From health rights in Los Angeles and urban planning in Milwaukee, to a Midwestern “Dear Abby,” the five books that will be featured at UW-Milwaukee’s Urban Studies Author Reception on Friday, Jan. 30 span topics as diverse as race, design and cutting-edge social change. Eight local authors will highlight the reception beginning at 4 p.m. at Boswell Book Co.
Margo Anderson, Amanda I. Seligman and Ann M. Graff, all three professors at UWM, are the authors of Bibliography of Metropolitan Milwaukee, a wide-ranging narrative of the local five-county area, covering subjects as vast as gender, the environment, media, architecture and the arts. Dear Mrs. Griggs: Women Readers Pour Out Their Hearts from the Heartland, which recounts decades of women’s lives throughout the mid-20th century, is a fascinating history of an oft-ignored population of Midwestern American women, as told by Genevieve G. McBride and Stephen R. Byers. Jenna Lloyd’s activism surrounding health rights as civil rights forms the central argument in her exploration of a raging social justice issue that flared up in 1960s and 1970s L.A. Health Rights are Civil Rights exposes the inequities of American culture through the lens of our supposedly democratic health care system.
Continuing with a focus on urban social issues, Joseph A. Rodriquez shares an eye-opening description of urban design and revitalization with an emphasis on 1990s Milwaukee in his new book Bootstrap New Urbanism. Finally, Arijit Sen’s ethnography Making Place: Space and Embodiment in the City provides case studies from across the globe that tell unique tales of how people engage with their material and social worlds. All authors share a sharp insight into the modern-day urban environment and have provided innovative chronicles that shed light on extremely critical social issues.
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Book Happening:
21st Annual Poetry Marathon and Benefit Reading
10 a.m., Jan. 31 until 1 a.m., Feb. 1
Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 E. Locust St.
Woodland Pattern celebrates another year with this annual event. This daylong joie de vivre is scheduled to feature hundreds of poets and other performing artists, who will indulge in the arts beginning at 10 a.m. More information about this event and other upcoming live readings and performances can be found online at woodlandpattern.org.
