An Author Event with Dr. Gilya Gerda Schmidt
Union Ave. Books is excited to present Dr. Gilya Schmidt for Hazzan Mordecai Gustav Heiser: An Artist, His Art, and the Cantor Tradition in America. This event will take place on Thursday, September 19th at 6pm at Union Ave. Books in Downtown Knoxville. The store requests that attendees RSVP on their site, linked here.
Dr. Schmidt will present two recordings of Cantor Heiser’s music, along with a short reading from the book. She will also be signing books for attendees.
About the Author
GILYA GERDA SCHMIDT is professor emerita of Religious Studies and director emerita of the Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her most recent book is Süssen Is Now Free of Jews: World War II, the Holocaust, and Rural Judaism.
About the Book
When Gilya Gerda Schmidt met him in 1986, Cantor Heiser had spent forty-six of his eighty-one years as a US citizen and was well-acquainted with mourning. Heiser had assumed the cantorate at Congregation B’nai Israel in the East End of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1942. A master of the cantor’s art, he was renowned for his style, elegant choir and service arrangements, and rich, dolesome voice, which seemed to pass effortlessly into hearers’ hearts.
But this book is more than a memorial to Heiser. Schmidt melds decades of archival research, conservation efforts, family interviews, and trips to Jerusalem and Berlin into a critical reconstruction of the life and vision of Hazzan Mordecai Gustav Heiser in the multiple contexts that shaped him. Coming of age in Berlin in the afterglow of the Second German Empire meant that young Gustav had tasted European Jewish culture in a rare state of refinement and modernity. But by January 30, 1940, when he reached New York with his wife, Elly, and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Judith, Cantor Heiser had lost nearly all of his living family relations to the extermination programs of the German Reich, after narrowly surviving a brief incarceration at Sachsenhausen.
While Cantor Heiser’s art was steeped in nineteenth-century tradition, Schmidt contends that Heiser’s music was a powerful affirmation of Jewish life in the twentieth century. In a final chapter, Schmidt describes his influence on the American cantorate and American culture and society.
MTSU’s Center for Historic Preservation to Host Event Celebrating Dr. Joseph R. Millichap’s New Book on Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and FSA Photography
Murfreesboro, TN (Sept. 4, 2024) — Middle Tennessee State University’s Center for Historic Preservation is pleased to announce a special event featuring Dr. Joseph R. Millichap, who will present on his new book, These Vivid American Documents: Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and FSA Photobooks, published by the University of Tennessee Press. The presentation will take place on Thursday, Oct. 3, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM at the Center for Historic Preservation, located at 225 W College St, Murfreesboro, TN 37130.
Dr. Millichap’s new book, releasing on September 25, offers an insightful exploration of the work of renowned photographers Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. It examines their contributions to the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the Great Depression and the impact of their photobooks on American culture and history. The presentation will delve into the significance of Evans and Lange’s visual documentation of American life and how their work continues to resonate in contemporary discussions about photography, art, and social history.
“The press is thrilled to publish this new take on the iconic work—both visual and written—that was carried out by the Farm Security Administration,” said Katie Hannah, director of the University of Tennessee Press. “Dr. Millichap’s keen analysis brings renewed attention to an important New Deal agency and provides new understanding of the interplay between images and text during the Modern Period.”
This event is free and open to the public. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase copies of These Vivid American Documents and have them signed by the author.
For more information about the event, please contact Walt Evans at wevans10@utk.edu, or visit utpress.org/events.
About the University of Tennessee Press
The University of Tennessee Press is the Volunteer State’s book publisher, committed to preserving and promoting the rich cultural and intellectual heritage of Tennessee and the region. Through our focused publishing program, we strive to deepen appreciation for the communities, ecosystems, and histories that make this place unique. Ultimately, our mission is to enlighten readers, foster cultural dialogue, and improve the quality of life for the people of Tennessee and around the world.
About the Center for Historic Preservation
Established in 1984 as MTSU’s first Center of Excellence, the Center for Historic Preservation works with communities to interpret and promote their historic assets through education, research, and preservation. Working within state, regional, and national partnerships, the Center focuses its efforts on heritage area development, rural preservation, heritage education, and heritage tourism through diverse, inclusive preservation practice and programs. In doing so, the Center enhances citizens’ sense of place, pride, and identity.
An Author event with Ira J. Allen
Bright Side Bookshop in Flagstaff, AZ, is excited to host a book reading, Q & A and signing with local author Ira J. Allen, author of Panic Now: Tools for Humanizing. This event will take place Thursday, Oct. 17 at 6:00 PM.
About The Book: When was the best time to panic about the varying crises facing humanity? Twenty years ago. But the next best time? Now?
In line with other considerations of what we have come to call the Anthropocene, in Panic Now? Tools for Humanizing, Ira J. Allen takes the reader on a journey through difficult feelings about the various crises facing humanity, and from there, to new ways of facing impending dread with a sense of empowerment. The interrelated threats of climate collapse, an artificial intelligence revolution, a sixth mass extinction, a novel chemical crisis, and more are all brought to us by what Allen describes as “CaCaCo,” the carbon-capitalism-colonialism assemblage. After suggesting that it is absolutely time to panic, he asks: how do we manage to panic productively?
Admitting there is no one script for everyone to follow, the author traces how we might adopt attitudes and practices that allow us to move through this liminal space between fear and action collectively. This book is a master class in how to create better, more humanizing outcomes by confronting the panic that goes along with the realization that the world as we know it is ending. Rather than remaining mentally, emotionally, imaginatively, and practically stuck in this historical condition, Allen invites us to a very particular, action-oriented mode of panic, which can indeed incite our imaginations to move from panic to empowerment.
About The Author: IRA J. ALLEN is an associate professor of rhetoric, writing, and digital media studies in the departments of English and Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He is the author of The Ethical Fantasy of Rhetorical Theory.