Brooklyn College is pleased to announce that its Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities New Books by BC Faculty Series is back with several educational and entertaining events designed to showcase the expertise of faculty authors. Events for fall 2024 are as follows: Revolutions and Generations: A Conversation With Nathan Perl-Rosenthal and David G. Troyansky Sept. 16, 2:15–3:30 p.m. Online; pre-registration required. USC Professor Nathan Perl-Rosenthal’s The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It examines two generations of revolutionaries in late-18th– and early-19th-century Europe and the Americas, while Brooklyn College Professor of History David G. Troyansky’s Entitlement and Complaint: Ending Careers and Reviewing Lives in Post-Revolutionary France explores careers and memories across the first half of the 19th century. These authors ask: What did it mean to be a revolutionary? How did individuals make revolutions, survive revolutions, and build identities in the shadow of revolution? And how did revolutionary pasts feed into the creation of institutions associated with the modern political world? Gender and Development in Nigeria: Concepts, Issues and Strategies—An Interdisciplinary Discussion on Gender Discourses and Policy Approaches in Nigeria Oct. 23, 6–7:15 p.m. Online; pre-registration required. The event celebrates the publication of Gender and Development in Nigeria: Concepts, Issues, and Strategies, edited by Professors Oluwafunmilayo Josephine Para-Mallam, mni. Director of Studies, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Nigeria, and Brooklyn College Professor of Political Science Mojúbàolú Olúfúnké Okome. The book asks: What conceptual and theoretical frames of analysis explain gender identity, status, roles and relationships across Nigeria’s richly diverse and culturally complex ethnic nationalities? What are the implications of such diversity and complexity for gender and development thinking, planning and policy? For academic as well as policy-related reasons, gender and development issues and analyses must reflect the socio-cultural, political and economic dimensions of the Nigerian State from the perspective of those who live Nigerian realities. The speakers will be Para-Mallam, Okome, and Clement J. Dakas, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Principal Partner, CJ Dakas SAN & Co. Until We’re Seen: Public College Students Expose the Hidden Inequalities of the COVID-19 Pandemic Oct. 24,12:30–2 p.m. Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library This event centers the voices of Brooklyn College student-authors who contributed to the recent book Until We’re Seen: Public College Students Expose the Hidden Inequalities of the COVID-19 Pandemic, co-edited by Professor of English Joseph Entin and Distinguished Professor of Political ScienceJeanne Theoharis. Through firsthand accounts by college students at Brooklyn College and California State University Los Angeles, Until We’re Seen chronicles COVID-19’s devastating, disproportionate effects on working-class communities of color. Very few of these students and their families had the luxury of laboring from home; if they were able to keep their jobs, they took subways and buses and worked. They drove delivery trucks, worked in private homes, cooked food in restaurants for people to pick up, worked as EMTs, and did construction. They couldn’t escape to second homes; if anything, more people moved in, as families were forced to consolidate to save money. The accounts in this book show that the COVID-19 pandemic did discriminate, following the race and class fissures endemic to U.S. society. Recounting 2020–22 through the experiences of predominantly young, working-class immigrants and people of color living in the first two major U.S. COVID-19 epicenters, Until We’re Seen spotlights untold stories of the pandemic in New York, Los Angeles, and the nation. Love Can’t Feed You: A Conversation With Author Cherry Lou Sy and English Professor Helen Phillips Oct. 30, 6–7:15 p.m. Online; pre-registration required. Celebrate the publication of Cherry Lou Sy’s debut novel, Love Can’t Feed You. Sy will be joined in conversation by novelist and Brooklyn College English Professor Helen Phillips. The book is a stunning coming-of-age story that finds Queenie, a young woman attempting to assimilate after immigrating to the United States, adrift between familial expectations and her burning desires. As the pressures of assimilation compound, and the fissures within her family deepen into fractures, Queenie feels caught in the middle of everything. Full of rich prose and the pulsing, sensual curiosity of young adulthood, Love Can’t Feed You is perfect for fans of contemporary coming-of-age novels and novels about the immigrant experience. Exploring shifting notions of home and the disintegration of the American dream, the novel asks readers: What does it mean to be of multiple cultures without a road map for how to belong? Cognition and Language: How Are Our Memory, Attention, and Inhibition Functions Related to Our Language Skills? Nov. 14, 6–7:15 p.m. Online; pre-registration required. The panel discussion centers around Klara Marton’s recent book, Cognitive Control Along the Language Continuum. The discussion will center on some of the most relevant and controversial questions in cognitive science about the relationship between cognition and language. In addition to current findings, experts will discuss educational and clinical implications with an emphasis on individual differences. The panel features Klara Marton, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders at Brooklyn College, and director of the Cognition and Language Laboratory at the CUNY Graduate Center; and Baila Epstein, associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders, and director of the Child Language and Cognition Laboratory at Brooklyn College. They will be joined by Caroline Larson, assistant professor in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and director of the Larson Language and Cognition Lab at the University of Missouri; and Luca Campanelli, assistant professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders, and director of the Psycholinguistics Laboratory at the University of Alabama, and affiliated scientist at Yale University. Affective Masculinities: From Colonial Fathers to Bachelor Banisters in India and England (19th and 20th Centuries) Nov. 19, 2:15–3:30 p.m. Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library Celebrate History Professor Swapna M. Banerjee’s latest book, Fathers in the Motherland: Imagining Fatherhood in Colonial India. Banerjee will be joined by Emory University History Professor Gyanendra Pandey and NYU History Professor Ren Pepitone. The book contends that during a period of social and political change in late 19th- and early 20th-century colonial India, fathers extended their roles beyond breadwinning to take an active part in rearing their children. Exploring specific moments when educated men—as biological fathers, literary activists, and educators—assumed guardianship and became crucial agents of change, Banerjee interrogates the connections between fatherhood and masculinity. The last chapter of the book draws on the lives of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to provide a broader salience to its argument. Reclaiming two missing links in Indian history, the book argues that biological and imaginary “fathers” assumed the moral guardianship of an incipient nation and rested their hopes and dreams on the future generation. Fiction, Technology, and Climate Change: Helen Phillips Discusses Her Novel Hum With Sociologist Ken Gould Nov. 19, 3:40–5 p.m. 411 Brooklyn College Library Professor of English Helen Phillips discusses her new novel, Hum (Marysue Rucci Books/Simon & Schuster, 2024), with Ken Gould, Professor of Sociology and Urban Sustainability. Early in the research process for Hum, Phillips interviewed Gould about climate change and capitalism. In this conversation, they will reflect on that interview and discuss how creative works can intersect with sociological inquiry related to science and technology, with a particular focus on climate change and artificial intelligence. More information on the book is available here. https://www.brooklyn.edu/bc-brief/helen-phillips-publishes-novel-hum/ Liberty Road: Professors Greg Smithsimon and Prudence Cumberbatch Discuss the Black Middle Class Nov. 20, 2:15–3:30 p.m. Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library To celebrate the publication of his recent book, Liberty Road: Black Middle-Class Suburbs and the Battle Between Civil Rights and Neoliberalism, Sociology Professor Gregory Smithsimon is joined in conversation by Africana Studies Associate Professor Prudence Cumberbatch. In Liberty Road, Smithsimon focuses on a Black middle-class suburb of Baltimore to tell the story of how residents broke the color barrier, against all odds, in the face of racial discrimination, tensions with suburban Whites and urban Blacks, and economic crises like the mortgage meltdown of 2008. Drawing on interviews, census data, and archival research, he shows us the unique strategies that suburban Black residents employed, creating a blueprint for other Black middle-class suburbs. Smithsimon re-orients our perspective on race relations in American life to consider the lived experiences and lessons of those who broke the color barrier in unexpected places.
