Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs
a conversation with author and journalist Benjamin Herold
Speaker
Benjamin Herold, Alexandra Murphy, Conan Smith, Karyn Lacy, Mo TorresDate & time
Location
Join the Center for Racial Justice in welcoming author and journalist Benjamin Herold for a conversation about his latest book Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs. Through the stories of five American families, Disillusioned is a masterful and timely exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools. Herold will be joined in conversation by a panel of experts in sociology, public policy, and public health.
Accessibility
Presenters will use microphones. A recording will be available after the event.
This event is part of our Fall 2024 Racial Foundations of Public Policy speaker series and is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Housing Solutions for Health Equity, the Marsal Family School of Education, Education Policy Initiative, and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. The event is free and open to the public.
About the speakers
Benjamin Herold is a veteran education reporter whose work has appeared in Education Week, PBS NewsHour, Huffington Post, The Hechinger Report, NPR, WHYY, and the Philadelphia Public School Notebook. He previously worked as a researcher, documentary filmmaker, waiter, and training specialist for rape-crisis and domestic-violence-prevention organizations.
Alexandra Murphy is an assistant professor of sociology and a faculty affiliate of the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, with a courtesy appointment at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. In her research, she uses ethnographic methods to examine how poverty and inequality are experienced, structured, and reproduced across and within multiple domains of social life, including neighborhoods, social networks, and the state.
Conan Smith is the president and CEO of Michigan Environmental Council. Conan is an experienced nonprofit leader, policy innovator and respected public official. He has been a long-time advocate for the environment, public health and equity in Michigan. Starting as a volunteer and working his way up to leadership positions such as a program director, executive director and board member, he knows the internal organization and external efforts of nonprofits from the ground up.
Karyn Lacy is an associate professor of sociology and an associate professor of afroamerican and african studies at the University of Michigan. Her research includes politics and social change, qualitative approaches, race and ethnicity, sociology of culture, and urban and community sociology.
Mo Torres is a sociologist interested in urban political economy, inequality, the sociology of race/racism, and the politics of knowledge production. He is a postdoctoral fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows and an assistant professor of sociology and public policy. His current book project uses mixed and historical methods to explore the politics of post-industrial decline and the production of urban austerity in Michigan from the 1970s to the present.
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