latest collection of poems, presented in facing-page translation.

The event takes place Sunday, April 19, at 12:00 PM. A reception will follow.

Visit the Instituto Cervantes of Chicago

Learn more about Frivolous Women and Other Sinners, published by Swan Isle

Posted by LXM at 11:12 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | Swan Isle

Claudio Isaac will read from his book Midday with Buñuel and discuss Spanish and Mexican cinema at the Instituto Cevantes of Chicago, 31 W. Ohio St., on December 3, 2008.

Claudio Isaac is a filmmaker, painter, novelist, poet, and contributor to various cultural journals and television arts programming in Mexico. Midday with Buñuel recounts his friendship and admiration of legendary Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

The event takes place Wednesday, December 3, at 6:00 PM. A screening of the film A propósito de Buñuel and a reception will follow.

Visit the Cervantes Institute of Chicago

Learn more about Midday with Buñuel, published by Swan Isle

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Posted to Author Events | Swan Isle

If you're a city dweller like me, October is a month that inspires car trips to see fall colors, pick apples, and hunt for the perfect pumpkin. And if you're a Chicagoan, the likely destination is our scenic neighbor to the northwest—Wisconsin.

If that longing for apple cider and corn mazes inspires you to head that way, you should check out some events featuring photographs from Urban Wilderness, photographer Eddee Daniel's stunning book capturing the Menomonee River in all seasons.

September 26–November 11
Photography Midwest: A Seven State Juried Competition
University of Wisconsin Memorial Union
Porter Butts and Class of 1925 Galleries
800 Langdon St. / Madison, WI 53706

October 1–31
PhotoMidwest 2008. Center for Photography at Madison
6140 Cottonwood Dr. / Madison, WI
Closing reception, presentation and book signing: October 30 at 7:00 pm.

For your road trip listening pleasure, download an interview with Eddee Daniel from Lake Effect, WUMW 89.7 FM.

Posted by COA at 11:37 AM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places

Photographer Eddee Daniel, author of Urban Wilderness: Exploring a Metropolitan Watershed, was recently interviewed on Milwaukee's "Morning Blend." In Urban Wilderness, Daniel guides us down the waterways of the Menomonee watershed and reveals how preserving urban rivers is key the quality of life and economic success of a thriving city such as Milwaukee. See the complete interview, including images from the interior of the book, here.

Posted by COA at 10:45 AM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places | Press Releases

Donato Ndongo will read from his novel Shadows of your Black Memory and discuss African literature in Spanish at the Instituto Cevantes of Chicago, 31 W. Ohio St., on April 24, 2008.

Donato Ndongo (born 1950 in Neifang, Equatorial Guinea) is a novelist, essayist, journalist, and part of a movement of young Afro-descended authors who have contributed their African experience and traditions to Hispanic culture. Currently, Ndongo is a visiting scholar at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The event takes place Thursday, April 24, at 6:30 PM. A reception will follow.

Visit the Cervantes Institute of Chicago

Learn more about Shadows of your Black Memory.

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Posted to Author Events | Swan Isle

Dan Gordon was interviewed today about Your Brain on Cubs on NPR's "Science Friday" hosted by Ira Flatow. In anticipation of Opening Day on Monday, Gordon appeared with several other guests on an hour-long baseball-themed segment of the show to discuss the science and psychology of baseball, fan loyalty, and other intriguing topics.

Listen to the full Science Talk interview
Learn more about Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Science

Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans continues to receive great coverage with a newly published article on the Cubs's official MLB.com website. Writer Jon Greenberg discusses both the March 10th launch party and the book itself, noting

The avuncular [Aryeh] Routtenberg, a neurobiology/psychology professor at Northwestern and self-avowed former Cubs fan (He declared any serious interest kaput after a particularly painful LaTroy Hawkins appearance in 2004), was one of the panelists earlier this month at a book release party at the Cubby Bear for "Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans," a look into the minds of sports fans and athletes by doctors, psychologists and medical experts who sometimes moonlight as baseball fans.

Routtenberg was a hit among the 80 or so in attendance at the Wrigleyville bar for the panel discussion on the book sponsored by the Illinois Science Council. At one point he livened up a fairly boring discussion by theorizing that a "toxic chemical" resides in the blades of grass at Wrigley Field and releases "negative karma" at crucial moments, like, say, in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series.

But half-baked theories like that aren't in the popular science book, which has seven chapters, written by 11 contributors, that link science and sports, from the mental reasoning behind superstitions to the neuroscience of hitting.

Read the full MLB.com article
Learn more about Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press

Your Brain on Cubs editor Dan Gordon and essay contributor Dr. Steven Small were recently interviewed about the book on several Chicago television and radio programs.

The book and its editors were featured on WBBM-TV CBS 2, WGN-TV, WMAQ-TV NBC 5, and WGN Radio 720's "Sports Talk." The March 10th launch event at the Cubby Bear Lounge was also featured in Time Out Chicago.

Read the articles about Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans on CBS 2, WGN-TV, and NBC 5
Learn more about Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Science

Opening Day is just around the corner and heralding this harbinger of springtime is the newest publication from Dana Press, Your Brain on Cubs. The book's launch event will be held on Monday, March 10th at 6:30 p.m. at the Cubby Bear Lounge, 1059 W. Addison. The event will have a discussion panel moderated by Chicago Tribune science and medicine reporter Jeremy Manier and featuring Your Brain on Cubs editor Dan Gordon, book contributor Dr. Steven Small, and special guest Dr. Areyeh Routtenberg.

In anticipation of the event, Chicago Tribune sport columnist Fred Mitchell featured the book in his column today:

The depths of loyalty for a franchise that has not won a World Series in 100 years boggle the mind. Especially your minds. Is it the allure of rooting for the perennial underdog? Is it the pursuit of a delayed gratification that the law of averages dictates will come to pass one day?

These are questions that need to be asked and answered for the future sanity of Cubs Nation. And now even neuroscientists are weighing in on this sports and society phenomenon that some view as sadistic.

Book editor Dan Gordon will also be interviewed by Dave Kaplan tonight on WGN Radio's "Sports Central."

Learn more about the Your Brain on Cubs launch event
Read the full Chicago Tribune column
Listen to the WGN Radio "Sports Central" interview
Learn more about Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Science

Christopher Maurer, chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Boston University, and Manuel Ángel Vázquez Medel, professor of literature at the University of Seville, will hold a Round Table discussion entitled
"Lorca's Search for 'Art as a Whole'" at Instituto Cervantes on March 17th, 2008 at 6:30pm. They will discuss the Federico García Lorca that might have been and Lorca's ambition to create a new aesthetic language integrating the arts.

Both Maurer and Medel are well known Lorca scholars. Maurer has translated Swan Isle's Sebastian's Arrows: Letters and Mementos of Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca, amongst other Lorca works.

Instituto Cervantes is located at 31 W. Ohio Street in Chicago, Illinois.

03/17/2008

6:30pm
Instituto Cervantes
31 W. Ohio St.
Chicago, IL 60610

Tel: (312)335-1996

Learn More About the Event

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Posted to Author Events | Swan Isle

Gwendolyn Wright will be discussing her newly published book USA: Modern Architectures in History on Tuesday, February 26th at Book Culture, 536 W. 112th Street, New York City. Reinhold Martin from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation will introduce Professor Wright and join her in the discussion.

More information on the event can be found here and here.

Learn more about Gwendolyn Wright's appearance at Book Culture

Learn more about Gwendolyn Wright's USA: Modern Architectures in History

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Posted to Author Events | Reaktion

Writers from New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg will be speaking on Thursday, January 31st at 6:30 p.m. at The Cooper Union's Wollman Auditorium, 51 Astor Place, 8th Street between Third and Fourth avenues.

Marshall Berman, Margaret Morton, Joseph Anastasio, and Kevin Walsh will engagingly discuss the state of New York City yesterday and today. Their presentations will feature images and colorful anecdotes, and will be followed by a question and answer period.

Learn more about the New York Calling event at the Cooper Union

Learn more about New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg

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Posted to Author Events | Reaktion

New York Calling editors Marshall Berman and Brian Berger spoke on December 7th at Book Culture bookstore in New York's Morningside Heights neighborhood, near Columbia University. The store recently posted a Q&A with the two authors on Book Culture's website. A excerpt from the feature:

Continue reading "Author event: New York Calling" »

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Posted to Author Events | Reaktion

Michael Ugarte, translator of Shadows of your Black Memory by Donato Ndongo, was recently interviewed by Syndicate Mizzou about his research on Spanish colonialism in Africa, the literature of exile, and democracy after colonization.

Read the interview

Learn more about Shadows of your Black Memory

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Posted to Author Events | Literature | Swan Isle

On December 7th at 7:00 p.m., New York Calling editors Marshall Berman and Brian Berger will be reading at Book Culture bookstore, 536 West 112th Street, New York. In anticipation of the event, New York Calling co-editor Brian Berger was interviewed by the prominent online city magazine Gothamist about the book. An excerpt from the interview:

Continue reading "Book Event and Book in the News: New York Calling" »

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Posted to Author Events | Reaktion

Reid Wilson of Real Clear Politics recently interviewed Charles Mahtesian, an editor of the Almanac of American Politics, 2008. Mahtesian previews the 2008 political races and offers insight into the state of American politics.

Read the Interview

Visit National Journal

Learn more about the Almanac

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Posted to Author Events | National Journal Group | Politics and Current Events

Raúl Barrientos will be reading in Spanish from his bilingual work Corriendo bajo la lluvia / Running Back Through the Rain at the Cervantes Institute of Chicago, 31 W. Ohio St., Chicago, Illinois 60610 on November 29th, 2007. Professor Ben Heller, who translated Barrientos' work with Christopher Maurer, will read in English.

Barrientos, a Chilean living in the United States since the tragic events of 1973, is one of the most recognized contemporary Latin American poets. This literary event is part of the Chile Hoy! festival of Chilean culture, presented by the Consulate General of Chile and the Cervantes Institute.

The event takes place Thursday, November 29th, at 6:30pm. A reception will follow.

Visit the Cervantes Institute of Chicago

Learn more about Corriendo bajo la lluvia / Running Back Through the Rain, published by Swan Isle

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Posted to Author Events | Poetry | Swan Isle

The lively New York Calling discussion panel last night at the City University of New York, sponsored by the Gotham Center for New York City History, was featured on the New York Times's City Room blog. Reporter Sewell Chan recounted the panelists' provocative arguments for the state of New York City yesterday and today:

Continue reading "Books in the News: New York Calling" »

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Posted to Author Events | Reaktion

Gwendolyn Wright's keynote lecture at the "Women and Modernism" colloquium at the Museum of Modern Art was featured in the October 31st New York Times column by architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. Using the colloquium and Wright's comments as a launching point, Oursoussoff considers the reasons why females continue to be underpresented in the architecture profession:

Continue reading "Author in the News: Gwendolyn Wright and USA" »

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Publicity | Reaktion

Charles Mahtesian, editor of National Journal's Almanac of American Politics, recently wrote an article for the Washington Post on presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's chances of winning the 2008 election.

Read the Article

Visit National Journal

Learn more about the Almanac

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Posted to Author Events | National Journal Group | Politics and Current Events

Staten Island has the lowest profile of the five New York boroughs, but from The Godfather to The Wu Tang Clan, it has cemented its place in New York character and history. New York Calling essayists will talk about the fascinating culture of the Island on Saturday, November 3 at 8:00 p.m. at the Everything Goes Book Cafe, 208 Bay Street, in the Tompkinsville neighborhood on Staten Island.

Staten Island native essayist Steve Maluk, Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema, and photographer and New York Calling co-editor Brian Berger will lead a lively evening of words, photos, and discussion that's sure to interest everyone. The event has garnered local attention, including on Dan Icolari's Walking Is Transportation blog.

New York Calling event at Everything Goes Book Cafe
Check out more postings about Staten Island on Brian Berger's official New York Calling blog
Learn more about New York Calling

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Posted to Author Events | Literature | Politics and Current Events | Publicity | Reaktion

Donato Ndongo and Michael Ugarte will be appearing at the Gaines-Oldham Black Culture Center, 813 Virginia Avenue, Columbia, Missouri on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus to celebrate the release of Ndongo's third novel El metro.

The event takes place on Wednesday, November 14th, from 3:00pm to 5:00pm (CST).

Spanish Literature and Culture Professor Benita Sampedro of Hofstra University will also give a guest lecture.

A reception will follow.

Swan Isle will be publishing Ndongo's Shadows of Your Black Memory this fall.

Visit the Gaines-Oldham Black Culture Center

Learn More about the Shadows of Your Black Memory, forthcoming from Swan Isle

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Posted to Author Events | Black Studies | Fiction | Swan Isle

New York Calling essayists Luc Sante, Tim McLoughlin, and Brian Berger will be reading from their pieces on Wednesday, October 24th at 7:00 p.m. at Spoonbill & Sugartown, 218 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. An audience Q&A and book signing will follow the sure to be lively reading, which has already been previewed on several local Brooklyn blogs.

Spoonbill & Sugartown Books
Check out the author's official New York Calling blog
Learn more about New York Calling

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Posted to Author Events | Literature | Publicity | Reaktion

Gwendolyn Wright will be speaking on Thursday, October 25th at 6:30 p.m. at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She will be giving the keynote address at the Women in Modernism—Making Places in Architecture colloquium, which is sponsored by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.

Wright's address will be followed by a discussion panel featuring leading architectural scholars and practitioners Toshiko Mori, Sarah Herda, Karen Stein, and moderator Barry Bergdoll. Wright is author of the forthcoming USA: Modern Architectures in History.

"At last, the book I have been waiting for: the story of modern American architecture deeply contextualized in the history of the last century and a half. Wright is that rare scholar who understands how intricately the built environment is laced into larger historical trends. This is a wonderful book for all who care about architecture and the long history of modern work, housing, and public life in the United States."
—Lizabeth Cohen, professor of history, Harvard University, and author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America

Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation Women in Modernism colloquium at the Museum of Modern Art
Learn more about USA: Modern Architectures in History

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Publicity | Reaktion

Partha Mitter will give a lecture on Sunday, October 21 at 2:00 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His talk will be drawn from his newly published book The Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-garde 1922–47. A book signing will follow the lecture.

National Gallery of Art Lectures
Learn more about Partha Mitter's The Triumph of Modernism

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Publicity | Reaktion

Michael Barone will be interviewed this Friday, October 19th at 1:00pm (EST) on National Journal's new radio show on XM Channel 130, the POTUS '08 station, a new 24 hour satellite radio station dedicated to the 2008 presidential election.

Linda Douglass, a contributing editor to National Journal, will talk with Barone about the 2008 race: Which states are likely to decide the outcome of the presidential election? Has the makeup of the political parties changed? Are voters as polarized as they have been in past elections?

The show will also be streaming live on National Journal's web site.

Visit National Journal

Learn more about the book

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Posted to Author Events | National Journal Group | Politics and Current Events

New York Calling essayists Tom Robbins, Margaret Morton, and Brian Berger will be reading this Friday, October 19th at 7:00pm at Bluestocking Books, 172 Allen Street in New York City.

Time Out New York recently praised the book saying, "With Rudy running for President and Hilly Kristal dead, the timing couldn't be better for New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg. This fascinating, enlightening and sometimes irritating collection of essays pokes through the rubble of the past three decades and asks: What is the Apple without its worms—without its grifters, goombahs, B-boys, bohos and bums?"

Read the Time Out New York review
Check out the New York Calling author blog
Learn more about New York Calling

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Posted to Author Events | Literature | Politics and Current Events | Publicity | Reaktion

Professor Partha Mitter will be giving a talk entitled "Early Indian Photography and the Complex Legacy of the Mughal Era" this Thursday, October 18th at 6:00p.m. in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Art at Harvard University. Admission is free.

Mitter is the author of the newly published The Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1922-47.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Art lecture series
Learn more about The Triumph of Modernism

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Publicity | Reaktion

Danny Postel recently wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian imploring readers to consider more nuanced views of Iran's President Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University and the U.N than have been discussed in the American media.

Rather than support vitriolic nationalism, Postel, following Foucault and Sartre, suggests that Americans should remember "our real Iranian friends"; that is, the various non-governmental leaders who have been struggling for democracy and rights.

Read Postel's Commentary

Learn More about Postel's Book

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Posted to Author Events | Cultural Studies | Philosophy | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Antonio Gonçalves Filho recently reviewed Enemies of Promise: Publishing, Perishing, and the Eclipse of Scholarship and interviewed author Lindsay Waters in Estadão, a Brazilian newspaper:

Lindsay Waters, executive editor for the Humanities at Harvard University Press, has issued a challenge to academics and publishers: to publish less, with more relevance. . . . Waters criticizes the "publish-or-perish" mentality that has produced an avalanche of books of little or no importance.

Read the Review and Interview (in Portuguese)

Learn More about the Book

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Posted to Author Events | Philosophy | Prickly Paradigm | Reference | Reviews

Michael Liedtke, reporting in the Chicago Tribune, recently wrote an article entitled "Search Startup Ready to Challenge Google." The article concerns the work of Ronald Kaplan who is the Palo Alto Research Center's (PARC's) "top natural-language specialist," a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), and the chief technology and scientific officer at Powerset, a company developing a natural-language search engine.

Whereas Google, Yahoo!, and others search by key word, the technologies being developed by PARC and Powerset are meant to allow for natural-language searches. For instance, suppose you wanted to know who distributes the Center for the Study of Language and Information's Intelligent Linguistic Architectures: Variations on Themes by Ronald M. Kaplan. Rather than entering a key word search similar to, "CSLI distributor books Kaplan" to find out who distributes the Center for the Study of Language and Information's books, one would hopefully be able to enter, "Who distributes CSLI's books?" or, "Who distributes CSLI's Intelligent Linguistic Architectures?"

The Tribune article notes that natural-language search engines have struggled in the past. Ask Jeeves, for instance, began as a natural-language engine, but quickly shifted to keywords (and changed its name to Ask.com). Others also point out that Powerset will have to be able to deal with synonyms and the multifarious ways in which questions can be phrased.

In case you would like to know more about Ronald Kaplan's research, the University of Chicago Press distributes a few relevant titles from the Center for the Study of Language and Information.

Learn More about the recently published Intelligent Linguistic Architectures: Variations on Themes by Ronald M. Kaplan

Formal Issues in Lexical-Functional Grammar, part of CSLI's series of "Lecture Notes"

Read the article from the Chicago Tribune

Visit CSLI

Visit PARC

Visit Powerset

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Posted to Author Events | Center for the Study of Language and Information

Gelf Magazine recently interviewed Grant Farred, author of Prickly Paradigm's Phantom Calls: Race and the Globalization of the NBA.

Farred discusses the demise of ESPN's "athletic intelligence" and the importance of intelligent sports talk. As Gelf Magazine explains the interview, "Farred . . . speaks with Gelf about how ESPN has devolved over the last seven years, why some of its content is 'just crap,' and how the landscape of sports media has shifted."

Read the Interview in Gelf Magazine

Learn More about the Book

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Posted to Author Events | Cultural Studies | Prickly Paradigm

Prickly Paradigm is presenting an author event with four of its authors this Thursday, August 16th, 7:00pm, at the Book Cellar on Lincoln Square, 4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago.

Danny Postel will present Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran.

Labor lawyer and American Prospect columnist Tom Geoghegan will discuss his book The Law in Shambles.

Journalist Rick Perlstein will discuss his pamphlet The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo: How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party.

Anthropologist Matti Bunzl will be discussing his hot-off-the-presses volume Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds Old and New in Europe.

Prickly Paradigm Press conceives of its mission as follows:

The old-time pamphlet is back, with some of the most challenging intellectual work being done today. Prickly Paradigm Press, LLC is devoted to giving serious authors free rein to say what's right and what's wrong about their disciplines and about the world, including what's never been said before. The result is intellectuals unbound, writing unconstrained and creative texts about meaningful matters.

Learn More about Prickly Paradigm Press

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Posted to Author Events | Prickly Paradigm

On July 25th, 2007, the New York Sun printed an excerpt of Luc Sante's essay "Commerce" from the forthcoming Reaktion title New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg, edited by Marshall Berman and Brian Berger.

Read the Excerpt

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Posted to Author Events | Cultural Studies | History | Reaktion

John Corbett, co-editor of the WhiteWalls Sun Ra titles The Wisdom of Sun Ra, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, and the forthcoming Traveling the Spaceways, recently wrote an article on Sun Ra for Design Observer. Corbett provides an eloquent introduction to Sun Ra and his Arkestra, mapping the Chicago spaces inhabited by Ra and his collaborators as they developed the El Saturn label and launched the Arkestra.

Visit Design Observer

Learn More about The Wisdom of Sun Ra

Learn More about Pathways to Unknown Worlds

Learn More about Traveling the Spaceways

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Black Studies | Music | Whitewalls

Paul Werner, author of Museum, Inc., will be interviewed this coming Sunday, July 8th, at 10:00am (AEST - Australia Eastern Standard Time) on Artworks, a radio show from ABC Radio National in Australia.

Audio of the show will be available from the Artworks site

Learn More about the Book

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Economics | Prickly Paradigm

Those of us in the States tend to think that to be cool is quintessentially American. But, youth in other countries understandably think that they, too, exhibit qualities associated with being cool.

Dick Pountain, author of Cool Rules, recently wrote an article discussing the apparent link between the rise in violence in the UK and the rise of the "Cool (with a capital C)" ethic.

Pountain distinguishes between "cool" as a mere term of approval and "Cool," which he describes as:

. . . a complete ethic that encompasses those other senses [of the word], an extreme form of individualism that can be summarized as a conviction that society's mores apply to everyone except yourself, and possibly your mates.

Read Pountain's Essay in the Guardian

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Posted to Author Events | Cultural Studies | Reaktion

Bran Nicol, author of Stalking, recently wrote an article entitled "Mad About You: Modern day stalking, and old fashion passion" for American Sexuality Magazine, a publication of the National Sexuality Resource Center.

Nicol argues that "Stalking . . . is one of the signature crimes of our age," and that it is mostly a recent phenomenon. "The term itself, referring to systematic harassment, only enters the language in the 1960s and 1970s. . . ."

However, Nicol goes on to point out, ". . . [W]hile stalking is in one sense 'new,' a symptomatic crime of the late-twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries, it reveals that we are still in the grip of some very 'old' and unshakable attitudes about men and women and sexual desire."

Read the Full Article

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Posted to Author Events | Cultural Studies | Literature | Reaktion

UPDATE:

Listen to an mp3 of the Event

Danny Postel will discuss his book Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran on Thursday, May 31st from 1pm to 2pm in London, England. The event is located at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA), 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ.

Postel will be joined by two panelists:

Ziba Mir-Hosseini, senior research associate, London Middle Eastern Institute, SOAS,
Mary Kaldo, director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, LSE.

The event will be chaired by Benjamin Ramm, editor of the Liberal.

Please email lectures@rsa.org.uk or visit www.theRSA.org/events for reservations.

Learn More about Postel's Book

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Liverpool University Press author David Supino will be giving the second annual Bernard Breslauer Lecture at the Grolier Club in New York City on Wednesday, May 23rd at 6pm. The event is open to the public and co-sponsored by the American Trust for the British Library. Supino will be discussing his bibliographical work on Henry James. Supino is author of Henry James: A Bibliographical Catalogue of a Collection of Editions to 1921.

All RSVPs and reservations are to be made through Maev Brennan at the Grolier Club, tel. 212-838-6690, ext. 7, or e-mail: mbrennan@grolierclub.org.

The Grolier Club is located at 47 East 60th Street, New York City (between Park and Madison Avenues).

Learn More about the Event

Learn More about Supino's Book

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Posted to Author Events | Literature | Liverpool University Press

Danny Postel recently wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian on the arrest of Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. Esfandiari travelled to Iran to visit her sick mother and had been barred from leaving the country since last December.

Postal argues, "Esfandiari's arrest is but the latest chapter in a crackdown on intellectuals and writers in Iran over the last year."

Learn More about Postel's Book

Read the Article in the Guardian

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Alan G. Jamieson, author of Faith and Sword: A Short History of Christian-Muslim Conflict, wrote an editorial for the Monday, May 14th edition of the Globe and Mail on the need for more U.S. troops. Jamieson explains that the U.S. does not have the number of soldiers that it needs "to continue its role as worldwide policeman."

Read the Article

Learn more about Jamieson's book Faith and Sword

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion

Nicky Penttila recently interviewed Kevin J. Tracey for the Dana Press web site. Tracey, author of Fatal Sequence: The Killer Within, discusses his motivations for writing and some of the implications of his investigations into sepsis, the sometimes fatal over-response of the immune system to infection.

Fatal Sequence tells the story of Janice, a one-year-old who arrives in the emergency room, burned by boiling water after she crawled behind her unsuspecting grandmother as she turned from the stove. She survives the night, but the following morning is only the beginning of her long and intense battle against severe sepsis, as her body attacks itself. Tracey, who cared for the girl during her four weeks in intensive care, draws on her case to vividly illustrate why sepsis happens, in a sensitive, suspenseful story that renders cutting-edge science human, accessible, and unforgettable.

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Science

Ian J. Bickerton and Kenneth J. Hagan, authors of Unintended Consequences: The United States at War, recently appeared at Cody's Books.

A video of their appearance is available at FORA.tv and is divided into the following chapters:

01: Origin of the Book
02: War is Not a
Continuation of Policy
by other Means
03: American Revolution
04: Spanish-American War
05: Korean War
06: Visionary Alternatives
07: Q & A
08: Q1 - Analyzing Iraq
War
09: Further Analyzation
10: Q2 - True Intentions of
War
11: Q3 - Hong Kong &
China
12: Opium Wars
13: Q4 - Analyzing First
Gulf War
14: Q5 - Positive
Consequences of War
15: Q6 - Post WWII
Europe
16: Q7 - Benefits of War

Watch the Video

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion

Ian J. Bickerton and Kenneth J. Hagan, authors of Unintended Consequences: The United States at War, recently wrote an article in the San Francisco Chronicle outlining the ways in which wars result in unintended consequences for the United States. More specifically, "Iraq is only the latest example of an American war whose unintended consequences dwarf the original justification and expectations of the leaders who drew the nation into belligerency."

Bickerton and Hagan go on to argue that the United States should emphasize negotiation and restraint:

Rather than calling for an expanded use of military force . . . , the United States should look for ways to encourage democratic change through restraint and patience.

"Negotiation" rather than "war" should become the United States' byword in its relations with hostile regimes as well as with friendly ones. That way it can seek to avoid the nasty uninteded consequences that are sure to follow once the shooting begins. It's a lesson U.S. planners should heed as they consider how to deal with Iran.

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Posted by at 11:22 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | History | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion

Danny Postel, Jan Schakowsky, Ahmad Sadri, and Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor are speaking at Northwestern University, 2120 Campus Drive, Evanston Campus, Annenberg Hall, Room G21 on Friday, March 2nd at 7:00p.m. to discuss "Averting an Attack on Iran."

Danny Postel is senior editor of the London-based magazine openDemocracy and contributing editor to Dædalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a member of the Committee for Academic and Intellectual Freedom of the International Society for Iranian Studies.

Jan Schakowsky is serving her fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Illinois' 9th Congressional District. A founding member of the Out-of-Iraq Caucus, she serves in the House Democratic Leadership as Chief Deputy Whip and as a member of the Steering and Policy Committee, and was recently appointed to the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

Ahmad Sadri is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lake Forest College and is a founding member of the Organization for the Advancement of Human Rights and Democracy, a recently-formed umbrella coalition of all of Iran's major reform-oriented groups. He is co-editor of Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush, the definitive source in English of the work of Iran's leading religious reformist thinker.

Douglas A. Macgregor is a retired Army Colonel and a decorated Gulf War combat veteran currently working as an independent defense and foreign policy consultant with the firm Glenside Analysis, Inc., based in Ashburn, Virginia. He is the author of Transformation under Fire: Revolutionizing How America Fights (2003) and Breaking the Phalanx: A New Design for Landpower in the 21st Century (1997).

Northwestern University
2120 Campus Drive
Evanston Campus
Annenberg Hall
Room G21

For more information call (847) 673-0614 or e-mail kendy@kendis.com

Learn More about the Postel's Book

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Robert McCarter, author of Frank Lloyd Wright from Reaktion's Critical Lives series, will be speaking at the University of Louisville on February 27th. The lecture is entitled "The Houses of Frank Lloyd Wright."

McCarter is expected to discuss the Prairie Houses (1895-1915) to examine Wright's development of "the space within," the Concrete Block Houses (1915-1935) to uncover what Wright called "the nature of materials," and the Usonian Houses (1935-1959) to demonstrate the relationship between the interior spaces of the houses and the landscapes in which they were built.

Feb. 27, 6 p.m.
Speed Art Museum Auditorium
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40208

Admission to the lecture is free and open to the public

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Reaktion

Lars Svendsen, author of A Philosophy of Boredom, recently spoke on To the Best of Our Knowledge on Wisconsin Public Radio. Svendsen shares his research into the long history of boredom, the types of boredom, and some solutions to boredom.

What is it that makes you bored? Who were the first bored people? What is the meaning of boredom? Are we responsible for our boredom? Are there any benefits to boredom? Tune in. Find out. Stay engaged.

Listen to the Show

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Posted to Author Events | History | Literature | Philosophy | Reaktion

John Belcham, editor of Liverpool 800, recently spoke on the celebration of Liverpool's 800th year on BBC's Thinking Allowed. Belcham discusses Liverpool architecture, cultural quarters, and the importance of sugar to the city's history.

In anticipation of Liverpool's eight-hundredth anniversary in 2007, Liverpool 800 is the definitive biography of this magnificent world city. The book uses the latest historical research to explore the life of Liverpool over eight centuries to the present day, and includes detailed sections on politics, economics, and culture. Written by experts on Liverpool history, such as Donald M. MacRaild and Colin G. Pooley and incorporating exquisite color illustrations, Liverpool 800 offers an insider's perspective on the city the European Union has named "European Capital of Culture" for 2008.

Learn More about the Book

Listen to Thinking Allowed

Posted by at 10:58 AM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | History | Liverpool University Press | Politics and Current Events

On Friday, February 2nd at 7:00 pm at the editorial offices of Stop Smiling, Danny Postel will discuss "The Necropolitical Imagination" or Michel Foucault's complex interaction with the Iranian Revolution. The discussion will be based on a section from Postel's Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism and will be followed by a conversation between Postel and Stop Smiling editor J. C. Gabel.

Stop Smiling is located at 1371 N. Milwaukee Ave, about halfway between the North/Damen and Ashland/Milwaukee Blue Line stops in Chicago. Don't miss it!

Find out more about Stop Smiling

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Posted to Author Events | History | Philosophy | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Philip Mosley, editor of Anthracite! An Anthology of Coal Region Drama, invites the public to attend a book signing and dramatic reading at the Bookstore of Penn State Worthington Scranton on Tuesday, January 23rd from Noon to 2:00pm.

Philip Mosley is professor of English, Communications, and Comparative Literature at Penn State Worthington Scranton. He edited and wrote the introduction for the book which was published recently by the University of Scranton Press.

More Information on the Event

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Posted to Author Events | History | University of Scranton

Tomorrow, January 11th at 6:00 pm, Danny Postel will discuss contemporary Iranian politics within the context of his pamphlet recently published by the Prickly Paradigm Press, Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism. Postel's talk is part of an ongoing series at the U of C's Center for International Studies, The World Beyond the Headlines and will be held on the U of C campus at the International House Home Room, 1414 E. 59th St. Don't miss it!

The Iran depicted in the headlines is a rogue state ruled by ever-more-defiant Islamic fundamentalists. Yet inside the borders, an unheralded transformation of a wholly different political bent is occurring. A "liberal renaissance," as one Iranian thinker terms it, is emerging in Iran, and in his pamphlet, Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism Danny Postel charts the contours of this intellectual upheaval.

Find out more about The World Beyond the Headlines Series at the Center for International Studies
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Posted to Author Events | Philosophy | Prickly Paradigm

Nancy C. Andreasen, author of The Creating Brain, will be interviewed on NPR's Science Friday by Ira Flatow on Friday, December 15th.

Michelangelo was raised in a rustic village by a family of modest means. Shakespeare's father was a middle-class businessman. Abraham Lincoln came from a family of itinerant farmers. Yet all these men broke free from their limited circumstances and achieved brilliant careers as creative artists and leaders. How such extraordinary creativity develops in the human brain is the subject of renowned psychiatrist Nancy Andreasen's The Creating Brain.

Visit Science Friday

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Dana Press | Science

Jonathan D. Moreno, author of Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, will be featured on News Radio FOX (http://www.newsradiofox.com/) on December 20th at 3:15 CST.

In his fascinating new book, Jonathan D. Moreno investigates the deeply intertwined worlds of cutting-edge brain science, U.S. defense agencies, and a volatile geopolitical landscape where a nation's weaponry must go far beyond bombs and men. The first-ever exploration of the connections between national security and brain research, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense reveals how many questions crowd this gray intersection of science and government and urges us to begin to answer them.

News Radio FOX

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Politics and Current Events | Science

Dany Postel, senior editor of OpenDemocracy, will discuss his new book Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran from Prickly Paradigm Press on Saturday, December 16th at 6:00pm. The discussion will take place at the New World Resource Center, 1300 N. Western Avenue at the corner of Western and Potomac in Chicago (one block north of Division).

Visit OpenDemocracy

Visit The Postel Service, Danny Postel's Site

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Jonathan D. Moreno, author of Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, is featured on the New York Academy of Sciences web site. The site features an interview with Moreno, excerpts, and audio in podcast and mp3 formats.

Visit the NYAAS to read the interview and download the audio

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Politics and Current Events | Science

Danny Postel, author of the Prickly Paradigm Press title Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism, is participating in a panel on "Iran and the Left" sponsored by In These Times and openDemocracy. The panel includes Janet Afary, author of Foucault and the Iranian Revolution and president of the International Society for Iranian Studies, as well as Nader Hashemi, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of political science at Northwestern University. The panel will be moderated by Christopher Hays, senior editor of In These Times and contributor to The Nation.

The dialogue will take place at In These Times, 2040 N. Milwaukee Ave., Tuesday, December 5th at 7:00pm.

Visit openDemocracy.org

Visit In These Times

Learn More about Postel's Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Jonathan D. Moreno, author of Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press), recently published "The Role of Brian Research in National Defense" in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Moreno outlines the growth of neuroscience and the ethical conundrums that are posed by the intersection of national security interests and neuroscience research. He discusses the state of science, the persistant fears associated with the idea ". . . that some deliberate and fairly precise means can be used to alter our cognition or behavior in accord with someone else's strategic purpose," and the potential benefits to national security—in addition to the obvious importance of neuroscience to medicine.

Moreno ends his article advocating "a reasoned public conversation about the role of brain research in national defense." His essay is a great place to introduce the contours of the debate.

Read Moreno's Article

Learn more about the Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Philosophy | Politics and Current Events | Science

Eduardo Urios-Aparisi, author of the bilingual Las hormigas de oro / Ants of Gold, recently gave a reading at the University of Connecticut. The Daily Campus, University of Connecticut's paper, quoted Urios-Aparisi as saying, "Poetry is an art-form that must be spoken, he said, and should convey 'whatever is happening at the moment.'"

For Eduardo Urios-Aparisi poetry is above all, word, spoken word. Word that commits, pronounces, sounds. Word that leaves knots in the voice. For Urios, words play and challenge to play, to conceive the world from different and unsuspected points of view. The poems reflect the senses of the poet; moment to moment, in seduction, abandonment, and loss. It is reality flowing and always fleeing; fragmentary, accelerated, changing and unattainable.

Read the Article in The Daily Campus

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Posted by at 09:31 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | Poetry | Swan Isle

In connection with The Wisdom of Sun Ra, WhiteWalls and John Corbett have teamed up with the Hyde Park Arts Center for an exhibition, Pathways to Unknown Worlds, and series of events, Travelling the Spaceways. The exhibition and events run until January 14th, 2007.

There is simply too much to list here: screenings, curator talks, a symposium, performances, musicians, artists, rock stars.

Learn about Pathways to Unknown Worlds and Traveling the Spaceways at the Hyde Park Arts Center

Learn More about The Wisdom of Sun Ra

Posted by at 09:33 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | Black Studies | Chicago | Music | Whitewalls

Dawoud Bey's photography is included in "Photographs by the Score", which opens on Saturday, October 7th at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is a collection of Bey's photographs of American youth.

Kevin Nance, the Sun-Times art critic, describes the allure of Bey's photography:

In his large-scale color protraits of high school students from Chicago, Detroit and other cities, the teens look straight at the camera—straight at you—with the fank and steady gaze of someone ready for a heart-to-heart talk. Here I am, the look says. Deal with it.

See a collection of Bey's photographs presented by the Sun-Times

Read Kevin Nance's article in the Sun-Times

Learn more about "Photographs by the Score" at the Art Institute of Chicago

Learn more about Bey's Chicago Project

Posted by at 09:23 AM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Smart Museum

Alan G. Jamieson, author of Faith and Sword: A Short History of Christian-Muslim Conflict, wrote an editorial for the Monday, September 18th edition of Ottowa Citizen on Pope Benedict XVI's recent quotation of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus. Jamieson explains the history behind the emperor's claim and suggests that the pope's use of the quotation was unfortunate.

Read the Essay

Learn more about Jamieson's book Faith and Sword

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Posted to Author Events | History | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion | Religion

Kim Stringfellow's cover image from Greetings from the Salton Sea was published in the New York Times as part of a review of the group exhibition "Ecotopia: The Second I.C.P. Triennial of Photography and Video," which runs through Jan. 7 at the International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street; (212) 857-0000.

Visit the ICP online

Visit Kim Stringfellow's Site

There is also still time to catch Stringfellow's work at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Read the Review of the ICP show in the New York Times (only available temporarily)

Learn more about Greetings from the Salton Sea

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places

Ramin Jahanbegloo was released from prison in Tehran, where he had been held since April 27th, 2006.

For more information on Jahanbegloo, please follow the links below:

Our initial post concerning Jahanbegloo

News article on Jahanbegloo's release from the Washington Post

Open Democracy's take on the events surrounding Jahanbegloo's release

Maclean's analysis of events

Danny Postel's Site

Jahanbegloo und Postel auf Deutsch

Noch eine andere Deutsche Übersetzung

A Serbo-Croatian Translation of Jehanbegloo and Postel

Learn more about Postel's Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism

Posted by at 07:32 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Nancy C. Andreasen, author of The Creating Brain, was recently interviewed in USA Today by Kathleen Fackelmann. Andreasen discusses the brain and its relation to genius, madness, and creativity. The article concludes with suggestions for giving your mind a workout.

Read the Interview

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Dana Press | Music | Poetry | Psychology

Logos recently posted a conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo and Danny Postel. The discussion is an excerpt from Postel's forthcoming Reading Legitimation Crisis in Iran (Prickly Paradigm Press).

Jahanbegloo and Postel discuss the prospects for liberalism in Iran, illuminating the history of philosophy in Iran and demonstrating the possibilities for the growth of an Iranian civil society opposed to the authoritarianism of the "revolutionary model" of citizenship.

Not long after the conversation, on April 27th, 2006, Jahanbegloo was arrested at the Tehran airport and imprisoned without charges.

Read the Conversation

Read the Open Letter regarding Jahanbegloo's imprisonment

Learn more about Postel's Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism

Posted by at 07:47 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | Philosophy | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Kim Stringfellow was interviewed by Bobby Tanzilo of OnMilwaukee.com in conjunction with an exhibit at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The center is located at 608 New York Ave, Sheboygan, WI 53082 and can be contacted at 920-458-6144. The exhibition runs until October 22.

Stringfellow describes the relations between art and science in her work, focusing on the environment and its degradation as it is manifested at the Salton Sea.

Read the interview with Kim Stringfellow

Learn more about the exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places | History | Politics and Current Events

Olivia Maciel will be giving a free reading from Sombra en plata: poemas / Shadow in Silver: Poems at the California Clipper in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood on Wednesday, July 19th. The California Clipper is located at 1002 N. California Avenue at the corner of Augusta and California. The doors will open at 8:00p.m. and the reading begins at 8:30p.m, ages 21 and over, only.

In Sombra en plata: poemas / Shadow in Silver: Poems, Mexican-born Olivia Maciel lyrically evokes another America. The richly allusive language of Sombra en plata / Shadow in Silver is a terrain at times steep, fevered, and sensual: a harmony of words scented of earth and sky. Her poems are catalysts for transformation, challenging the reader with a vision of a world where myth and the quotidian are intimately intertwined. Exploring complex and unpredictable landscapes, Maciel is both a guide and fellow traveler on a fascinating journey through memories and emotions.

Learn more about the Book

Posted by at 08:40 AM | Permalink
Posted to Author Events | Poetry | Swan Isle

Jane Coulter reports on WBUR's Arts blog that John Willis and Tom Young, the photographers behind Recycled Realities, lectured at Boston University's College of Communications on their collaborations, revealing the "meaningful connections" in their work.

We throw away literally tons of trash everyday, and often never consider where it goes after the garbage truck picks it up. But the fate of the discarded fragments of our lives is a long journey, one which ultimately ends at isolated sites and lots across America. Photographers John Willis and Tom Young spent nearly four years documenting one such site, as they captured the subtle yet powerful narratives hidden within the paper waste bales at a mill in western Massachusetts. The result is Recycled Realities, a compelling visual essay of their explorations.

Read WBUR's Arts blog

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Read the Press Release

Visit John Willis | Photography

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places

Rick Perlstien, author of The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo: How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party, appeared on Berkeley's Pacifica Radio on Sunday, May 21st. The discussion ranges from blogs to politics and the relation between the two. Perlstein advocates looking for the best of blogs and fact-based blogging, before pre-judging all blogs as inherently low in veracity. He also discusses the future of a progressive Democratic party in the face of the dominant Republican machine.

Visit Pacifica Radio

Learn More About The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo

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Posted to Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Michael S. Gazzaniga will be appearing on The Charlie Rose Show on Wednesday, April 19th with guest host William Safire. Michael Gazzaniga is the author of The Ethical Brain and the Director of the Sage Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Ethical Brain is a groundbreaking volume that presents neuroscience's loaded findings—and their ethical implications—in an engaging and readable manner, offering an incisive and thoughtful analysis of the medical ethics challenges confronting modern society at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Visit the The Charlie Rose Show online

Learn more about the Sage Center for the Study of Mind

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Read an Excerpt

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press

Christopher Maurer, editor and translator of Sebastian's Arrows: Letters and Mementos of Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca, will be giving a slide lecture entitled "Arrows of Desire: Salvador Dali, Federico Garcia Lorca, and St. Sebastian" examining the meaning of St. Sebastian in modern painting and in the lives and works of the two artists. The event will be held Thursday, May 18th from 2:30 to 3:30 in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. There is a fee of $13 for members and $21 for non-members.

Learn more about the Event

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Swan Isle

Olivia Maciel, author of Sombra en plata: poemas / Shadow in Silver: Poems, will be giving a reading of her work at DePauw University's Peeler Art Center Auditorium in Greencastle, Indiana, from 4:00 to 5:30pm on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006.

The richly allusive language of Sombra en plata / Shadow in Silver is a terrain at times steep, fevered, and sensual: a harmony of words scented of earth and sky. Her poems are catalysts for transformation, challenging the reader with a vision of a world where myth and the quotidian are intimately intertwined.

Learn more about the Event

Learn more about the Book

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Posted to Author Events | Poetry | Swan Isle

Laura Mulvey will speak at Wellesley College in Massachusetts on Wednesday, April 5, 4:30 p.m., in Science Center 277. A reception will precede the lecture. This event is free and open to the public.

Mulvey, professor of film and media studies at Birbeck College, University of London, will discuss the relationship between new media technologies and spectatorship. Her lecture, entitled "Discovering the Pensive and the Possessive Spectator," is based on her recently published Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image in which she argues that new media technologies give viewers the ability to control both image and story, so that movies meant to be seen collectively and followed in a linear fashion may be manipulated to contain unexpected and even unintended pleasures.

Read more about the upcoming lecture

Learn more about Death 24x a Second

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Posted to Author Events | Film and Media | Reaktion

Michael Gazzaniga, author of The Ethical Brain, neuroscientist, and member of the President's Council on Bioethics was recently interviewed by both American Scientist and U.S. News and World Report. Gazzaniga elucidates on the themes contained in The Ethical Brain:

Will increased scientific understanding of our brains overturn our beliefs about moral and ethical behavior? How will increasingly powerful brain imaging technologies affect the ideas of privacy and of self-incrimination? Can the ethics of science and religion be reconciled? Is insanity a permissible legal defense?

Read Gazzaniga's Interview at American Scientist

Read Gazzaniga's Interview at U.S. News and World Report

Read an Excerpt of The Ethical Brain

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Posted to Author Events | Dana Press | Philosophy | Science

Guy Debord author Andrew Merrifield was recently interviewed by the British site Ready, Steady, Book. Merrifield describes both his own interest in writing on Debord and Debord's motivations and idiosyncracies as a member of Situationist International.

According to Merrifield, "[Debord] did what he did, as he himself said; he was an example of what our era didn't want."

Read the Interview

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion

Olivia Maciel was interviewed on Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty-Eight on Monday, March 6. The bilingual poet discusses a variety of topics including her call to poetry, Chicago, its immigrants, and the truth of poetry.

Her poems are catalysts for transformation, challenging the reader with a vision of a world where myth and the quotidian are intimately intertwined. Exploring complex and unpredictable landscapes, Maciel is both a guide and fellow traveler on a fascinating journey through memories and emotions.

Tune in and listen as Olivia Maciel speaks of poetry's ability to "harmonize disconnected objects" and "give shape to what truly cannot be expressed in any other way" by utilizing the "language of the eternal."

Listen to the Interview

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Posted to Author Events | Poetry | Swan Isle

Paul Werner, author of Museum, Inc., is giving a lecture at the Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002 on Saturday, March 25 at 7:00pm.

It's no secret that art and business have always mixed, but their relationship today sparks more questions than ever. Museum, Inc. describes the new art conglomerates from an insider's perspective, probing how their roots run deep into corporate culture.

Visit the Bluestockings Site for more information on the event.

Paul Werner's Museum, Inc. Site

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Economics | Prickly Paradigm

Scott Fortino, author of Institutional, will be giving a tour and engaging in dialogue with curator Dominic Molon at the MCA in Chicago on March 14, 2006 at 6:30pm.

Scott Fortino's exacting images depict various sites and situations around Chicago, including restricted spaces such as jails and jury rooms which he has access to as a Chicago police officer. His rigorously formal approach to photography emphasizes the intriguing visual or structural aspects of otherwise overlooked spaces. The precision and clarity of his photographs provide a highly considered examination of how certain social experiences are controlled and mediated through interior architectural structures and details. Though best known for his pictures of institutional interiors, Fortino has recently expanded his focus to views of the city's lakefront and close-ups of wildflowers.

Visit the MCA

Read the Invitation

Learn more about Institutional

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places

There will be an opening reception and book signing for Justin Kimball's Where We Find Ourselves on March 9, 2006 from 5 to 7pm in the Film and Photography Gallery at the Jerome Liebling Center for Film, Photo and Video at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The show runs March 1-31.

Gallery Hours: Sunday to Thursday 1-9, Fri & Sat 1-6

Justin Kimball will also be signing copies of Where We Find Ourselves on March 11, 2006 at 3:30pm at Just Books Too, 28 Arcadia Road, Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

Posted by at 10:34 AM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places

Robert Bevan, author of The Destruction of Memory, wrote an editorial for the Sydney Morning Herald on the recent destruction of the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samara, Iraq. Following his ideas in The Destruction of Memory, Bevan argues that such attacks on cultural and religious sites are "double attacks" on a society's foundations, "This is not collateral damage. It can be an attempt to destabilise a society or, where memories, history, and identity are attached to architecture and place, to enforce forgetting."

In addition to the destruction of the Golden Mosque by unknown forces, Bevan's editorial provides various examples of different factions' uses of architecture in Iraq: the Shiite Mahdi Army's occupation of the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf in order to gain protection from the U.S forces, who knew that attacking the shrine would be unforgivable in the eyes of the Shiite population; the reprisals from Shiite groups toward Sunni mosques following the destruction of the Golden Dome; the U.S. military's use and disregard of historical sites, its militarily worthless "Shock and Awe" method, and its general failure to protect Iraq's heritage sites from looting and destruction.

Read the article.

Posted by at 10:19 AM | Permalink
Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Politics and Current Events | Reaktion

Tom Geoghegan, author of the Prickly Paradigm pamplet Law in Shambles, will be speaking at 57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th Street, in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood on February 22nd at 7pm. Geoghegan will be joined in conversation by journalist Rick Perlstein, author of Before the Storm and The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo.


Geoghegan convincingly explains in Law in Shambles how the 2000 presidential election was only the first sign that justice is now driven by party politics. He notes how even lawyers are becoming disillusioned with the law, as federal cases are increasingly determined by whether they are heard by a Bush-appointed judge or a Clinton-appointed judge.


Geoghegan ultimately contends that the sense of disorder in our legal system has never been greater, and we may no longer have the basic civic trust necessary to preserve the rule of law.


More details on the event


Read more about Law in Shambles

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Posted to Author Events | Law | Politics and Current Events | Prickly Paradigm

Scott Fortino, author of Institutional, appeared on Chicago Public Radio on January 30th. Speaking from Walter Payton College Prep, the photographer and Chicago policeman describes what drew him to the jails, hospitals, and schools he captured on film. Fortino describes his modes of expression, emphasizing the "personalization of the impersonal" in the spaces he photographs. The images of the unoccupied, but resonant spaces allow viewers to associate, fill in the gaps, and make connections.


Listen to Scott Fortino on Eight Forty-Eight


Learn more about Institutional

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Center for American Places

Smart Museum's travelling exhibition Beyond Green has moved from Chicago to New York City, where it is now at the Museum of Arts & Design until May 7.

Balancing environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic concerns, sustainable design has the potential to transform everyday life and is already reshaping the fields of architecture and product design. Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art explores the influence of this design philosophy on an emerging generation of international artists who combine a fresh aesthetic sensibility with a constructively critical approach to the production, dissemination, and display of art.

Read iCI's Press Release for Beyond Green


Read a review from the Chicago instantiation of the exhibition


Read another review


Download a .pdf review from the Chicago Reader


Find out more about the exhibition catalog

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Reviews | Smart Museum

Anthony Elms, editor of WhiteWalls, is showing a collection of his drawings at VONZWECK in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood. The show, entitled Rhubarb...rhubarb, rhubarb...rhubarb... focuses on the art of still life, although, in the words of the press release, "[W]hile tabletops and foodstuffs may not always be prevalent, the drawings have never left the realm of the small gesture, the quiet scene, the domestic, the minute, the day to day."


Opening reception: Thursday, February 2, 6-9pm at VONZWECK, 1626 N. Humboldt Boulevard, Chicago.
VONZWECK is open Thursdays in Febraury, 6-9pm


Visit VONZWECK's web site for more information.

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Whitewalls

After Pierre Pinoncelli was fined and given a suspended prison sentence for smashing and cracking one of eight existing replicas of Fountain, Marcel Duchamp's legendary ready-made urinal sculpture, Caroline Cros, author of the upcoming Reaktion book Marcel Duchamp, gave her opinion on NPR's All Things Considered: "Duchamp was very detached with all the things that are material, so I think he would have a quiet smile or would have had a very pacific action to that violent gesture. Duchamp was a very polite person.... That does not mean he would have approved. I find the attitude of Pinoncelli something that is very rude and is missing a lot of Duchamp's finesse." Pinoncelli claimed he was increasing the value of the artwork by making it into an "original."


Listen to Caroline Cros on All Things Considered

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Posted to Art and Architecture | Author Events | Reaktion