LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

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Wilsonville Library: PROFILES (online): Halloween’s Haunted History

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This ongoing series of 60-minute presentations explores the people, places, and events that shape our lives, our world, our universe. Presented by Dr. Bill Thierfelder, professor emeritus and docent at the American Museum of Natural History. Online with Zoom - Sign up online to reserve your space and get the Zoom meeting code For more information visit the Classes and Lectures page. Halloween's Haunted History. This program traces the origins of Halloween from its ancient beginnings, through the Reformation, and into our own era. Sign up online to reserve your space and receive the Zoom meeting code.

Free

Delve Readers Seminar: 9/11 Literatures and the Global War on Terror: 20th Anniversary

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

2021 marks the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack and a period classified as the “global war on terror.” In this Delve seminar we will read, reflect, and discuss the literary responses to the immediate and the long-term impacts of the war on terror and the rise of xenophobia, Islamophobia, and the changing socio-political landscape of American life post 9/11. The literary texts that we will read will provide some broad understanding about public anxiety and trauma, particularly for those who experienced 9/11 closely and those that belonged to the Muslim-American communities. We will also unpack various representations and debates surrounding the ways in which the figure of the terrorist, terrorism, torture, racism and Islamophobia have informed the study of the 9/11 genre. Please…

Continue readingDelve Readers Seminar: 9/11 Literatures and the Global War on Terror: 20th Anniversary
$180

Article Club (online)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A virtual program to discuss interesting articles from national publications Using Zoom, we will connect and share our thoughts about articles from national publications. Our virtual meeting will last about 30 minutes, and feature discussions on the chosen article. Participants should be ages 18+ and interested in sharing. There is space for up to 10 members, so sign up to receive the Zoom access code for the meeting. For more information, and to sign up, visit the Article Club page. "The Ambush That Changed History" by Fergus M. Bordewich Smithsonian Magazine, September 2006 An amateur archaeologist discovers the field where wily Germanic warriors halted the spread of the Roman Empire. It was a defeat so catastrophic that it threatened the survival of Rome itself and halted the empire’s conquest of Germany. “This…

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Free

Cecily Wong in Conversation With Liz Crain

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Wonder is around every corner, and on every plate. The curious minds behind Atlas Obscura now turn to the hidden curiosities of food, which becomes a gateway to fascinating stories about human history, science, art, and tradition — like the first book, all organized by country, lavishly illustrated, and full of surprises. Covering all seven continents, Gastro Obscura (Workman) by Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras serves up a loaded plate of incredible ingredients, food adventures, and edible wonders. Ready for a beer made from fog in Chile? Sardinia’s “Threads of God” pasta? Egypt’s 2000-year-old egg ovens? But far more than a menu of delicacies and unexpected dishes, Gastro Obscura reveals food’s central place in our lives as well as our bellies, touching on history (trace…

Continue readingCecily Wong in Conversation With Liz Crain
Free

Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter Virtual Discussion

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

When you think “call and response,” you may think of protest chants like “Whose streets?” “Our streets!”— groups of voices joining together to form a powerful rallying cry. Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter, published by Versify/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on August 17, is an essential history of Black Lives Matter centered on those voices, beginning with the movement's founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Author Veronica Chambers of The New York Times documents the pivotal moments that galvanized Black Lives Matter, featuring stories and quotes from the activists that built upon a vision to stand up for racial justice. Nearly 100 striking New York Times photographs accompany the text, setting Call and Response apart as a visual narrative of the…

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Free

Chris Hedges in Conversation With Boris Franklin

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

From the author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and America: The Farewell Tour comes a haunting and powerfully moving book that gives voice to the poorest among us and lays bare the cruelty of a penal system that too often defines their lives. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges has taught courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history since 2013 in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at East Jersey State Prison and other New Jersey prisons. In his first class at East Jersey State Prison, where students read and discussed plays by Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, among others, his class set out to write a play of their own. In writing the play, Caged, which would run for…

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Free

Pamela Paul in Conversation With Ayad Akhtar

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Remember all those ingrained habits, cherished ideas, beloved objects, and stubborn preferences from the pre-Internet age? They’re gone. To some of those things we can say good riddance. But many we miss terribly. Whatever our emotional response to this departed realm, we are faced with the fact that nearly every aspect of modern life now takes place in filtered, isolated corners of cyberspace — a space that has slowly subsumed our physical habitats, replacing or transforming the office, our local library, a favorite bar, the movie theater, and the coffee shop where people met one another’s gaze from across the room. Even as we’ve gained the ability to gather without leaving our house, many of the fundamentally human experiences that have sustained us have disappeared.…

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Free

Shea Serrano / Ticketed Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Don't call it a comeback: bestselling author Shea Serrano’s latest book, Hip-Hop (And Other Things) (Twelve), combines the smooth hipness of A Tribe Called Quest, the hellfire of DMX, the quirky brilliance of Missy Elliot, and the sheer, unstoppable flow of Jay-Z into one enlightened compendium of hip-hop greatness. It's a smart, fun, funny, insightful book that spends the entirety of its time celebrating what has become the most dominant form of music these past two and a half decades. Some of the chapters are serious, and some of the chapters are silly, and some of the chapters are a combination of both things. All of them, though, are treated with the care and respect that they deserve. Please note: This is a ticketed event.…

Continue readingShea Serrano / Ticketed Event
$27

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in Conversation With Reece Jones

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In her bold new book, Not "A Nation of Immigrants" (Beacon), historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the U.S.’s history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today. She explains that the idea that we are living in a land of opportunity — founded and built by immigrants — was a convenient response by the ruling class and its brain trust to the 1960s demands for decolonialization, justice, reparations, and social equality. Moreover, Dunbar-Ortiz charges that…

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Free

Ahead of His Time: Richard Neuberger, A conversation with Steve Forrester and Chet Orloff

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The title of this conversation is also the title of the chapter written by Steve Forrester in the recently published book Eminent Oregonians. The book’s subtitle is Three Who Matter: Abigail Scott Duniway, Richard Neuberger, Jesse Applegate. Steve Forrester’s chapter focuses on why Neuberger is a forgotten figure in Oregon and national political history. Neuberger was the second Jew elected to the US Senate after the 17th Amendment, which mandated the popular election of senators. This chapter of the book is the first story of his life drawn from primary sources. Prior to moving to Astoria in 1987, Steve Forrester was Washington correspondent for Pacific Northwest newspapers in Washington, D.C., for ten years. He was also the publisher of NorthwestLetter, a political newsletter, and producer/host of…

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Free
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