CALENDAR: Andrew Finstuen on 'Reinhold Niebuhr's Vision for America' - Fri., Apr. 3 @ 7pm
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On Fri., Apr. 3, at 7:00 p.m., the 2008-2009 UFPPC Speaker Series will present Andrew Finstuen, a visiting assistant professor with a Ph.D. in History currently teaching in the Department of Religion at Pacific Lutheran, speaking about "Original Sin and the Prospects for Justice: Reinhold Niebuhr's Vision for the Kingdom of God in America" at King's Books in Tacoma (218 St. Helens Ave.). -- Reinhold Niebuhr's work had a crucial influence on Martin Luther King Jr., who read Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) in the fall of 1950. -- As historian Taylor Branch wrote in one of President Barack Obama's favorite books, "[King] invoked Niebuhr in every one of his own major books, always with a sketch of Moral Man and Immoral Society. He confessed that he became 'enamored' of Niebuhr . . . [King] came to describe Niebuhr as a prime influence upon his life, and Gandhian nonviolence as 'merely a Niebuhrian strategem of power.' King devoted much of his remaining graduate school career to the study of Niebuhr, who touched him on all his tender points, from pacifism and race to sin" (Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988], p. 87). -- More information below.[1] ...
DIGGING DEEPER LXXIII: Economic realities -- Mon., Feb. 16 & 23 @ 7pm
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On two successive Mondays, Feb. 16 & 23, at 7:00 p.m., UFPPC's study circle, Digging Deeper, will examine two unconventional books that attempt to grapple with the new economic realities of our time: James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005), and Loretta Napoleoni, Rogue Economics: Capitalism's New Reality (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008).[1] -- James Kunstler, a social critic and novelist, argues that the civilization the West built on cheap energy has reached its limit of expansion, and is about to undergo a massive and historic contraction that will lead to catastrophe on a world-historical scale. -- Kunstler believes that the American public is "sleepwalking into a future of hardship and turbulence." -- Loretta Napoleoni, a widely traveled economist who has worked both for financial institutions and for newspapers, argues that "the world is being reshaped by dark economic forces, creating victims out of millions of ordinary people whose lives have become trapped inside a fantasy world of consumerism." -- Both books offer fresh insights into the contemporary crisis. -- More information below....
DIGGING DEEPER LXXII: Michelle Obama -- Mon., Feb. 9 @ 7pm
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On Mon., Feb. 9, at 7:00 p.m., UFPPC's study circle, Digging Deeper, will examine Liza Mundy's Michelle: A Biography (Simon and Schuster, 2008). From the book description: "Who is the woman Barack Obama calls 'the boss'? In Michelle, Washington Post writer Liza Mundy paints a revealing and intimate portrait, taking us inside the marriage of the most dynamic couple in politics today. She shows how well they complement each other: Michelle, the highly organized, sometimes intimidating, list-making pragmatist; Barack, the introspective political charmer who won't pick up his socks but shoots for the stars. . . . Michelle's story carries with it all the extraordinary achievements and lingering pain of America in the post-civil rights era. . . . In this carefully reported biography, drawing upon interviews with more than one hundred people, including one with Michelle herself, Mundy captures the complexity of this remarkable woman and the remarkable life she has lived." ....