Thursday, August 18, 2016

Broadway Books Portland - 8/30/16

Alan Wieder, Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation

Broadway Books welcomes Alan Wieder to read from his new book Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation on Tuesday, August 30th at 7 pm.

Studs Terkel was an American icon and a leftist who valued human beings over political dogma.  In scores of books and thousands of radio and television broadcasts, Studs paid due attention to “ordinary” human beings of all classes and colors, as they talked about their lives as workers, dreamers, and survivors. Drawing from more than one hundred interviews of people who knew and worked with Studs, Alan Wieder’s Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation is the first comprehensive book about this man.

Alan Wieder is an oral historian who lives in Portland. He is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and has taught at the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. In the past fifteen years, he has published three books and numerous articles on South Africans who fought against the apartheid regime. The latest book, Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, was published in 2013 by Monthly Review Press.


Event date: 
Tuesday, August 30, 2016 - 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Event address: 
Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation Cover Image
By Alan Wieder, Kevin Coval (Foreword by)
$19.95
ISBN: 9781583675939
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Monthly Review Press - August 26th, 2016

Cleveland - September 20th



 
ALAN WIEDER ON STUDS TERKEL
Alan Wieder, author of Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture But Mostly Conversation will talk about his book at Mac's on Tuesday, September 20th at 7 p.m.
Studs Terkel was an American icon who had no use for America's cult of celebrity. He was a leftist who valued human beings over political dogma. In scores of books and thousands of radio and television broadcasts, Studs paid attention and respect to ordinary human beings of all classes and colors, as they talked about their lives as workers, dreamers, survivors.
Alan Wieder s Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation is the first comprehensive book about this man. Drawing from over one hundred interviews of people who knew and worked with Studs, Alan Wieder creates a multi-dimensional portrait of a run-of-the-mill guy from Chicago who, in public life, became an acclaimed author and raconteur, while managing, in his private life, to remain a mensch. We see Studs, the eminent oral historian, the inveterate and selfless supporter of radical causes, especially civil rights. We see the actor, the writer, the radio host, the jazz lover, whose early work in television earned him a notorious place on the McCarthy blacklist. We also see Studs the family man and devoted husband to his adored wife, Ida.
Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation allows us to realize the importance of reaching through our own daily realities increasingly clogged with disembodied, impersonal interaction to find value in actual face-time with real humans. Wieder s book also shows us why such contact might be crucial to those of us in movements rising up against global tyranny and injustice. The book is simply the best introduction available to this remarkable man. Reading it will lead people to Terkel s enormous body of work, with benefits they will cherish throughout their lives.
Alan Wieder is an oral historian who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and has taught at the University of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. In the last fifteen years, he has published three books and numerous articles on South Africans who fought against the apartheid regime. The latest book, Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, was published in 2013 by Monthly Review Press.
Event date: 
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Event address: 
1820 Coventry Rd.
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation Cover Image
By Alan Wieder, Kevin Coval (Foreword by)
$19.95
ISBN: 9781583675939
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Monthly Review Press - August 26th, 2016






Monday, August 8, 2016

https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2016/08/08/studs-terkel-by-alan-wieder/

Studs Terkel by Alan Wieder.

I once met Alan Wieder at a reading of his last book, Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid. It was at City Lit, our neighborhood bookstore. Yes. We actually have one. In fact, we have two! Recently I received a kind note on Facebook from Alan when I posted a drawing I did of the Chicago legend, Studs Terkel.


studs


“I’m writing a book about Studs,” he told me.

I read the book this weekend.

When I first came to Chicago in 1973 I prepared for my life here by reading three books: Boss by Mike Royko. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City by St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton, first published in 1945. And Division Street America by Studs Terkel.
Another Studs Terkel memory.

One summer years ago, we were staying with my in-laws at their Adirondack camp in Essex on Lake Champlain in upstate New York. We saw that they were doing a production of Working, a musical based on one of Studs’ books of oral testimonies at the Westport Summer theater. Sitting inside a converted barn on chairs set up among bales of hay, miles from Chicago, we herd the literary voice of Studs Terkel turned into song.

I’m sorry to say that I never personally met Studs. Reading the book, I must be the only one in Chicago who never did. He seems to have interviewed everyone else I know. How did he miss me?

“One of the great listeners of the 20th Century,” quotes Alan Wieder. To me he was one of the great voices of the 20th Century. Which made me one of the lucky listeners of the 20th Century.
In my early Chicago years there were three radio voices: Herb Kent (the Kool Gent). Ray Nordstrand, who hosted The Midnight Special on WFMT. And Studs. One of the benefits of working a swing shift at US Steel Southworks was that at least two out of three weeks I could listen to Studs on his daily program which continued until 1997.

Alan Wieder’s book traces Studs life – and Chicago ‘s cultural and political life – through it all: Our battles against racism, the Black List, the fight against imperial wars, both Mayor Daleys, the Sixties Revolt and Harold Washington, our first Black Mayor. Wieder tells the story of how an NBC executive in New York called Studs into his office in 1952. Studs’ Place was an early Chicago TV show set in a greasy spoon diner. The show featured the continuing subject of all of Studs’ work: Working class people.

Studs had never seen a petition he didn’t sign or a left-wing political rally he didn’t appear at, and this was the height of the McCarthy era. The NBC executive offered to save Studs’ Place if Studs recanted his good work. “Why don’t you say you were dumb, you were stupid, you were duped.”
Imagine saying that to a guy from Chicago.

Studs Terkel. Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation
Alan Wieder
Monthly Review Press

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Book Events


August 30th (Thursday, 7pm) Portland at Broadway Books

September 13 (Tuesday, 6pm) Chicago at Hull House – OFFICIAL LAUNCH

September 14 (Wednesday, 6pm) Evanston at Bookends & Beginnings

September 15 (Thursday, 6pm) Chicago at Seminary and Coop Bookstore – Fresh Ayers (In Conversation with Bill Ayers)

September 16 (Friday, 7pm) Milwuakee at Woodland Pattern Books

September 20 (Tuesday, 7pm) Cleveland at Mac’s Backs on Coventry

September 22 (Thursday, 7:30pm) Baltimore at Red Emmas

September 24 or 25 – Baltimore Book Festival

September 27 (Tuesday, 7pm) Washington D.C. at Potter’s House

September 28 (Wednesday, 6pm) NYC at Workmen’s Circle
247 W 37th St #5, New York, NY 10018

September 29 (Thursday, 7pm) NYC at Bluestockings, NYC

October 4 ((Tuesday, 7pm) Chapel Hill at Flyleaf Bookstore

October 5 (Wednesday, 7pm) Ashville at Firestorm Café and Books

October 10 (Monday, 7pm) Atlanta at Jimmy Carter Library

October 13 (Thursday, 3:15pm) Long Beach at Oral History Association Conference (Louis “Studs” Terkel: America’s Oral Historian & "griot" of the oral history movement) This is a panel discussion with Michael Frisch, Rick Ayers Tim Black, Don Ritchie, and Jerry Hirsch

October 22 (Saturday, 7pm) Berkeley at Moe’s Bookstore

October 23 (Sunday, 4pm) San Francisco at Modern Times Bookstore



Thursday, March 17, 2016

This is the first of various documents, etc... I came upon while researching Studs' life -- a 1987 letter from Abbie Hoffman



Book Cover


Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation

Finished the substantive edits yesterday of Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation. Next comes copy edits and then PDF galleys. I see the book as a collage of Studs' life. Got to speak with over 100 people who knew Studs, some individuals were much closer to Studs than others of course. The list includes:


Ann Atwatter                                     Christy Hefner                       David Polk
Bill Ayers                                            Kenan Heise                          Danny Postel
John Ayers                                         Jim Hightower                       Jackie Rivers-Rivet
Rick Ayers                                          Pearl Hirshfield                     Steve Robinson
Lois Baum                                          Judy Hoffman                          Mark Rogovin
Ursula Bender                                  Deborah Holdstein                Don Rose
Audrie Berman                                 Dave Isay                               Penelope Rosemont
Timuel Black                                     Tony Judge                            David Royko
Ken Burns                                          Jamie Kalven                         Edward Sadlowski
Michael Cole                                      Angela Keil                             Anya Schiffrin
Jonathan Cott                                    Charles Keil                           Lena Schiffrin
Dan Schmidt                                      Kathy Kelly                            Daniel Schulman
Richard Davis                                    Phil Koch                                Stephen Schwartz
Robin Davis                                        Rick Kogan                             David Schwimmer
Carol De Giere                                   Alex Kotlowitz                        Clancy Segal
Hank De Zutter                                  Dennis Kucinich                    Art Shay
Bernardine Dohrn                            Florence Kuttner                   Eric Simonson
Bettina Drew                                     Peter Kuttner                           Alan Stein
George Drury                                     Dan LaBotz                             Tamara Tabb
Tom Dyja                                            Donna Blue Lachman           Donald Tait
Mike Edgerly                                     Mark Larson                          Flint Taylor
Tom Engelhardt                                Warren Leming                     Dan Terkell
Jules Feiffer                                       Jesse Lemisch                        Sandy Terkell
Hamilton Fish                                    Sydney Lewis                         Calvin Trillin
Frank Fried                                        Penny Lipschutz                    Katrina vanden Huevel
Jo Friedman                                       Roberta Lynch                       C.T. Vivian
Michael Frisch                                   Haki Madhubuti                    Laura Watson
Elizabeth Furse                                 Tony Macaluso                      Robert Watson
Tom Geohagen                                  Carol Marin                            Tom Weinberg
Todd Gitlin                                         Sandy McCall                         Bernice Weissbourd
Joy Gregory                                        Peter Meyer                           Haskell Wexler
Ronald Grele                                      J.R. Millares                            Patricia Williams
Jean Gump                                         Victor Navasky                       Phil Wizenick
Jerry Harris                                        Prexy Nesbit                          Wendy Wolf
Jeffrey Hass                                       Carolyn Nichols                     Quentin Young
Tom Hayden                                      Andrew Patner
Lloyd Haywood                                  John Platt

Chicagoan Kevin Coval has written an amazing foreword and I'm excited about the political activists, writers, union organizers, and even politicians that have agreed to write blurbs. Finally, will begin travel for the book with a trip to Chicago for the launch -- many more places to follow -- can't wait for the conversations.