author presentation

Thursday, September 8th, 2011, 6:30 p.m. Wendy Call visited the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—the lush sliver of land connecting the Yucatan Peninsula to the rest of Mexico—for the first time in 1997. She found herself in the midst of a storied land, a place Mexicans call their country's “little waist,” a place long known for its strong women, spirited marketplaces, and deep sense of independence. She also landed in the middle of a ferocious battle over plans to industrialize the region, where most people still fish, farm, and work in the forests. In the decade that followed her first visit, Call witnessed farmland being paved for new highways, oil spilling into rivers, and forests burning down. Through it all, local people fought to protect their lands and their livelihoods—and their very lives.

Monday, October 17, 2011, 7:00 p.m. The historians of the late 1960s have emphasized the work of a small group of white college activists and the Black Panthers, activists who courageously took to the streets to protest the war in Vietnam and continuing racial inequality. Poor and working-class whites have tended to be painted as spectators, reactionaries, and, even, racists. Most Americans, the story goes, just watched the political movements of the sixties go by.

James Tracy and Amy Sonnie, who have been interviewing activists from the 1960s for nearly ten years, reject this old narrative. In five tightly conceived chapters, they show that poor and working-class whites, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party, started to organize significant political movements against racism and inequality during the 1960s.

Thursday, July 7th, 2011, 7:00 p.m.  As millions of people across the Middle East and North Africa fight for freedom against tyrannical regimes, US warplanes bomb Libya with the stated aim of protecting civilians. But what are the real aims of our government's intervention? How do they relate to its wars and other policies in the Middle East? And what can those of us inspired by the democratic uprisings do to help?

On May 13, 2011, Dan Rasmussen visited with the e5 community and spoke to his recent book: American Uprising. We will soon upload a second video featuring the lively conversation between Dan, Marilyn Frankenstein, Dorotea Manuela and our audience. Video by Charngchi Way.

Friday, May 13, 2011, 7:00 p.m. Join author Dan Rasmussen for a discussion of the largest American slave uprisng and its suppressed history. Speaking to his book, American Uprising, Dan will tell a story that reveals the strategic and intellectual creativity of a multinational slave population in rebellion.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010, NEW TIME - 6:30 p.m. Author and activist Steve Fake brings the story of Darfur and the global competition for African resources to encuentro 5. Here's how Tolu Jegede describes the book, The Scramble for Africa: Darfur-Intervention and the USA: "Fake and Funk’s take on the Darfur crisis is a welcome change from the media’s narrow analysis. Instead of focusing primarily on human-interest stories, Fake and Funk place the crisis in a larger context, showing readers a complicated intersection of politics and history. Armed with sources, they provide examples showing Washington’s apathy toward the crisis." For more information and to order the book, visit ScrambleForAfrica.org. 

New Event Date to be Announced Soon Thursday, December 9, 2010, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Join organizer and writer Grace Ross for a conversation about her recently released book, Main St. $marts. Here's bold and democratic declaration that informs the book:

We the regular people who make up Main St. are absolutely smart enough to understand what’s going on.

In addition, we are smart enough to carry out our birthright: to be the deciders, to be the government by and for us.

Friday, September 10, 2010, 7:00 p.m. The Community and Resistance Tour seeks to communicate about current struggles for justice and liberation, from the current BP Oil Drilling Disaster devastating the Gulf Coast to nooses hung in the northern Louisiana town of Jena. From women organizing inside prisons to cultural resistance. The tour also seeks to connect communities of liberation, and to build relationships between grassroots activists and independent media. This tour is for anyone interested in issues of health care, education, criminal justice, housing, or the ways in which systems of racism, patriarchy and other forms of oppression intersect with these struggles.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 6:30 p.m. Radical author and historian  Paul Street speaks about his new book: The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power. Paul is an independent radical-democratic policy researcher, journalist, historian, and speaker based in Iowa City, Iowa, and Chicago. He is the author of four books to date: Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2004); Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York: Routledge, 2005); Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); and (most recently) Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics.

Saturday, August 21, 2010, 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Join the eminent scientist and activist Richard Levins for a thought-provoking conversation on "Failures, Errors & the Boundaries of Our Minds"

Celebrating the 35th anniversary of the New York's Brecht Forum, Richard Levins will speak to how the dialectical method allows us to understand and learn from our inevitable failures, errors and misunderstandings of both nature and society.

A Story of Mexico City

Thursday, April 29, 2010, 7:00 p.m. Join renowned journalist John Ross for an evening connecting the people of Latin America and the United States... Nor ordinary scribe, Ross’ writing and presentations blend beat generation poetry with magical realist prose all while rooted in concrete social struggles and real politics... Ross leaves his audiences inspired to action and craving social change...

Thursday, January 28, 2010, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. While Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez continues to capture headlines, a much larger story involving a wider cast of characters has gone largely ignored. Venezuela Speaks!, published by PM Press, is a collection of interviews with activists and participants from across Venezuela’s social movements. From community media to land reform, cooperatives to communal councils, from the labor movement to the Afro-Venezuelan network, Venezuela Speaks! sheds light on the complex realities within the Bolivarian Revolution.