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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261022T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261022T193000
DTSTAMP:20260927T140502Z
CREATED:20260927T140502Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260927T140502Z
UID:3427-1792692000-1792697400@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:California’s Diverse Food and Farming Movements
DESCRIPTION:How we grow\, harvest\, distribute\, and consume food is bound up with how we use (and abuse) environmental resources\, and how we achieve (or undermine) collective well-being. In North Stars of Emancipation\, Antonio Roman-Alcalá finds in the radical experiments of new food movements the seeds of a world liberated from old\, extractive systems\, where a more equitable way of eating and living is possible. \nThe book traces the transformation of California’s diverse food movements as Black\, Indigenous\, Latinx\, and other people of color have come to play a larger organizational role\, especially at a time of toxic national politics. A new vision now guides these movements\, rooted in the radical traditions of anarchism\, Black radicalism\, and Indigenous resurgence\, yet focused on pragmatic solutions to the problems of market and state. In pursuing a North Star political ideal that rejects capitalism\, colonialism\, and state violence while prioritizing survival\, California’s food movements have achieved greater collaboration among sectors\, workers\, and consumers\, pointing toward a promising future. \nNorth Stars of Emancipation takes the rare step of analyzing movements as interconnected wholes. From their collective success\, we learn how to move past an untenable present. \nAn in-person and virtual conversation with Antonio Roman-Alcalá\, author\, educator\, researcher\, organizer\, and Assistant Professor\, Cal State University\, East Bay in conversation with Sara Calvosa Olson\, editor\, writer\, and community development specialist \n** Co-presented & co-hosted by Litquake \nTo register to attend the online event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/californias-diverse-food-and-farming-movements/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261019T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261019T193000
DTSTAMP:20260927T140119Z
CREATED:20260927T140119Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260927T140119Z
UID:3425-1792432800-1792438200@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Behind the Scenes with Transit Books: A California Publisher with Global Reach
DESCRIPTION:What does it take to bring a remarkable book into the world? Join the co-publishers of Transit Books for a behind-the-scenes conversation about the role of award-winning\, nonprofit publishing—from discovering singular voices and acquiring international literature to editing\, designing\, translating\, producing\, and championing books that find devoted readers around the world. \nFounded in 2015 in the San Francisco Bay Area\, Transit Books is an internationally focused publishing house that has achieved unusual reach over the last decade: most notably publishing a Nobel Prize–winning author (Jon Fosse) and turning a niche translated novel (I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman) into a half-million–copy hit. This year its founders and copublishers\, Adam Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy\, were recognized by The Washington Post’s Next 50—a list of 50 people across all industries shaping culture right now—signaling a broader shift in global literature entering mainstream conversation and publishing innovation coming from smaller players\, not just big houses. \nIn this conversation\, the publishers will share how a small\, mission-driven press has helped shape today’s literary landscape while remaining rooted in California’s vibrant independent publishing tradition. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by Adam Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy\, co-founders and co-publishers\, Transit Books. \nTo register to attend the online event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/behind-the-scenes-with-transit-books-a-california-publisher-with-global-reach/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261005T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261005T183000
DTSTAMP:20260927T135737Z
CREATED:20260927T135706Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260927T135737Z
UID:3423-1791219600-1791225000@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Write Long and Beautiful Letters: The Vallejos’ Californio Correspondence\, 1846–1888
DESCRIPTION:The experiences of Mexicans who were living in California when it was annexed by the United States is a crucial element of the history of the American Southwest. These Californios\, as they called themselves\, made California diverse and multi-cultural from the moment it became part of the United States. \nThe Vallejos of Sonoma were one of the most prominent of these Californio families. This presentation will explore the experiences of this family\, using more than 180 letters that Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and Francisca Benicia Carrillo de Vallejo exchanged with each other and their children between 1846 and 1888. \nThis correspondence offers an intimate glimpse into the ways in which this family\, and many Californio families from a variety of social and economic backgrounds\, struggled to adapt to the political\, social\, and cultural changes that accompanied American annexation. In the face of a hostile legal system\, they struggled to maintain ownership of their property\, to raise their children in an environment they did not entirely understand\, and to help each other maintain their dignity and social authority in a world they had not chosen. \nThe Vallejos and families like them\, frequently ridiculed by the Anglos who entered California\, nonetheless refused to be defined by these newcomers. Describing the creative manner of their resistance\, these letters document a crucial aspect of the history of the Latino experience in California and in the greater American Southwest during the second half of the 19th century—with repercussions and relevance reaching into the present era. \nA virtual presentation by Rose Marie Beebe\, author\, historian\, and Professor Emerita of Spanish literature\, Santa Clara University and Robert M. Senkewicz\, author\, historian\, and Professor Emeritus of History\, Santa Clara University\, Santa Clara\, California. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/write-long-and-beautiful-letters-the-vallejos-californio-correspondence-1846-1888/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260928T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260928T193000
DTSTAMP:20260927T135256Z
CREATED:20260927T135256Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260927T135256Z
UID:3421-1790618400-1790623800@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Exhibition Opening: Visually Impressive: Exploring American Book Art Color Printing Technologies\, 1890-1990
DESCRIPTION:From 1890 to 1990\, American book art color reproduction printing went through a series of revolutionary technological changes\, not only in how books looked\, but who could afford them. Visually Impressive shows these technological changes using examples of American books that reveal the changing artistic aesthetic reflected in the evolving color printing process. \n\n\nExhibition opening with remarks by Alex Angell\, collector and curator. \nTo register to attend online\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/exhibition-opening-visually-impressive-exploring-american-book-art-color-printing-technologies-1890-1990/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260824T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260824T181500
DTSTAMP:20260630T013815Z
CREATED:20260630T013542Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T013815Z
UID:3343-1787590800-1787595300@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Out of the Gutters: How California Comix Saved Comics
DESCRIPTION:Out of the Gutters: Obscenity\, Censorship\, and Transgression\, edited by Jorge J. Santos and Patrick S. Lawrence\, explores US comics that have been challenged for their boundary-breaking content. Covering well-known underground figures like R. Crumb and Charles Burns\, newcomers such as C. Spike Trotman and Emil Ferris\, and mainstream creators including Chris Claremont and Archie Goodwin\, the collection dives into the market economics of transgression\, historical representations of graphic violence\, the ever-changing meaning of pornography\, sex-positive comics by BIPOC authors\, and queerness in pop-culture mega-properties. Comics have long been and continue to be a subject of moral panics\, but instead of targeting raw sex like Crumb’s counter-culture provocations in the last century\, censors now focus on affirmations of nonheteronormative identity even where sex isn’t prominent\, as in Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer. And while violence is a constant in comics\, stories that acknowledge nationalist violence\, such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus and the innovative Blazing Combat\, have also been blacklisted. \nCome join Professors Lawrence and Santos to discuss how comics creators resisted these censorship paradigms from their outset and how these transgressors paved the way for contemporary comics culture in both narrative and publishing terms. We will especially highlight California counterculture’s special role in saving comic books from bland irrelevance. Learn how the implementation of the Comics Code Authority and the censorship paradigm established by 1973’s Miller v California nearly vanquished the comic book industry altogether\, as well as how stalwart industry creators\, such as Archie Goodwin of Warren Publishing and the outrageously crude members of the Comix movement\, boldly resisted\, either seeking ways around the censorship apparatus or deliberately thumbing their noses at it. Come learn how San Francisco became a hot bed of anticensorship attitudes through the history of the comic book and the graphic novel while we consider what lessons we may learn from 20th century censorship to face 21st century challenges. \nA virtual presentation by Jorge J. Santos Jr.\, author\, editor\, and Associate Professor\, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US\, College of the Holy Cross\, Worchester\, Massachusetts and Patrick S. Lawrence\, author\, editor\, and Professor of English\, University of South Carolina\, Lancaster. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/out-of-the-gutters-how-california-comix-saved-comics/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260817T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260817T181500
DTSTAMP:20260630T013649Z
CREATED:20260630T013110Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T013649Z
UID:3341-1786986000-1786990500@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:California Eden: Heritage Landscapes of the Golden State
DESCRIPTION:For many people\, the concept of landscape is associated with gardens\, especially estate gardens. California Eden reaches far beyond the elite circle of private estates; this book highlights a wide range of landscapes from the professional to the vernacular and delves deep into the cultural and historical significance of these landscapes\, revealing the untold stories of the people who have inhabited and shaped them over the centuries. \nCo-editors Christine Edstrom O’Hara and Susan Chamberlin bring together these voices from the landscape architecture community to discuss and present the history of both rural and urban landscapes and how they shape (and are shaped by) nature and the people who design them. Entries highlight famous and beloved estate gardens but also more frequently overlooked landscapes such as shopping malls\, streetscapes\, sports venues\, and vernacular sites. \nCovering a range of places from a military installation on the California-Mexico border\, to the campus of Stanford University\, and the Japanese American gardens of San Diego\, California Eden speaks to design as well as the challenges of historic preservation of these-often ephemeral places. \nA virtual presentation by Susan Chamberlin\, author\, editor\, landscape historian\, and licensed landscape architect and Christine Edstrom O’Hara\, author and Professor of Landscape Architecture\, Cal Poly\, San Luis Obispo\, California \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/california-eden-heritage-landscapes-of-the-golden-state/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260810T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260810T191500
DTSTAMP:20260630T012729Z
CREATED:20260630T012657Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T012729Z
UID:3339-1786384800-1786389300@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Eugene O’Neill and Long Day’s Journey Into Night at Tao House—a California Story
DESCRIPTION:Few people realize that Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night\, which won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize\, was written in California in 1939-41. After winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936\, O’Neill and his third wife\, the actress Carlotta Monterey\, built Tao House just outside Danville\, California. Realizing that his writing career was coming to an end\, due to illness\, he needed to find a way—literally\, the tao—to write the most personal and difficult plays he had ever attempted\, also including The Iceman Cometh and A Touch of the Poet. \nTao House was inspired by Chinese principles\, which his California-born wife helped to implement in an effort to create a setting that was conducive to his writing these consummate works. It also reflects the Spanish colonial history of California. William Davies King’s new book argues that Long Day’s Journey\, O’Neill’s most deeply autobiographical play\, emerges from the tao of that house and could only have been written then and there—in that convergence of Irish\, Spanish\, and Chinese cultures and on the verge of World War II. \nKing’s book adopts an unusual form\, using the diaries of Eugene and Carlotta\, to suggest that the play might be read as a product of a marriage that was soon to go haywire but for a brief moment allowed for the creation of a work of genius\, which was\, in effect\, the genius of Tao House. Long Day’s Journey was only published and produced after O’Neill’s death\, thirteen years it was written\, but it has been performed many times worldwide by the finest actors\, and it remains the quintessential American play. Tao House has been a National Historic Site\, maintained by the National Park Service\, for fifty years. Professor King will take us into the site and into the play and into the marriage\, and he will show us many items from his extensive collection of photographs and documents of Eugene and Carlotta O’Neill. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by William Davies King\, author\, editor\, scholar\, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theater and Dance\, University of California Santa Barbara\, California. \nTo. register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/eugene-oneill-and-long-days-journey-into-night-at-tao-house-a-california-story/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260803T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260803T181500
DTSTAMP:20260630T012245Z
CREATED:20260630T012211Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T012245Z
UID:3337-1785776400-1785780900@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Troublemaker: The Fierce\, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford
DESCRIPTION:Troublemaker tells the wild and unlikely story of Jessica Mitford\, fifth of the six famous Mitford Girls\, a British aristocrat-turned-American Communist\, famous for exposés like The American Way of Death; this biography brings her astonishing self-transformation to life with a riveting\, often hilarious account of trading wealth and status for a life of radical activism. \nWho could predict that a British aristocrat would so energize American antifascist and civil rights struggles that Time magazine would crown her “Queen of the Muckrakers”? Jessica Mitford\, always known as Decca\, was brought up by an eccentric English family to marry well and reproduce her wealth and privilege\, not to advocate for the rights of others. Her beautiful sisters have been subjects of books and movies dedicated to their naughty\, glamorous lives. Decca ran away to America to forge a rebel’s life. As this richly researched book details\, Decca broke the Mitford mold. Instead of settling for life as a professional Beauty\, she fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War\, became an American Communist and pioneered witty\, hugely popular journalism\, including her 1963 blockbuster The American Way of Death. Decca dedicated her life to social justice and proved herself an immensely effective ally\, but she also injected laughter into all her political work\, annoying some activists with her relentless antics but encouraging many others to find joy in the struggle. From famed baby doctor Benjamin Spock to best friend Maya Angelou\, her anti-authoritarian irreverence had a profound impact on American culture. \nA virtual presentation by Carla Kaplan\, author\, historian\, and Associate Professor\, English Department\, Yale University\, New Haven\, Connecticut. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/troublemaker-the-fierce-unruly-life-of-jessica-mitford/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260727T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260727T181500
DTSTAMP:20260630T011808Z
CREATED:20260630T011644Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T011808Z
UID:3334-1785171600-1785176100@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Celebrating People’s History
DESCRIPTION:The Celebrate People’s History poster series has organized and curated by Josh MacPhee since 1998. The over 200 posters in the ongoing series are rooted in the do-it-yourself tradition of mass-produced and distributed political propaganda\, but detourned to embody principles of democracy\, inclusion\, and group participation in the writing and interpretation of history. Over more than 25 years\, MacPhee has worked with hundreds of artists\, designers\, authors\, students\, activists\, and organizers to find events\, groups\, and people who have moved forward the collective struggle of humanity to create a more equitable and just world\, who in turn have generated a diverse set of posters that bring to life successful moments in the history of social justice struggles. The posters tell stories from the subjective position of the creators\, and are often the stories of underdogs\, those written out of history. The goal of this project is not to tell a definitive history\, but to suggest a new relationship to the past\, where all of us see the crafting of history as something we both can and should participate in. \nA virtual presentation by Josh MacPhee\, designer\, artist\, archivist\, activist\, and founding member of both Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and Interference Archive. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/celebrating-peoples-history/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260608T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260608T181500
DTSTAMP:20260428T034109Z
CREATED:20260428T034103Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T034109Z
UID:3247-1780938000-1780942500@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Tomorrow is Another Day: Bestselling Novels of the Great Depression Era
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California \nAs a counterpart to research on the 1930s that has focused on liberal and radical writers calling for social revolution\, David Welky offers this eloquent study of how mainstream print culture shaped and disseminated a message affirming conservative middle-class values and assuring its readers that holding to these values would get them through hard times. Through analysis of the era’s most popular newspaper stories\, magazines\, and books\, Welky examines how voices both outside and within the media debated the purposes of literature and the meaning of cultural literacy in a mass democracy. He presents lively discussions of such topics as the newspaper treatment of the Lindbergh kidnapping\, issues of race in coverage of the 1936 Olympic games\, domestic dynamics and gender politics in cartoons and magazines\, Superman’s evolution from a radical outsider to a spokesman for the people\, and the popular consumption of such novels as the Ellery Queen mysteries\, Gone with the Wind\, and The Good Earth. Through these close readings\, Welky uncovers the subtle relationship between the messages that mainstream media strategically crafted and those that their target audience wished to hear. \nA virtual presentation by David Welky\, author and Associate Professor of History\, University of Central Arkansas\, Conway \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/tomorrow-is-another-day-bestselling-novels-of-the-great-depression-era/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260601T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260601T191500
DTSTAMP:20260428T034126Z
CREATED:20260428T033719Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T034126Z
UID:3245-1780336800-1780341300@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Performing Chinatown: Hollywood\, Tourism\, and the Making of a Chinese American Community
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California \nIn 1938\, China City opened near downtown Los Angeles. Featuring a recreation of the House of Wang set from MGM’s The Good Earth\, this new Chinatown employed many of the same Chinese Americans who performed as background extras in the 1937 film. Chinatown and Hollywood represented the two primary sites where Chinese Americans performed racial difference for popular audiences during the Chinese exclusion era. In Performing Chinatown\, historian William Gow argues that Chinese Americans in Los Angeles used these performances in Hollywood films and in Chinatown for tourists to shape widely held understandings of race and national belonging during this pivotal chapter in U.S. history. \nPerforming Chinatown conceives of these racial representations as intimately connected to the restrictive immigration laws that limited Chinese entry into the U.S. beginning with the 1875 Page Act and continuing until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. At the heart of this argument are the voices of everyday people including Chinese American movie extras\, street performers\, and merchants. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by William Gow\, historian\, educator\, documentary filmmaker\, and Assistant Professor\, Ethnic Studies Department\, Sacramento State University\, Sacramento\, California. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/performing-chinatown-hollywood-tourism-and-the-making-of-a-chinese-american-community/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260518T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260518T191500
DTSTAMP:20260428T033221Z
CREATED:20260428T033022Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T033221Z
UID:3242-1779127200-1779131700@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Larry McMurtry’s Runaways: The Story of Larry McMurtry’s Collection of Books by Women Travelers
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California \nIn 1960 the aspiring Texas writer Larry McMurtry enrolled in Stanford University with a fellowship in the Stegner creative writing program. Along with his studies\, McMurtry became immersed in the world of antiquarian and used bookshops that flourished during that time in the San Francisco Bay Area\, and it became an infatuation that\, along with writing\, would consume and change his life. \nAmong the many books McMurtry acquired during his San Francisco residency for his personal reading and eventual book business were books by women travelers\, a topic which he found captivating for their true tales of travel to distant lands by strong-willed\, independent women. \nSlowly he assembled a personal collection of books by and about women travelers. After 50 years the collection grew to almost 2000 volumes and contained 320 years of travel narratives\, from 1690 to 2010. This is the story of the collection\, what happened to it\, and the women travelers who made it so captivating – women whom McMurtry occasionally referred to as his “runaways.” \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by John Crichton\, author\, editor\, antiquarian bookseller\, and proprietor of The Brick Row Book Shop\, San Francisco\, California. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/larry-mcmurtrys-runaways-the-story-of-larry-mcmurtrys-collection-of-books-by-women-travelers/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260504T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260504T181500
DTSTAMP:20260428T032536Z
CREATED:20260428T032536Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T032536Z
UID:3240-1777914000-1777918500@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:The Sunday Paper: A Media History
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California \nThe American Sunday paper of the 1890s transformed the daily edition with inserts and supplements of all shapes and sizes. Each asked readers to do more than read\, but to interact with the materiality of the paper as a form of leisure. The Sunday paper became so large and voluminous it needed to be organized: managed and collected over time\, shared across an entire family. Subscriptions enhanced the economic success of the Sunday paper by helping to produce expert reading subjects. Collecting series of supplements and clipping coupons encouraged readers not to treat Sunday papers as disposable\, but instead parts of cultural and consumer life that could gain value if saved. In illustrated features\, circulation became an ideal in its own right\, achieved through intermediality. Syndicated for national reach\, the Sunday paper was the basis for a mass mediated popular culture. Indeed\, the Sunday Paper became so reliant on the circulation of its popular supplements as to beg the question if it even remained a newspaper at all. \nA virtual presentation by Sandra Gabriele\, Vice President\, Academic and Provost\, Ontario College of Art & Design University\, Toronto\, Canada\, and Paul Moore\, Professor of Sociology\, Toronto Metropolitan University\, Toronto\, Canada and past President of the Film Studies Association of Canada \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/the-sunday-paper-a-media-history/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260420T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260420T181500
DTSTAMP:20260324T024215Z
CREATED:20260324T024215Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260324T024215Z
UID:3174-1776704400-1776708900@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Digital Literary Redlining: African American Anthologies\, Digital Humanities\, and the Canon
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by the Book Club of California. \nThough canon concerns seem to be a relic of 1990s academia\, we are\, once again\, at a historical moment when there is resistance to teaching texts by writers of color and texts that deal with race\, ethnicity and gender. At the same time\, algorithmic bias scholars are locating systemic bias encoded into systems from policing software to housing software. Bringing these divergent areas together\, Amy E. Earhart examines how technological and institutional infrastructures construct and deconstruct race\, ethnicity and gender identities. \nFocusing on two central infrastructures\, the database\, a commonly used technological infrastructure in the digital humanities\, and the anthology\, a scholarly and pedagogical infrastructure\, Earhart considers how such seemingly naturalized infrastructures impact the representation and modeling of identity. The Digital Literary Redlining draws upon the building and use of DALA\, a collection of almost 100 years of generalist American and African American literature anthologies\, constructed to investigate questions of identity and representation in literary anthologies and\, by extension\, the larger literary canon. The resulting examination\, and its rigorous discussion of how identities are created and recreated within Black literary histories\, has important implications for contemporary cultural and political debates about canon formation\, literary scholarship\, and the bias embedded in technological infrastructures. \nA virtual presentation by Amy E. Earhart\, author and Associate Professor\, Department of English\, Texas A&M University. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/digital-literary-redlining-african-american-anthologies-digital-humanities-and-the-canon/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260413T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260413T190000
DTSTAMP:20260324T024252Z
CREATED:20260324T023626Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260324T024252Z
UID:3172-1776103200-1776106800@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:The California Camera Club: Collective Visions in the Making of the American West
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by the Book Club of California. \nWith some 400 members\, the San Francisco-based California Camera Club was the largest photography network in the United States in the early twentieth century. In her book The California Camera Club\, Carolin Görgen recaptures the lost history of this community—both women and men—and their crucial contribution to shaping the cultural imagination of California and the American West as a photographic territory. \nAlthough the club played a decisive role in advancing the careers of Ansel Adams and other “big names” of American photography\, its most significant legacy lies in fostering collaborative outdoor practices. In telling the story of these largely unknown photographers\, a new perspective on American photography and its collective dimension is revealed. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by Carolin Görgen\, author and Associate Professor of American Studies\, Sorbonne Université\, Paris. \nTo register\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/the-california-camera-club-collective-visions-in-the-making-of-the-american-west/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260330T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260330T183000
DTSTAMP:20260128T144453Z
CREATED:20260128T144453Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260128T144453Z
UID:3126-1774890000-1774895400@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Black Wests: Reshaping Race and Place in Popular Culture
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California. \nWhat does it mean to imagine the American West through Black experience? For too long\, popular culture\, from Hollywood Westerns to novels\, music\, and television\, has erased or distorted Black presence in the West\, leaving us with an incomplete story of American identity. Black Wests: Reshaping Race and Place in Popular Culture brings those histories back into focus. \nIn this talk\, Dr. Sara L. Gallagher explores how Black writers\, filmmakers\, and performers have reimagined the Western landscape in ways that challenge dominant myths about race\, land\, and belonging. Moving across literature\, film\, and music\, she examines how figures ranging from Oscar Micheaux to contemporary creators like Beyonce have reshaped what we think the “West” looks like\, sounds like\, and means. \nThe “Black West” is more than a geographic space\, it is a cultural and imaginative terrain that reveals hidden histories of migration\, labor\, homesteading\, and community-building. At the same time\, it offers new perspectives on familiar genres\, from the Western film to the jazz archive. This presentation will highlight how Black artists and thinkers have unsettled the frontier myth\, opening up conversations about power\, resistance\, and the legacies of race in American culture. \nA virtual presentation by Sarah Gallagher\, author and Professor of Liberal Studies\, Durham College\, Oshawa\, Ontario\, Canada. \nTo register for this virtual event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/black-wests-reshaping-race-and-place-in-popular-culture/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260316T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260316T183000
DTSTAMP:20260128T144133Z
CREATED:20260128T144133Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260128T144133Z
UID:3124-1773680400-1773685800@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Koreatown Los Angeles: Immigration\, Race\, and the “American Dream”
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California. \nThis talk is based on the book Koreatown\, Los Angeles: Immigration\, Race\, and the “American Dream\,” which delves into the social and cultural history of Korean Americans in Los Angeles\, focusing on the period from the late 1960s to the early 2000s. The presentation will explore the argument that building Koreatown was an urgent objective for Korean immigrants and US-born Koreans\, serving simultaneously as a vital economic base and a profound emotional and social anchor. It will examine how figures defined as “place entrepreneurs\,” such as Sonia Suk and Hi Duk Lee\, spearheaded the community’s development from a modest cluster of businesses into a thriving\, recognized enclave. Their entrepreneurial achievements\, lauded in publications as proof that the “American Dream is Alive and Well in Koreatown\,” underscored the irony of success achieved during an era of diminishing opportunities for others. \nA virtual presentation by Shelley Lee\, author and W. Duncan MacMillan II Professor of American Studies\, History\, and Humanities\, Brown University. \nTo register for this online event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/koreatown-los-angeles-immigration-race-and-the-american-dream/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260309T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260309T193000
DTSTAMP:20260128T143822Z
CREATED:20260128T143822Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260128T143822Z
UID:3122-1773079200-1773084600@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Wonders of the East: Medieval Belief and Making Monsters in the Middle Ages
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California. \nIn the Middle Ages\, monsters were of great interest to artists\, authors\, and theologians. They appear in all visual media and all textual genres. They were\, to their creators\, both serious subjects of contemplation and fun entertainment. This talk will focus on a particular set of medieval monsters known as the Wonders of the East\, a series of fantastic peoples\, beasts\, plants\, and landscapes that was especially popular in medieval England\, where they appear on the edges of world maps and in the margins of devotional books\, as well as in three surviving manuscripts\, all heavily illustrated\, where they are given pride of place. This talk will consider where such monsters were located\, how they were constructed\, and what sort of work they were designed to do for their intended audiences. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by Asa Mittman\, author and Professor of Art & Art History\, California State University\, Chico. \nTo register for this virtual event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/wonders-of-the-east-medieval-belief-and-making-monsters-in-the-middle-ages/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260302T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260302T193000
DTSTAMP:20260128T143451Z
CREATED:20260128T143451Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260128T143451Z
UID:3120-1772474400-1772479800@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Presenting Jane: Showing and Sharing Jane Austen in the 21st Century
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California. \n“Presenting Jane” honors the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth through an exploration of the challenges\, discoveries\, and new ways a 21st-century audience has encountered the woman and her work. In this ATBL-Book Club of California event\, collector and curator Mary Crawford alongside Professor and Library Director Kirsten J. Leuner will discuss both Mary’s innovative Austen exhibition\, hosted at the Grolier Club in December 2025\, and will lead attendees on a guided tour through the British Library’s first edition facsimile of Jane Austen’s famed Pride & Prejudice (1813)\, issued by Rizzoli USA. The deluxe facsimile edition of Pride & Prejudice includes not only the text separated into its originally distributed multiple volumes\, but also contains key archival documents connected to the text and Austen’s life from the British Library’s collections. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by Mary Crawford\, collector\, curator\, trustee of The Grolier Club and the Bibliographical Society of America and Kirstyn J. Leuner\, Associate Professor of eighteenth-century British Literature\, Santa Clara University and Director of The Stainforth Library of Women’s Writing \n**Co-presented and co-hosted by The American Trust for The British Library. \nTo register for the virtual event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/presenting-jane-showing-and-sharing-jane-austen-in-the-21st-century/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260223T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260223T183000
DTSTAMP:20260128T142920Z
CREATED:20260128T142920Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260128T142920Z
UID:3117-1771866000-1771871400@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:A Visual Journey: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science and Art
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California. \nIn 1870 at age 33\, Sara Plummer Lemmon left the East Coast and moved west to Santa Barbara\, where she taught herself botany and established the town’s first library. Ten years later she married botanist John Gill Lemmon\, and together the two discovered hundreds of new plant species\, many of them illustrated by Sara\, an accomplished artist. She and JG traveled throughout the Southwest\, often alone but sometimes with such friends\, including John Muir and Clara Barton. Sara also found time to work as a journalist and as an activist in women’s suffrage and forest conservation. Her inspiring story is one of resilience\, determination\, and courage. \nAuthor Wynne Brown will present the remarkable story of Sara Plummer Lemmon and provide an update on the preservation of Sara’s remarkable artwork — and how her own research continues to evolve. \nA virtual presentation by Wynne Brown\, writer\, editor\, and graphic designer. \nTo register for this virtual event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/a-visual-journey-sara-plummer-lemmons-life-of-science-and-art/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260202T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260202T191500
DTSTAMP:20260106T005755Z
CREATED:20260106T005755Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260106T005755Z
UID:3076-1770055200-1770059700@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Digger Do: Excavating a Social Movement Through Its Print Ephemera
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by the Book Club of California.\n\nHow do we uncover the arc of a social movement through its broadsides\, street sheets\, mimeographed leaflets\, and print ephemera? In this illustrated talk\, Eric Noble will explore the Digger movement of 1960s San Francisco — a radical network of free stores\, free food\, and free theater — through the lens of its printed traces.\n\nDrawing from the Digger Archives and firsthand accounts\, the presentation will examine how the Diggers used print not just to document\, but to provoke\, invite\, and enact. From the surrealist tones of the early Digger Papers to the communal publishing of Kaliflower\, we’ll consider how typography\, anonymity\, and distribution shaped the movement’s ethos.\n\nThis talk will also reflect on the lineage of radical print culture\, connecting the Diggers to earlier traditions of pamphleteering\, underground publishing\, and the poetic politics of the commons — offering a bibliographic journey through a movement that challenged the very notion of authorship\, ownership\, and permanence. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by Eric Noble\, writer\, historian\, and keeper of the Digger Archive
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/digger-do-excavating-a-social-movement-through-its-print-ephemera/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260126T180000
DTSTAMP:20251228T162934Z
CREATED:20251228T162934Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251228T162934Z
UID:3047-1769446800-1769450400@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:The Man Who Dammed Hetch Hetchy: John R. Freeman and San Francisco’s Yosemite Water Supply
DESCRIPTION:The damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park is widely seen as a watershed event in American environmental history. Passionately opposed by naturalist John Muir and his ardent supporters\, the massive undertaking succeeded largely through the efforts of John R. Freeman\, one of the most important\, influential\, and politically adroit engineers of the Progressive Era. In The Man Who Dammed Hetch Hetchy\, Donald C. Jackson focuses on Freeman to offer a nuanced account of how the City of San Francisco won the right to transform the bucolic valley into a municipal water supply reservoir that\, a century later\, continues to serve millions of Bay Area residents. \nCentral to Freeman’s work for San Francisco from 1910 to 1913 was his design of a high-pressure aqueduct projected to deliver 400 million gallons of water per day to the Bay Area and generate more than 150\,000 horsepower of electricity. Beyond crafting an extensively illustrated 421-page report detailing his design\, he also worked—and succeeded—as a political advocate lobbying for congressional approval of the project. Jackson draws on a wealth of correspondence\, reports\, and other documents\, including congressional records\, to highlight Freeman’s contention that the Hetch Hetchy project would not just provide copious quantities of water and power\, but would also enhance the Sierra Nevada environment and increase tourist access to the northern reaches of the national park. His self-avowed goal was not to tear down or destroy Hetch Hetchy but to utilize the valley for the greater public good and to create a system that would serve the city for decades if not centuries to come. \nTo register for the online event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/the-man-who-dammed-hetch-hetchy-john-r-freeman-and-san-franciscos-yosemite-water-supply/
LOCATION:Book Club of California
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T190000
DTSTAMP:20251229T122635Z
CREATED:20251228T162440Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251229T122635Z
UID:3045-1768240800-1768244400@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:Thomas Clarkson’s Latin Essay: The Origins and Legacy of an Antislavery Text
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California \nProfessor Emerita Dee E. Andrews and Assistant Professor Christopher S. Parmenter will discuss two elements of their new book manuscript\, Thomas Clarkson’s Latin Essay: The Making of an Abolitionist Author in the Age of Revolution. Based on the first translation of Clarkson’s “An Liceat Invitos in Servitutem Dare” since 1786\, their work explores in depth the composition\, publication\, distribution\, response\, and reprinting\, not least of all in Revolutionary France\, of a central text in the first abolition movement. Our speakers will introduce the subject of the Latin Essay itself\, the significance its translation\, and how Clarkson reverses the formerly conventional argument regarding slavery in the classical tradition. There will be examples of unusual reader response to “An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species” (1786) — the Latin Essay (greatly expanded) in print — and the essay’s endurance as an abolitionist symbol. \nTo register for the online event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/thomas-clarksons-latin-essay-the-origins-and-legacy-of-an-antislavery-text/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251110T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251110T191500
DTSTAMP:20251027T161357Z
CREATED:20251027T154646Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251027T161357Z
UID:2988-1762797600-1762802100@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:The Binfords & Mort Story: Publishing Books About Oregon\, 1930-1983
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California. \nIn 1891 while still teens in Portland\, Oregon\, Maurice and Peter Binford started an influential career as publishers. They went on to found the Binfords & Mort publishing company focused on Pacific Northwest literature. This talk will explore how this mostly forgotten company\, once the largest publisher west of the Mississippi\, cast a large shadow over regional literature\, literary societies\, recreation\, and civic engagement in the Pacific Northwest. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by Jeremy Skinner\, author\, archivist\, and Library Director for Curry Public Library in Gold Beach\, Oregon \n**The Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trade in California and the West** \nTo register to attend the online event\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/the-binfords-mort-story-publishing-books-about-oregon-1930-1983/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251103T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251103T191500
DTSTAMP:20251027T154312Z
CREATED:20251027T154312Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251027T154312Z
UID:2986-1762192800-1762197300@www.fabsocieties.org
SUMMARY:City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by The Book Club of California. \nCalifornia’s 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the “instant city” of San Francisco as a base to exploit the rich natural resources of the American West. City of Wood examines how capitalists and workers logged the state’s vast redwood forests to create the financial capital and construction materials needed to build the regional metropolis of San Francisco. Architectural historian James Michael Buckley investigates the remote forest and its urban core as two poles of a regional “city.” This city consisted of a far-reaching network of spaces\, produced as company owners and workers arrayed men and machines to extract resources and create human commodities from the region’s rich natural environment. \nCombining labor\, urban\, industrial\, and social history\, City of Wood employs a variety of sources—including contemporary newspaper articles\, novels\, and photographs—to explore the architectural landscape of lumber\, from backwoods logging camps and company towns in the woods to busy lumber docks and the homes of workers and owners in San Francisco. By imagining the redwood lumber industry as a single community spread across multiple sites—a “City of Wood”—Buckley demonstrates how capitalist resource extraction links different places along the production value chain. The result is a paradigm shift in architectural history that focuses not just on the evolution of individual building design across time\, but also on economic connections that link the center and periphery across space. \nAn in-person and virtual presentation by James Michael Buckley\, author\, urban planner\, and historian. \nTo register to attend online\, click here.
URL:https://www.fabsocieties.org/event/city-of-wood-san-francisco-and-the-architecture-of-the-redwood-lumber-industry/
CATEGORIES:Book Club of California
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR