a conversation with author Christian Warren and Professor Kathleen Axen
Wednesday, March 5, 2025; 6:00 PM to 7:15 PM
Online, Zoom pre-registration required.
Zoom link: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/-vNSKl5KSfWDWKEL-QzIXQ
This event celebrates the publication BC History Professor Christian Warren’s Starved for Light. He is joined in a conversation on history and public health by BC Health and Nutrition Sciences Professor Kathleen Axen. Tracing the efforts to understand, prevent, and treat rickets—first with the traditional remedy of cod liver oil, then with the application of a breakthrough corrective, industrially produced vitamin D supplements—Warren ‘s book places the disease at the center of a riveting medical history, one alert to the ways society shapes our views on illness. Warren shows how physicians and public health advocates in the United States turned their attention to rickets among urban immigrants, both African Americans and southern Europeans; some concluded that the disease was linked to race, while others blamed poverty, sunless buildings and cities, or cultural preferences in diet and clothing. Sweeping and engaging, Starved for Light illuminates the social conditions underpinning our cures and our choices, helping us to see history’s echoes in contemporary prescriptions.
Starved for Light : The Long Shadow of Rickets and Vitamin d Deficiency by
A wide-ranging history of rickets tracks the disease’s emergence, evolution, and eventual treatment—and exposes the backstory behind contemporary worries about vitamin D deficiency. Rickets, a childhood disorder that causes soft and misshapen bones, transformed from an ancient but infrequent threat to a common scourge during the Industrial Revolution. Factories, mills, and urban growth transformed the landscape. Malnutrition and insufficient exposure to sunlight led to severe cases of rickets across Europe and the United States, affecting children in a variety of settings: dim British cities and American slave labor camps, moneyed households and impoverished ones. By the late 1800s, it was one of the most common pediatric diseases, seemingly an intractable consequence of modern life. Starved for Light offers the first comprehensive history of this disorder. Tracing the efforts to understand, prevent, and treat rickets—first with the traditional remedy of cod liver oil, then with the application of a breakthrough corrective, industrially produced vitamin D supplements—Christian Warren places the disease at the center of a riveting medical history, one alert to the ways society shapes our views on illness. Warren shows how physicians and public health advocates in the United States turned their attention to rickets among urban immigrants, both African Americans and southern Europeans; some concluded that the disease was linked to race, while others blamed poverty, sunless buildings and cities, or cultural preferences in diet and clothing. Spotlighting rickets’ role in a series of medical developments, Warren leads readers through the encroachment on midwifery by male obstetricians, the development of pediatric orthopedic devices and surgeries, early twentieth-century research into vitamin D, appalling clinical experiments on young children testing its potential, and the eventual commercialization of all manner of vitamin D supplements. As vitamin D consumption rose in the mid-twentieth century, rickets—previously a major concern for doctors, parents, and public health institutions—faded in its severity and frequency, and as a topic of discussion. But despite the availability of drugstore supplements and fortified milk, small numbers of cases still appear today, and concerns and controversies about vitamin D deficiency in general continue to grow. Sweeping and engaging, Starved for Light illuminates the social conditions underpinning our cures and our choices, helping us to see history’s echoes in contemporary prescriptions.
a conversation with author Carla España, teachers, and students
Thursday, March 13, 2025; 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM
Tanger Auditorium, BC Library
This event features Brooklyn College students in Education and Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies, along with BC graduates in the K-12 classroom, in conversation with Brooklyn College Professor Carla España. In times when ethnic studies and literature by marginalized voices face censorship and removal from curricula, the experiences of people from the global majority must be amplified and integrated into all learning spaces. Dr. España will present her recent book, Narrative Writing With Latinx Teens: Testimonios, Texts, and Teaching, and lead a conversation on schooling, curriculum, ethnic studies, and teacher preparation.
Narrative Writing with Latinx Teens : Testimonios, Texts, and Teaching. by
In Narrative Writing with Latinx Teens, Dr. Carla España introduces the Writing for Desahogo Teaching framework, a foundation for twenty writing lessons that immerse students in texts on topics that include (im)migration, mental health, language, resilience, and community to facilitate their discussions and writing.
In Until We’re Seen, the heroes write their own stories. 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, even as the United States has declared the pandemic over and looks away from its impacts.
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 they 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. Together, the accounts in this book show that the COVID-19 pandemic did discriminate, following the race and class fissures endemic to US society. But if these are tales of hardship, they are also love stories―of students’ families, biological and chosen―and of the deep resolve, mundane carework, and herculean efforts such love entails.
Recounting 2020–2022 through the experiences of predominantly young, working-class immigrants and people of color living in the first two major US COVID-19 epicenters, Until We’re Seen spotlights previously untold stories of the pandemic in New York, Los Angeles, and the nation as a whole.
a conversation with author Serene Khader joined by students Cindy Lin and Eugene Zeus
Tuesday, March 18, 2025; 6:00 PM to 7:15 PM
Online, Zoom pre-registration required: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/mHGt67v_TtWx5gwmJ_ZTkw
What is white feminism and what is the alternative? Join us for a discussion between Philosophy Professor Serene Khader and Brooklyn College students Eugene Zeus and Cindy Lin on Khader’s recent book Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop (Beacon 2024).
Faux Feminism : Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop by
For readers of Hood Feminism and Against White Feminism An incisive examination of why the pillars of feminism have eroded-and how all women, not just the #girlbosses, can rebuild them After over 175 years, the feminist movement, now in its fourth wave, is at risk of collapsing on its eroding foundation. In Faux Feminism, political philosopher Serene Khader advocates for another feminism-one that doesn't overwhelmingly serve white, affluent #girlbosses. With empathy, passion, and wit, Khader invites the reader to join her as she excavates the movement's history and draws a blueprint for a more inclusive and resilient future. A feminist myth buster, Khader begins by deconstructing "faux feminisms." Thought to be the pillars of good feminism, they may appeal to many but, in truth, leave most women behind. Khader identifies these traps that white feminism lays for us all, asking readers to think critically about -The Freedom Myth- The overarching misconception that feminism is about personal freedom rather than collective equality -The Individualism Myth- The pervasive idea that feminism aims to free individual women from social expectations -The Culture Myth- The harmful misconception that "other" cultures restrict women's liberation -The Restriction Myth- The flawed belief that feminism is a fight against social restrictions -The Judgment Myth- The fallacy of celebrating women's choices without first interrogating the privileges afforded or denied to the women In later chapters, Khader draws on global and intersectional feminist lessons of the past and present to imagine feminism's future. She pays particular attention to women of color, especially those in the Global South. Khader recounts their cultural and political stories of building a more inclusive framework in their societies. These are the women, she argues, from whom today's feminists can learn. Khader's critical inquiry begets a new vision of feminism- one that tackles inequality at the societal, not individual, level and is ultimately rooted in community.
with Professors Meghan Ference and Tatiana Thieme
Thursday, March 20, 2025; 6:00 PM to 7:15 PM
Online: Zoom pre-registration required. Zoom link: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/JehLkYCoTxWjI1-CmoQC4Q
This event is a celebration of BC Anthropology Professor Meghan Ference’s recent book Matatu Work: Gender, Labor and Mobility in Nairobi. The event will center a conversation about the changing nature of informal work and the impacts on workers in Kenya between two urban ethnographers who have worked in Kenya for the past two decades and have recently published monographs on work and the hustle economy in Nairobi. They will discuss shifting regimes of labor regarding gender, the role of technology in transforming work and the nature of the hustle economy in Africa and around the world. Meghan Ference is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and Tatiana Thieme is an Associate Professor of Human Geography at University College London. Ference’s Matatu Work was recently published with James Currey Press and Thieme's book Hustle Urbanism: Making Life Work in Nairobi is forthcoming from Minnesota University Press.
Matatu Work : Gender, Labor, and Mobility in Nairobi by
Focuses on the lives and labour of the men and women who work in Nairobi's publicly operated, privately owned minibus taxis, matatu. How can mass transit systems be designed in ways that respond to the needs of urban citizens in the midst of an impending climate crisis? What strategies can transport workers employ as they adapt to shifts in the global economy? This book focuses on the lives and labour of the men - and, importantly, women - who work in Nairobi's publicly operated, privately owned minibus taxis, matatu, to examine questions about access to urban public space, gendered regimes of work, and neoliberalism that lie at the heart of debates on the future of African cities. Providing an in-depth view of workers' routines and the unwritten rules that govern informal transport sectors, this book is an ethnography of Nairobi's popular transportation workforce, with a focus on strategies that circulate both economic (cash, vehicle investments) and symbolic capital (new linguistic codes, music, and elements of style) in ways that keep the city moving. In the face of a rapidly changing urban and global landscapes Matatu Work considers the ways in which urban transport has provided expression of marginalized perspectives as well as decolonial struggles. Shedding new light on transportation practices and urban growth, the book invites the reader to take another look at the ways in which public transportation is not just an urban solution to practical problems of space and movement, but also how it is a place of sociability, performance, protest, and consumption and central to the making of sustainable cities.
a conversation with author Jeanne Theoharis and researchers David Rondeau, Tyra Smart, and Gabrielle White
Tuesday, April 22, 2025; 12:30 to 2:00 PM
Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library
The Martin Luther King Jr. of popular memory vanquished Jim Crow in the South. But in this myth-shattering book, Jeanne Theoharis argues that King’s time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice. King of the North follows the Kings as they come of age in school in the North and as he crisscrosses the country from the Northeast to the West Coast, challenging school segregation, police brutality, housing segregation, and job discrimination. For these efforts, he was relentlessly attacked by white liberals, the federal government and the national media. Join us on for a conversation on King of the North, particularly focused on how the nation's flagship print media covered King's work outside the South with Jeanne Theoharis and three of her research assistants for the book, Brooklyn College graduates David Rondeau, Tyra Smart and Gabrielle White who helped her document this media story.
Title King of the North: Martin Luther King's Freedom Struggle Outside of the South by
From the New York Times bestselling author, a radical reframing of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. "Theoharis shows us through penetrating research and sensitive, scholarly insight that Dr. King not only was keenly aware of the history of antiblack racism in the North, but battled it from the very beginning of his career." --Henry Louis Gates Jr.
a conversation with author Katie Rose Hejtmanek and Professor Lauren Mancia
Monday, April 21, 2025; 6:00 to 7:15 PM
Online: Zoom pre-registration required. Zoom link: https://brooklyn-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/2Bcns6zTT7OBos05CMZNmw
This event celebrates the publication of Anthropology Professor Katie Rose Hejtmanek ‘s The Cult of CrossFit. She will be joined in conversation Lauren Mancia, Professor of History at Brooklyn College and Professor of Medieval Studies at The Graduate Center. We all have that one friend who's a little too into CrossFit. They talk about it all the time, and the way they describe it, you'd think they were describing a cult. Hejtmanek research spans the US and six other continents to understand what makes certain people feel so devoted to CrossFit. Despite presenting itself as a secular space, Hejtmanek argues that CrossFit is deeply intertwined with American Christian values. She makes the case that the Christianity that shapes CrossFit is the same kind of Christianity that shapes much of America, usually in ways we do not even notice.
The Cult of CrossFit by
Reveals the Christian foundations of CrossFit CrossFit in the United States has become increasingly popular, around which a fascinating culture has developed which shapes everyday life for the people devoted to it. CrossFit claims to be many things: a business, a brand, a tremendously difficult fitness regimen, a community, a way to gain salvation, and a method to survive the apocalypse. In The Cult of CrossFit, Katie Rose Hejtmanek examines how this exercise program is shaped by American Christian values and practices, connecting American religious ideologies to secular institutions in contemporary American culture. Drawing upon years of immersing herself in CrossFit gyms in the United States and across six continents, this book illustrates how US CrossFit operates using distinctly American codes, ranging from its intensity and patriarchal militarism to its emphasis on (white) salvation and the adoration of the hero and vigilante. Despite presenting itself as a secular space, Hejtmanek argues that CrossFit is both heavily influenced by and deeply intertwined with American Christian values. She makes the case that the Christianity that shapes CrossFit is the Christianity that shapes much of America, usually in ways we do not even notice. Offering a new cross-cultural perspective for understanding a popular workout, The Cult of CrossFit provides a window into a particularly American rendition of a Christian plotline, lived out one workout at a time.
a conversation between author Yoon Joo Lee and Professor David J. Connor
Wednesday, April 30, 2025; 2:15 to 3:30 PM
Woody Tanger Auditorium, Brooklyn College Library
This event celebrates the publication of Stories on Disability Through Our Voices: Born This Way (Routledge, 2025), the first solo book by Yoon Joo Lee, Associate Professor of Childhood, Bilingual, and Special Education at BC. Lee will be joined by colleague David J. Connor Professor Emeritus at Hunter College. The book explores the lived experiences of Korean and Korean American women with visible disabilities in South Korea and the U.S. Drawing upon the work of scholars in disability studies in education and feminist disability studies, it challenges readers to (re)consider their own misconceptions and assumptions about disability and reconceptualize their understanding of diversity. Lee’s work is distinguished by her ability to connect personally with the women she interviews, sharing unique yet overlapping experiences as a woman with visible disabilities. Part of the Routledge Book Series Autocritical Disability Studies, the book uses autoethnography to center the researcher’s personal experiences throughout the process. Lee and Connor will engage in a conversation around values of foregrounding voices of individuals with disabilities in various forms of research.
