BOOK DISCUSSIONS

The UC Davis Health System’s Interprofessional Book Club, in meetings through January, is exploring the connections between the Great Migration and social determinants of health and health disparities.

Jann Murray-García, assistant adjunct professor at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, who facilitates the book club discussions, said the book club meetings will highlight the experiences of those who migrated to the Sacramento region and are now among the African American geriatric population served by the UC Davis Health System.

"To provide excellent health care to this population, we need to go beyond knowing that they are African Americans, to trying to understand their perspectives and interactions within our health system in the context of the history of our region and nation," Murray-García said. "We have to understand a population's history to fully understand the social determinants that lead to health disparities."

Read more, including meeting dates and details, in this UC Davis Health System news release.

Upcoming programs in the Campus Community Book Project include a talk by English professor Joe Wenderoth on "Metaphors and Migration in Literature and Poetry."

The talk is scheduled from 12:10 to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, in the Mee Room at the Memorial Union. Admission is free and open to the public.

This year's book is The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, about the period in the United States, 1915 to 1970, when 6 million blacks fled the South, going north and west, changing the face of the country.

The book by Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winner with The New York Times, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction in 2010.

The book project grew out of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a way to inspire people to look at the world in different ways, to acknowledge and consider different perspectives, and to engage in respectful discussion. The Office of Campus Community Relations sponsors the project.

In addition to informal conversation among ourselves, the formal schedule for 2012-13 includes lectures and panel discussions, exhibitions and films, and the five-day-long program Worlds of Discovery and Loss: The Art of Migration, comprising visual and performing art.

The schedule concludes Feb. 12 with Wilkerson’s talk and book signing at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

Lectures, conversation and film

• Tuesday, Oct. 30 — “A Conversation on the Migration and Prosperity of African-Americans in Sacramento.” 5:30-7:30 p.m., Underground Bookstore, 2814 35th St., Sacramento.

• Tuesday, Nov. 6 — Lunch and Learn: "An Examination of Jacob Lawrence's The 1920s ... The Migrants Arrive and Cast Their Ballots," a silkscreen print, created in 2004. Facilitated by Stacey Shelnut-Hendrick, director of education, Crocker Art Museum. Noon-1 p.m., Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St., Sacramento.

• Thursday, Nov. 8 — "Metaphors and Migration in Literature and Poetry," with Joe Wenderoth, professor, Department of English. 12:10-1:30 p.m., Mee Room, Memorial Union.

• Thursday, Nov. 15 — Up from the Bottom: The Search for the American Dream, film, 2009. 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., First-Floor Library Instruction Lab, Shields Library.

• Friday, Nov. 16 — "Crafting Change: African American Folk Artists and the Civil Rights Movement," with Pat Turner, vice provost, Undergraduate Education, and professor, departments of African and African American Studies, and American Studies. 12:10-1:30 p.m., Mee Room, MU.

• Wednesday, Nov. 28 — "The History of Redlining and Restrictive Covenants in Sacramento: Explaining Today's Neighborhoods," with Jesus Hernandez, lecturer, Department of Sociology. Noon-1 p.m., 1222 Education Building (lecture hall), Sacramento campus.

• Thursday, Nov. 29 — "Transnational Migration and Health," with Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, professor, clinical internal medicine, and director, Center for Reducing Health Disparities. Noon-1 p.m., 1222 Education Building (lecture hall), Sacramento campus.

All events listed here are open to the public, and all are free except the Nov. 6 program, which requires paid admission to the museum.

Check back here for more events as they draw closer, or look at the complete schedule.

Worlds of Discovery and Loss

The Department of Music, the Department of Theatre and Dance, and the UC Davis Humanities Institute join the Mondavi Center in presenting Worlds of Discovery and Loss: The Art of Migration, described as a look at the creative worlds generated by migration in its many forms.

Worlds of Discovery and Loss, Jan. 30 to Feb. 3, includes music, cabaret and dramatic art by UC Davis and visiting performers; and an art show — and explanations from the visiting artists on how cultural and geographic migration affects their work.

The show, Reflections on Migrations, Real and Imagined, features five emerging artists from California. Art professor Robin Hill curated the show, to be presented in the Mondavi Center’s lobby.

Here is the Worlds of Discovery and Loss schedule:

• Wednesday, Jan. 30 — A performance of Korean p’ansori (story-singing, by one person with a barrel drum) by Chan Park, associate professor of Korean language, literature and performance studies at Ohio State University. 8 p.m., Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

• Thursday, Jan. 31 — Shinkoskey Noon Concert, Worlds of Discovery and Loss: The Art of Migration, by the Calder Quartet, Rootstock Percussion Trio and Mayumi Hama on marimba. 12:05 p.m., Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby.

• Thursday, Jan. 31 — Migration and Other Projects, a presentation by Master of Fine Arts candidates in dramatic art, with the support of the Institute for Exploration in Theatre, Dance and Performance. 8 p.m., Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

• Friday, Feb. 1 — Empyrean Ensemble, UC Davis’ ensemble in residence, with a program that includes music by Composer-in-Residence Lei Liang and the Art of Migration fellows. 8 p.m., Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Preconcert talk, 7 p.m., Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby.

• Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 2-3 — Calder Quartet. 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

• Saturday, Feb. 2 — Stranger, Beware …: A Night of European Cabaret with Bella Merlin, professor, Department of Theatre and Dance. 10:30 p.m., Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.

• Sunday, Feb. 3 — UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, featuring Mayumi Hama on marimba. 7 p.m., Jackson Hall.

Tickets required for these events in Worlds of Discovery and Loss: Chan Park; Empyrean Ensemble; Calder Quartet, Rootstock Percussion Trio and Mayumi Hama on marimba (Feb. 2-3); and UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. The others are free. Mondavi Center tickets: mondaviarts.org or (530) 754-2787 or (800) 754-2787.

Exhibitions and jazz concert

The Warmth of Other Suns is featured in an exhibition that runs through fall quarter in the lobby of Shields Library, and two art exhibitions related to the Great Migration are set to open in March: one at the Nelson Gallery at UC Davis and the other at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.

• Rebirth of a Nation: Travis Somerville's 1963 — Mixed-media installation by the San Francisco-based Somerville, who was born in 1963 in Atlanta and grew up during the civil rights movement. As a result, his work explores both historical and present day issues of racism and oppression in the United States. In this installation, visitors enter a small wooden cabin where Somerville exposes them to images, newspaper clippings and video. March 3-May 5, Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St., Sacramento.

• Views on Migration: Jacob Lawrence and Elizabeth Catlett — March 28-May 19, Nelson Gallery, Nelson Hall.

The Crocker also plans a concert, Jazz and the Fight Against Segregation, featuring the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet from the University of the Pacific, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, in the Setzer Foundation Auditorium at the museum, 216 O St., Sacramento.

Tickets required for the Crocker concert and for admission to the museum to see the exhibition: crockerartmuseum.org or (916) 808-1182.

Author's visit

• Tuesday, Feb. 12 — Isabel Wilkerson, talk, 8-9:30 p.m., Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts; and book signing, 9:30 p.m., Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby, Mondavi Center. Tickets: mondaviarts.org or (530) 754-2787 or (800) 754-2787.

The book

The Warmth of Other Suns is available in paperback for $11.95 ($5 off the list price) at UC Davis Stores.

Earlier coverage

"Book project: We're talking about 'The Warmth of Other Suns,'" Dateline UC Davis (Oct. 18, 2012)

“Book project 2012-13: The Warmth of Other Suns,” Dateline UC Davis (March 15, 2012)

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