What does it mean to be a Mexican today? Alma Guillermoprieto, award–winning journalist born in Mexico, will speak on “How to Be Mexican” on Mon., Oct. 12, at 7 pm in Young Auditorium. This is the first 2009/2010 Contemporary Issues lecture.
“Alma Guillermoprieto is considered an authority on the cultural and political life of Mexico and South America, especially as they relate to the United States. For the last thirty years, she has traced the history of Latin America incorporating her personal experiences.” She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, won the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 2000, and she is a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Three of her books are available in Andersen Library:
If Andersen Library’s copies are checked out, UWW students and staff may borrow titles from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested titles arrive in 2-4 weekdays.
Alma Guillermoprieto also writes frequently for publications such as the New Yorker and National Geographic. Search article databases such as Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) for au Guillermoprieto to find her articles, including “Days of the dead” (New Yorker, 11/10/2008, pp. 44-51) on the violence of the illegal drug trade in Mexico and its social repercussions.
Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.
Jerry Apps will give a talk at the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library (Whitewater’s public library at 431 W. Center St.), on Wed., Sept. 9, at 7 p.m. Apps, a former UW-Madison professor, is the author of many books.
UWW’s Andersen Library has some of his books, including Ringlingville USA: The stupendous story of seven siblings and their stunning circus success (3rd-floor Main Collection, GV1821.R5 A66 2005) and Cheese: The making of a Wisconsin tradition (3rd-floor Main Collection, SF274.U6 A66 1998).
UWW students and staff also can get Apps’ titles from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service, which brings requested materials here in 2-4 weekdays. Among the titles available are
Living a country year: Wit and wisdom from the good old days and Every farm tells a story: A tale of family farm values .
Please ask a librarian if you would like assistance with finding and requesting materials.
I just heard on the news Monday morning that Pulitzer-Prize winning author Frank McCourt passed away on Sunday, July 19th.
If you are interested in reading his work, Andersen Library has his memoirs Angela’s Ashes (3rd-Floor Main Collection, E184.I6 M117 1997) as well as the movie adaptation (2nd-Floor Browsing DVDs, Feature Film, Ang).
The continuation of his memoirs, ‘Tis, is available from other UW campus libraries to UWW students and staff via the free Universal Borrowing service, as well as being available in area public libraries including the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library in Whitewater.
More information about Frank McCourt is available from the Biography Ref Bank Select database (WilsonWeb): his entry in Current Biography 1998 (select the “Biography Ref Bank Select” database and then search for McCourt, Frank).
Did you see the televised special Earth 2100 last week? I hadn’t planned to watch, but got sucked in. It was an interesting mix of fact, science, and speculation in a fiction wrapper to make it palatable to the general public, kind of like sugar-coating a pill–perfect for someone like me who likes sci fi and popular science books. If you missed it you can still see it on the ABC web site (linked above).
The gist of the predictions we’ve heard before: “Scientists predict that by 2020, global catastrophes may well begin to accelerate. The human population is expected to explode and animal species may be dying off at a rapid rate.” In addition, climate change will lead to water shortages in some places, while other locations such as New York City will be desperately trying to protect themselves from rising sea levels by building large walls. Populations will shift in response to water stresses and other changes.
The experts interviewed made several thought-provoking statements. I was struck by the notion that Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in which at least half the species on the planet disappeared, all caused by natural disasters such as massive volcanic eruptions and rapid climate changes. Now some scientists say we are in a sixth extinction, this time caused by us.
“Every society that collapsed thought it couldn’t happen to them,” says Joseph Tainter, an expert in anthropology and societal collapse. “The Roman Empire thought it couldn’t happen. The Maya civilization thought it couldn’t happen. Everyone thought it couldn’t happen to them. But it did.”
I hope to track down some of the experts’ publications, including Joseph Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies (3rd-Floor Main Collection CB311 .T245 1988). Another interviewed expert was Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us (2nd-floor Reserves/Circulation Desk GF75 .W455 2007), who was a speaker on campus in October 2008.
E. Benjamin Skinner will speak about “A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery” at 6 pm on Wed., April 29th, in the Summers Auditorium (James R. Connor University Center).
It’s hard to believe, but some practices you think are merely historical, like piracy, still exist today. The forward to Skinner’s 2008 book, A Crime So Monstrous, states
Of course, we all know what slavery is. We’ve read about it in countless history books, seen it in documentaries and movies. Slavery is awful. Slavery is inhuman. Slavery is dead.
But that last point isn’t true. In fact, slavery is very much alive on every continent. In fact, as Ben Skinner points out, there are more slaves in the world today than ever before…
Andersen Library does not own a copy of Skinner’s book, but UW-W students and staff may borrow it from other UW campus libraries using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested items arrive in 2-4 weekdays. A search of the Library Catalog for keywords such as slavery or “human trafficking” will find other titles available locally, such as The war on human trafficking: U.S. policy assessed (3rd-floor Main Collection HQ125.U6 D47 2008).
David Rhodes will read from his novel Driftless on April 23rd at 7 p.m. at the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library (Whitewater’s public library, at 431 W. Center Street). Read a review from the California Literary Review.
A copy of Driftless is in Andersen Library’s 3rd-floor Main Collection (PS3568.H55 D75 2008). If UWW’s copy is checked out UWW students and staff can request copies available from other UW campus libraries using the free Universal Borrowing service (online video of how to do it).
This week I read Leonard Pitts‘ column in the Janesville Gazette “You can’t understand world unless you know how it was,” in which he laments that many people do not know basic history, and thus cannot put our world today into proper context and fully understand where we are as a society.
The impetus for his column was the passing of historian Dr. John Hope Franklin, who wrote many books on the history of African Americans, including From slavery to freedom, which is “regarded as the seminal text in African-American studies.” The Library has copies of From slavery to freedom, including the original 1947 edition and the 6th (1988) edition (3rd-floor Main Collection, E185 .F825 1988).
Pitts goes on to suggest additional reading, all of which are titles available in the Library’s 3rd-floor Main Collection:
UWW Sociology Professor Ron Berger will discuss and read passages from his book, “Hoop dreams on wheels: disability and the competitive wheelchair athlete” on Fri., March 13th, at 3:30 pm, in Williams Center room 185. The book chronicles the lives of 13 current and former UWW students with disabilities who play basketball. Berger will sign copies of his book at the event. The Library has a copy of this book (3rd-floor Main Collection, GV886.5 .B47 2009), and copies are also for sale at the University Bookstore. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
Seven-time National Champion UW-Whitewater is hosting the 2009 National Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball Tournament March 12-14, with the national championship game at 2 pm on Sat., March 14th (Williams Center).
John Updike died last Tuesday of lung cancer. He was the author of more than 50 books and twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for titles in the tetralogy about the life and death of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom (Rabbit, Run, 1960; Rabbit Redux, 1971; Rabbit Is Rich, 1981; and Rabbit At Rest, 1991). You can read a plot summary in the MagillOnLiterature Plus database, which says “The Rabbit Angstrom books provide an accurate, absorbing, and aesthetically satisfying social history of middle-class North America from the 1950’s into the 1980’s; taken together, the novels may well constitute Updike’s finest achievement.”
Some of you may be more familiar with The Witches of Eastwick, which was made into a 2000 stage musical and a 1987 movie (starring Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer as the witches and Jack Nicholson as the devil). Updike published a sequel in fall 2008 called The Widows of Eastwick.
Many Updike titles are available in the University’s Library, including both Eastwick titles. Search the Library Catalog for locations and call numbers.
More information about John Updike is available from the Library database Contemporary Authors, the NPR web site article “Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author John Updike Dies At 76.”, or “John Updike’s Mighty Pen” (Charles McGrath’s “Week in Review” published January 31st) on the New York Times web site.
Andersen Library has materials on Palestine. Search the HalCat library catalog to find titles such as 