Join Book Launch And Discussion With Exiled Writers

The Park Center for Independent Media and the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival invite you to a book launch and discussion with Claire Gleitman on her new book, “Anxious Masculinity in the Drama of Arthur Miller and Beyond: Salesmen, Sluggers, and Big Daddies.”

Join us on Wednesday, September 21, at 7:00 p.m. Register now on Zoom.

Gleitman will be in conversation with scholar Susan C. W. Abbotson of Rhode Island College on the book, playwright Arthur Miller, and contemporary drama. Introducing the book will be Chris Holmes, associate professor and chair in the Department of Literatures in English at Ithaca College.

Read more on Gleitman and Abbotson here.

Next Thursday will bring an evening celebrating four writers who have braved danger and refused censorship to exercise their artistic independence.

Join us on Thursday, September 22, at 5:30 p.m. in Textor 101, Ithaca College.

Poet Dmitry Bykov nearly died in a poisoning, then was banned from teaching or appearing on Russian TV. Essayist Pwaangulongii Dauod received death threats for writing about queer culture in Nigeria. Cartoonist Pedro X. Molina watched Nicaraguan state forces jail his colleagues and occupy his newspaper’s offices. Novelist Anouar Rahmani was threatened with imprisonment for writing about human rights in Algeria.

Read more about these four artists and their work here.

On September 7, the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival and the Park Center for Independent Media facilitated a conversation with scholars and media experts on coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war in independent and mainstream media.

Read a thorough report of the event in The Ithacan: “The guest speakers were Natalie Gryvnyak, a journalist and founder of the information and production agency, In-features; Masha Shpolberg, assistant professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College; and Zenon Wasyliw, professor at the Department of History at Ithaca College. All speakers’ roots traced back to Ukraine. The round table was moderated by Raza Rumi, director of the PCIM.”

And please find a recording of this engaging and important conversation in full here.

The consequences of a heating planet are scorching the U.S. Southwest and Mountain West after years of inaction. Two decades of extreme heat and shrinking moisture levels have caused a “megadrought” in states from California to Colorado, amounting to the driest period in 1,200 years.

The west’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are down to record lows and dropping. Triple-digit heat waves are lingering in cities including Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, making for perilous summer weather. Shriveled forests and grass allow wildfires to erupt year-round.

Read more on the consequences of the drought on The Edge.

On September 14, 2021, Director Heidi Peltier of the Costs of War Project’s “20 Years of War” research series sat down with PCIM Director Raza Rumi to talk about the project, its findings, and the impact of the United States’ bloated defense budget on American citizens and the world.

“When you put all of that [spending] together,” Peltier said, “these post-9/11 wars have already cost, or will cost, $8 trillion. And that number may continue to rise.”

“Directly, nearly a million lives have been lost in the post-9/11 wars. A small fraction of that is U.S. troops. A bit more than that is U.S. contractors — we actually have more deaths of contractors than troops. But by far the greatest losses have been in civilians during the post-9/11 wars.”

Read and watch their full conversation on The Edge.

1. 339 wildfires and 10 million people at risk of floods: Climate hazards in the US today | The Independent

2. Quiet Quitting Is a Fake Trend | The Atlantic

3. Save America PAC Pays Attorney $3 Million Advance To Defend Trump: Reports | HuffPost

4. Ukraine war: Mass exhumations at Izyum forest graves site | BBC

5. January 6 panel could release report on Trump and Capitol attack before midterms | The Guardian