Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives Brown Bag Lecture Series

Sponsored by the Michigan State University School of Human Resources and Labor Relations

Brown-Bag-Lecture-Series“Songs that Work: Music from the Workplace to the Workhouse” 
Andy Cohen and Noah Shull  :: Writers and Performers
Thursday, October 17
12:15 – 1:30 in the MSU Museum Auditorium
(co-sponsored by the MSU Library Colloquia Series – run in conjunction with their concert at Ten Pound Fiddle the next night)

“Striking Images: Workers on Screen and in the Streets in the 1950s”
Kathleen Newman :: Department of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Friday, October 18
12:15 – 1:30 in the MSU Museum Auditorium

“Trampling Out the Vintage: The Rise and Fall of the United Farm Workers”

Frank Bardacke :: Author and Independent Scholar
Thursday, October 24
12:15 – 1:30 in the MSU Museum Auditorium
Co-sponsored by the Chicano/Latino Studies Program and the Julian Samora Research Institute

JAMES KEELAGHAN AND JEZ LOWE AT TEN POUND FIDDLE  

Canadian folksinger James Keelaghan was one of the most memorable ODW/ODL brown bag presenters ever when he appeared in the MSU Library for us a few years ago. He held everyone captivated with his songs and the wonderful stories behind them. Songs like “Hillcrest Mine” (about a mine disaster in western Canada) and “Cold Missouri Waters” (about the famous Mann Gulch Fire which claimed a number of firefighters in 1949) are now folk classics and Keelaghan is considered one of the best songwriters for capturing both the factual base and the poignancy of events in labor and working class history.  Keelaghan will return to the Ten Pound Fiddle this Friday night, October 4, at 8 PM. He will be appearing together In concert with British working class and labor folksinger Jez Lowe. Lowe is best known for such songs as “Black Diamonds,” “Old Bones,” and “Back in Durham Gaol.” The concert is at 8, doors open at or before 7:30; box office opens at 7 pm. This Ten Pound Fiddle concert will take place in the Unitarian Church at 855 Grove Street in East Lansing. For more information on this Friday’s concert, go to the Fiddle’s website. You can check out the James Keelaghan brown bag recording within our collection at the Vincent Voice Library of the MSU Library; to access the Keelaghan presentation simply click on the link:  http://catalog.lib.msu.edu/search/e?SEARCH=Voice+16166&sortdropdown=-&searchscope=39

OUR TWO NEW EXHIBITS CONTINUE AT THE MSU MUSEUM

We are pleased to announce two new photographic exhibits at the MSU Museum which are co-sponsored by Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives. French photographer Gilles Perrin and his wife Nicole Ewenczyk have spent a lifetime doing portraits of workers across the globe. A retrospective of that work, “An Extraordinary Document of Our World,” is in the Heritage Gallery of the Museum from September 8, 2013 to January 12, 2013. During a 2012 visit to Michigan, Perrin and Ewenczyk added to that exhibit, but additionally created a separate body of work, “Detroit Resurgent.” The second exhibit of the same name is comprised of thirty-six of the sixty two portraits of workers, urban farmers, entrepreneurs, social activists, artists and others who are involved in the revival of the city of Detroit and runs for the same period in the ground-floor gallery at the Museum. Both exhibits share the Museum foyer.

THE 2013-2014 BROWN BAG SERIES

(Please do notice that we move to the MSU Library for two of the dates [November 8 and January 31] and not all the brown bag presentations are on Fridays.)

NOVEMBER

Friday, November 1 – “Beyond the Morning Bell: Women and Work in the Art of Winslow Homer” – Marie Louden-Hanes, University of Findlay (co-sponsored by the MSU Center for Gender in Global Context and the MSU Women’s Resource Center)

Friday, November 8 – “Beauty Shop Culture and the Labor of Hairdressing” – Candacy Taylor, Independent Scholar and current Archie Green award recipient at the American Folklore Center;  MSU Library, Room 449W (co-sponsored by the MSU Center for Gender in Global Context and the MSU Women’s Resource Center)

Friday, November 15  – “Confronting the Chrome-plated Wasteland: The UAW, Working-Class Environmentalism and the Urban Crisis in Detroit” –  Brandon Ward, Department of History, Purdue University  (co-sponsored by Motorcities/The Automobile National Heritage Area)

JANUARY, 2014

Friday, January 10 – “Illegal Detroiters:  Undocumented Europeans and Unions in America’s Motor City, 1924- 1942” – Ashley Johnson, History Department, Northwestern University   (co-sponsored by Motorcities/The Automobile National Heritage Area)

Friday, January 24 – “Direct Care Workers: A Calling, the Job, and the Misjudging of Social Value”  – Clare Luz, MSU College Of Human Medicine and a panel of health care workers

Friday, January 31 – “More than a Paycheck: What Occupational Music Reveals about Worker Health”  – Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock,  MSU Library, Room 449W (co-sponsored by the MSU Library Colloquia Series and the MSU Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine – run in conjunction with her appearance at the Mid-Winter Singing Festival that night)

FEBRUARY

Friday, February 7 – “Shanghaied in Hoboken: Asian Sailors as Workers and Immigrants” – Anna Pegler-Gordon; MSU’s James Madison College  (co-sponsored by the MSU Asian Studies Center and the Asian Pacific American Studies program)

Thursday, February 20  – “Redefining Skilled Mill Labor: Cape Verdean and African American Women in the American Textile Industry, 1900-1930” – Kathryn Silva Banks, Andrews University (co-sponsored by the MSU Center for Gender in Global Context and the MSU Women’s Resource Center)

Monday, February 24 – “Everyday Translations: Practices and Challenges among Muslim-Arab Public Sector Workers in France” – Chantal Tetreault; MSU Department of Anthropology  (co-sponsored by the MSU Muslim Studies)

MARCH

Friday, March 14 – “‘The Moralistic God and the Factory System’: Uncovering Religion in a 1950s Automobile Factory” – Matthew Pehl, History Department, Augustana College  (co-sponsored by Motorcities/The Automobile National Heritage Area)

Monday, March 17 – “The Chicago Couriers Union, 2003-2010; A Case Study in Solidarity Unionism” – Colin Bossen, American Studies, Harvard University

APRIL

Thursday, April 3 – “‘A Growing Apprehension’: Canadians and the Great Labor Uprising of 1877 in the United States” – Jean-Philip Mathieu, History Department, University of Quebec (co-sponsored by the MSU Canadian Studies Center)

Monday, April 14 – “In the Wake of Disaster: The Lake Carriers’ Association, Welfare Capitalism and Lake Erie’s Black Friday Storm of 1916”  – Matthew Daley, History Department, Grand Valley State University

All presentations take place 12:15 – 1:30 in the MSU Museum Auditorium unless noted otherwise

“Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives” is a cooperative project of the Michigan Traditional Arts Program (MSU Museum) and the Labor Education Program (MSU School of Human Resources and Labor Relations).  For more information on the MSU Museum and its exhibits and events, go to the website: http://museum.msu.edu. For more information concerning the Labor Education Program and the School for Human Resources and Labor Relations, go to the website: http://www.hrlr.msu.edu.