BOOK EVENTS

Virtual Diversity Book Club: “My Time Among the Whites: Notes From An Unfinished Education” by Jennine Capó Crucet
6 p.m. Oct. 28

The Department of Medicine Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s monthly Virtual Diversity Book Club will focus on this collection of essays that investigate through a personal lens concepts of race, gender, immigration, and the “American dream” since the 2016 election. Jennine Capó Crucet’s novel “Make Your Home Among Strangers” was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice book, the winner of the 2016 International Latino Book Award, and was cited as a best book of the year by NBC Latino, the Guardian, and the Miami Herald. Her writing has appeared on PBS NewsHour, in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. e contact Anastasia White, Diversity and Inclusion Program Coordinator at whiteaj2@upmc.edu, if you have any questions. Register through the University calendar.

“Authors and Anecdotes” Book Club: Featuring Beth Kissileff, co-editor of “Bound in the Bond of Life”
Noon, Oct. 29

This collection of essays tells a story of city shaken to its very core, but determined that love will ultimately win, after a gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill in 2018, killing 11 people and injuring six. It was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. Kissileff has taught at Pitt, Minnesota and Carleton, Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges. She is the spouse of Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light Congregation, who survived the Oct. 27 attack by hiding himself and others. Click here to be directed to the University of Pittsburgh Press website to learn more about “Bound in the Bond of Life.” A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Jewish Family and Community Service of Pittsburgh. Five random attendees to this book club session will receive a free copy of “Bound in the Bond of Life,” courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh Press. Click here to register.

Authors and Anecdotes Book Club: Featuring Patricia DeMarco, author of “Pathways to our Sustainable Future”
Noon, Nov. 5

DeMarco’s book discusses how the city of Pittsburgh is addressing the issues of climate change and global pollution. The solutions are not necessarily found in technology alone. Rather, the pathways forward are based on the ethical and moral basis for making choices about the future. DeMarco is a native of Pittsburgh with a doctorate in biology from Pitt. She has spent a 30-year career in energy and environmental policy in both private and public sector positions. Click here to be directed to the University of Pittsburgh Press website to learn more about “Pathways to Our Sustainable Future.” Click here to register.

NEW BOOKS

“Contested Nation: The Mapuche, Bandits, and State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Chile” (University of New Mexico Press, December 2019), by Pilar Herr, associate professor of History, Pitt–Greensburg

Throughout the colonial period the Spanish crown made numerous unsuccessful attempts to conquer Araucanía, Chile’s southern borderlands region. Contested Nation argues that with Chilean independence, Araucanía—because of its status as a separate nation-state—became essential to the territorial integrity of the new Chilean Republic. This book studies how Araucanía’s indigenous inhabitants, the Mapuche, played a central role in the new Chilean state’s pursuit of an expansionist policy that simultaneously exalted indigenous bravery while relegating the Mapuche to second-class citizenship. It also examines other subaltern groups, particularly bandits, who challenged the nation-state’s monopoly on force and were thus regarded as criminals and enemies unfit for citizenship in Chilean society.