James Fallows will talk about Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China on Monday, March 15th, at 7pm in the Irvin L. Young Auditorium, as part of the Contemporary Issues Lecture Series.
Fallows has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic for over 25 years, based in Washington DC, Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and now Beijing. You can read his “Voices” blog entries on the Atlantic site. In 2003 he won a National Magazine Award for his article “The Fifty-First State?” (The Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 2002, vol. 290:no.4, pp. 53-64), which talked about “the effects of military victory of the United States in the Iraq War.”
His work has appeared in many other publications as well. Search the article databases such as Academic Search Complete and MasterFILE Premier (Ebsco) to find some of his articles (try the search au fallows james).
His book, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, is available in Andersen Library’s 3rd-floor Main Collection (DS706 .F3 2009), or UWW students and staff may request it from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested materials arrive in 2-4 weekdays.
Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.
Charles Wheelan will speak about “Naked Trends: What Can Basic Economics Tell Us About The Future” on Mon., Feb. 15 @7pm in the Young Auditorium. This talk is part of the 2009/2010 Contemporary Issues Lecture Series sponsored by the College of Letters and Sciences.
Charles Wheelan is a faculty member at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and a former Midwest correspondent for The Economist. He writes Yahoo! Finance’s “Naked Economics” column, and he also has written for various publications such as the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.
His 2003 book, Naked economics: Undressing the dismal science, attempts to make economics more accessible for nonexperts. UWW students and staff may borrow it from other UW libraries via the free Universal Borrowing service. The article “Of pies and men” (Across the Board, Jan/Feb 2004, vol. 41:no.1, pp. 7-8) provides a brief excerpt from the book.
Chris Abani will speak on “Inspirations for Song for Night and Other Writings” as part of the Contemporary Issues Lecture Series/Campus & Community Reading Initiative @7pm on Mon., Nov. 30, in the Irvin L. Young Auditorium.
Chris Abani has gone from being a teenager imprisoned by the Nigerian government for his writings to being professor of creative writing at the University of California-Riverside. Honors he has received include the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, Prince Claus Award (2001), Lannan Literary Fellowship (2003), California Book Award silver medal for fiction (2004), a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, PEN Beyond the Margins Award (2008), and the PEN Hemingway Book Prize. He is a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction. Three of his books, The Virgin of Flames, Becoming Abigail, and Song for Night, were New York Times Editor’s Choices.
Best African American fiction 2009 (Andersen Library’s 3rd-floor Main Collection, PS647.A35 B47 2009) contains “Albino crow” by Abani. UWW students and staff may borrow other titles by Chris Abani from other UW campus libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested items arrive in 2-4 weekdays.
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).
Andersen Library has materials on Palestine. Search the HalCat library catalog to find titles such as 