2008 Mayor's Book Club - Keep Austin Reading

Calendar of Events

Following the success of last year’s Mayor’s Book Club selection, Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana, by Stephanie Griest, the Institute and its partners have once again organized an array of April events pertaining to the selected book and the themes and social issues it addresses. These events (see calendar below for details) include a free screening of child soldier documentaries Cry Freetown and What’s Going On at the Alamo Drafthouse, public book discussions at branch libraries led by distinguished UT faculty, and an interview and audience Q & A with author Ishmael Beah in the City Hall atrium.

As they have each year, University of Texas at Austin faculty have generously volunteered to participate in the Mayor’s Book Club public forums and share their intellectual interests and commitments with readers throughout the greater Austin community. Historian Toyin Falola, literary scholar Barbara Harlow, and anthropologist Jemima Pierre will bring their expertise in West African history, literature, and diasporic cultures to the book discussions at the Yarbrough, Carver, and Manchaca branch libraries. The panel respondents to the documentary film screening at the Alamo will include Professor of Government Catherine Boone, a scholar of territorial politics and rural property rights in contemporary Africa and the president of the West Africa Research Association, and Public Affairs Professor Alan Kuperman, an expert in ethnic conflict and military intervention and the author of The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda. The culminating interview with Ishmael Beah at the Austin City Hall on April 25 will be conducted by philosopher and Dean of Undergraduate Studies Paul Woodruff. An ethicist and a scholar of warfare, Dean Woodruff calls A Long Way Gone “an important book” and listed it last summer among his recommended titles for entering UT freshmen to read and talk about.

Visit the Austin Public Library Website for a complete schedule of events or download an event schedule poster (PDF, 3.9 MB) by Patrick Hughey, Austin Public Library.

For further information or questions, please contact the Institute at (512) 471-2654 or community@humanitiesinstitute.utexas.edu.