Local Author Showcase: Jean Freedman
Date and Time
Feb 26, 2018 5:30 pm
Location
Takoma
235 Carroll St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20012
Feb 26, 2018 5:30 pm
Takoma
Join Busboys and Poets Books as we welcome author Jean R. Freedman to discuss her recent biography, Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love, and Politics.
Reviewers have called the book “consummately researched and engagingly readable” and “a true miracle.” Peggy Seeger has been a leading voice in the British and American folk revivals since the 1950s. As a singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Peggy has seamlessly blended musical virtuosity with social and political activism. The younger sister of Pete and Mike Seeger, Peggy is both an exquisite interpreter of traditional songs and a passionate advocate for social change. She has written about civil rights, the labor movement, the environment, the women’s movement, and many other topics. Jean will discuss Peggy’s life and work and will play portions of her many recordings.
About Jean: Jean R. Freedman is an author, teacher, and scholar whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Journal of American Folklore, and the Fast Folk Musical Magazine, among other publications. She holds a PhD in folklore and has published on a wide variety of topics, including Scottish ballads, Jewish folk theater, and unconventional Civil War soldiers. Her first book, Whistling in the Dark: Memory and Culture in Wartime London, analyzes popular culture and political ideology in London during World War II.Jean teaches at George Washington University and Montgomery College and lives in the Washington, DC area with her family.
This event is co-sponsored by the University of Illinois Press. Celebrating 100 years of publishing, the University of Illinois Press has a deep commitment to scholarship on social justice and marginalized voices and topics. The University of Illinois Press is a leading publisher in music history, including its venerable Music in American Life series, which was launched in 1972. The series includes such celebrated titles as Stephen Wade’s The Beautiful Music All around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience, Will Kaufman’s Woody Guthrie, American Radical, and Jean R. Freedman’s Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love, and Politics.
Books will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please contact books@busboysandpoets.com with questions.
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