Chicago 101

Chicago 101: Learning and Investigating the city that brought you Obama, Oprah, Blago, Rahm, Jarret, Axelrod, Duncan, Studs, Jesse, Fred Hampton and the original Rainbow Coalition, Jordan, Fermi, Padilla, Van der Rohe, Hansberry, Wayne's World, Kanye, and Fall Out Boy

This presentation will use the research practices of AREA Chicago, a publication and event series about social and cultural movements in Chicago, as a jumping off point for introducing the audience to important histories and policies that derive from Chitown which are now influencing national and world politics. The presentation will focus on key struggles around housing policy, education policy and labor policy as well as make nods to important social and cultural histories that we can find inspiration from. Chicago has been a policy lab for testing out ideas and theories which now have the potential to be pushed by the executive branch, so we gotta take at least 50 minutes to know where these folks and these ideas came from so we can know where they are going.

With Daniel Tucker, editor of AREA Chicago. Since 2005, AREA Chicago has organized over 50 networking events has published 8 magazines about Chicago in the last 4 years on themes such as "privatization of public space"; "local food systems"; "defining solidarity"; "prisons and community justice"; "education and social movements"; "the city as a neoliberal policy lab"; "the legacy of late 60s social movements and intergenerational dynamics"; and "money and its influence on our work." AREA has also initiated a community mapping project entitled "Notes for a People's Atlas of Chicago."