Salon Series
Wed. September 26
2:00-4:00pm, The Conaway
Critical Encounters Salon: Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard. Featuring author, Mawi Asgedom. When he was four years old, Asgedom's family left their war-ravaged home in Ethiopia. They spent three years in a Sudanese refugee camp before coming to the U.S. in 1983, where they were settled by World Relief in a wealthy white suburb near Chicago. He later earned a full scholarship to Harvard, where in 1999 he delivered the commencement address. His simple lyrical narrative, both wry and tender, stays true to the child's viewpoint as he grows up, taunted at school, but pretty bad and rough himself. His coming-of-age story is both darkened and enriched by the stories he hears about his parents' lives back home and by the pieces he remembers. At the center of the book is his father, a fierce family disciplinarian, once an all-powerful medical assistant at home, now reduced to a "beetle," unemployed, half-blind, raging at his dependency. Only at the very end, when Asgedom spells out the metaphor of the title, does the message overwhelm the story. What stays with you is the quiet, honest drama of a family's heartrending journey.
Facilitator: Stephanie Shonekan
Participants include: Students of “Introduction to Black World Studies” (Humanities class)
Featuring: Mawi Asgedom, author
Wed. Oct 10
6:30-8:00pm, Library, Third Floor 624 S. Michigan
Critical Encounters Salon: White Privilege: Essential Readings on the other side of Racism by Paula Rothenberg
(Nicole Garneau, Tim King Dr. Bonnie Harrison)
This anthology of 16 essays and articles seeks to make whiteness visible, to analyze the nature of white privilege, and to offer suggestions for using that privilege to combat racism. An interdisciplinary collection intended to be used in a number of different courses, it covers the power of invisibility, the power of the past, the power of privilege, and the power of resistance. Each section ends with questions for thinking, writing, and discussion. No date is cited for the first edition.
Facilitators: Nicole Garneau and Tim King, Public Action for Change Today (PACT) and Dr Bonnie Harrison, a New Orleans/Katrina evacuee; professor of sociology at Kennedy King College
Participants include: students of “Making and Unmaking Whiteness” (Cultural Studies class)
Thurs. Nov 29
12:30-1:50pm Library, 3rd floor, 624 S. Michigan
Critical Encounters Salon: Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus
Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business. … In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh.
Facilitators: Rob Watkins and Douglas Mann, President, Global Business Assist the
Participants include: Students of “Politics of Poverty in Developing Countries” (Social Science class)
2:00-4:00pm, The Conaway
Critical Encounters Salon: Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard. Featuring author, Mawi Asgedom. When he was four years old, Asgedom's family left their war-ravaged home in Ethiopia. They spent three years in a Sudanese refugee camp before coming to the U.S. in 1983, where they were settled by World Relief in a wealthy white suburb near Chicago. He later earned a full scholarship to Harvard, where in 1999 he delivered the commencement address. His simple lyrical narrative, both wry and tender, stays true to the child's viewpoint as he grows up, taunted at school, but pretty bad and rough himself. His coming-of-age story is both darkened and enriched by the stories he hears about his parents' lives back home and by the pieces he remembers. At the center of the book is his father, a fierce family disciplinarian, once an all-powerful medical assistant at home, now reduced to a "beetle," unemployed, half-blind, raging at his dependency. Only at the very end, when Asgedom spells out the metaphor of the title, does the message overwhelm the story. What stays with you is the quiet, honest drama of a family's heartrending journey.
Facilitator: Stephanie Shonekan
Participants include: Students of “Introduction to Black World Studies” (Humanities class)
Featuring: Mawi Asgedom, author
Wed. Oct 10
6:30-8:00pm, Library, Third Floor 624 S. Michigan
Critical Encounters Salon: White Privilege: Essential Readings on the other side of Racism by Paula Rothenberg
(Nicole Garneau, Tim King Dr. Bonnie Harrison)
This anthology of 16 essays and articles seeks to make whiteness visible, to analyze the nature of white privilege, and to offer suggestions for using that privilege to combat racism. An interdisciplinary collection intended to be used in a number of different courses, it covers the power of invisibility, the power of the past, the power of privilege, and the power of resistance. Each section ends with questions for thinking, writing, and discussion. No date is cited for the first edition.
Facilitators: Nicole Garneau and Tim King, Public Action for Change Today (PACT) and Dr Bonnie Harrison, a New Orleans/Katrina evacuee; professor of sociology at Kennedy King College
Participants include: students of “Making and Unmaking Whiteness” (Cultural Studies class)
Thurs. Nov 29
12:30-1:50pm Library, 3rd floor, 624 S. Michigan
Critical Encounters Salon: Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus
Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business. … In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh.
Facilitators: Rob Watkins and Douglas Mann, President, Global Business Assist the
Participants include: Students of “Politics of Poverty in Developing Countries” (Social Science class)