This week the Mark Twain House and Museum hosted a symposium on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, first published in 1980. Jeff Zinn, the author’s son, spoke about how conventional many parts of the household was growing up, with father as breadwinner and mother as “housewife.” He alluded to there being some differences, but did not elaborate.
Nicolas Lampert, author of A People’s Art History of the United States: 250 Years of Activist Art and Artists Working in Social Justice Movements and Marc Favreau, editorial director of The New Press, shed some light on how an idea can transform into a published book. For Lampert, it involved a car ride with Howard Zinn.
Favreau sounded optimistic about the turn in our culture, evidenced by how New Press title The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is getting read widely, not just by the usual suspects.
The conversation quickly moved away from Howard Zinn’s work and into questions from moderator Will K. Wilkins about the art world. The audience sought to make this a conversation with commentary at the end of the evening, sharing their own struggles as teachers in the age of high stakes standardized testing and seeking advice for ways to teach, at any level, in a climate where educators are expected to not have opinions or present material in any way that might appear as if they are asserting one ideology as the truth.
The next event at the Mark Twain House & Museum is BECK & CALL, the servants tour, directed by Steven Raider-Ginsburg. Tours begin tonight at 7. Tickets are $22 for adults. For more information, see the Mark Twain House & Museum page.
