Salon discussion with the author Rich Benjamin Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, by Rich Benjamin Spaces are limited so please contact jean@nysalon.org if you wish to attend. Saturday, April 17 at 3pmGet the Book Between 2007 and 2009, Rich Benjamin, a journalist-adventurer, packed his bags and embarked on a 26,909-mile journey throughout the heart of white America, to some of the fastest-growing and whitest locales in our nation. By 2042, whites will no longer be the American majority. As immigrant populations – largely people of color – increase in cities and suburbs, more and more whites are moving to small towns and exurban areas that are predominately, even extremely, white. Rich Benjamin calls these enclaves “Whitopias” (pronounced: “White-o-pias”). His journey to unlock the mysteries of Whitopias took him from a three-day white separatist retreat with links to Aryan Nations in North Idaho to the inner sanctum of George W. Bush’s White House–and many points in between. And to learn what makes Whitopias tick, and why and how they are growing, he lived in three of them (in Georgia, Idaho, and Utah) for several months apiece. A compelling raconteur, bon vivant, and scholar, Benjamin reveals what Whitopias are like and explores the urgent social and political implications of this startling phenomenon.
The NY Salon in association with The Albert Ellis Institute presents “Hardwired for Life?”
Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 6.30pm to 8.30pm Please RSVP to jean@nysalon.org
Venue: The Albert Ellis Institute
www.albertellis.org
45 E65 St
(Between Park Ave and Madison Ave) NY
NY
212 535 0822
Researchers in the field of behavioral genetics have asserted claims for a genetic basis to numerous behaviors, including homosexuality, aggression, alcoholism, and nurturing. Furthermore, a growing scientific and popular focus on genes and behavior has contributed to a resurgence of behavioral genetic determinism – the belief that genetics is the major factor in determining behavior. Just recently commentators have blamed the international economic crisis on the innate greed of our consumer “have it all now” society.
Are behaviors inbred, written indelibly in our genes as immutable biological imperatives, or is the environment more important in shaping our thoughts and actions? What are the social consequences of genetic diagnoses of such traits as intelligence, criminality, or homosexuality? How much of our behavior can be attributed to our hardwiring?
From 1987 to 1990, Bailey was a staff writer for Forbes magazine, covering economic, scientific and business topics. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Commentary, The Public Interest, Smithsonian, TechCentralStation, National Review, Reader’s Digest and many other publications.
Bailey has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including the NBC Nightly News, PBS’ Newshour, several National Public Radio programs, and various C-SPAN programs. He has lectured at Harvard University, Yale University, Morehouse University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, the University of Virginia, and many other places.
Stuart Derbyshireis a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Birmingham, UK. His lab is mainly focused on the inter-relationship between biology and psychology. Essentially he aims to understand how genes and brains inform behavior and experience and to what extent behavior and experience break free of biological constraint. Derbyshire’s main interest is in pain as a particularly tricky example of how the interface of biology and experience can be much less obvious than it seems. He has also written extensively on fetal pain, consciousness, genetics, ethics, shopping and economics.
David Shenkis the national bestselling author of five previous books, including The Forgetting, Data Smog and The Immortal Game. He is a correspondent for TheAtlantic.com, and has contributed to National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, Gourmet, Harper’s, The New Yorker, NPR, and PBS.
Shenk’s new book, The Genius in All of Us will be published by Doubleday on March 9, 2010 and will be available at the event.
Shenk’s book The Immortal Game: A History of Chess (Doubleday, 2006), was hailed as “superb,” by The Wall Street Journal, “fresh and fascinating” by The Chicago Sun-Times, “engaging” by The Washington Post, and “a thrilling tour” by Entertainment Weekly. Author Jonathan Cott called it “one of the most remarkable books I’ve read over the past many years — its ‘brilliancy’ illuminates so much of life in all its aspects.” In January, 2004, PBS broadcast “The Forgetting,” a prime-time documentary inspired by the book. Shenk speaks frequently on the history, biology and social urgency of Alzheimer’s disease. He has also advised the President’s Council on Bioethics on dementia-related issues.
Prior to that, Shenk published two books and dozens of essays on the emotional, social and political ramifications of the information revolution.
Dr. Kristene Doyle is the Associate Executive Director of the Albert Ellis Institute. She is also the Director of Clinical Services and Director of Child and Family Services at the Ellis Institute and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at St. John’s University. She received her Ph.D. in clinical and school psychology from Hofstra University and a Doctor of Science degree from the International Institute for the Advanced Studies of Psychotherapy and Applied Mental Health. She has conducted seminars and workshops and given numerous presentations, both nationally and internationally, on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and its application to various mental disorders, including anxiety and depression. Dr. Doyle has also appeared frequently on TV and radio and in newspapers across the country.
For more information please contact: jean@nysalon.org
From Publishers Weekly (Nov. 2009)
“Adam Walker, a poetry student at Columbia in the spring of 1967, is Auster’s latest everyman, revealed in four parts through the diary entries of a onetime admirer, the confessions of his once-close friend, the denials of his sister and Walker’s own self-made frame. With crisp, taut prose, Auster pushes the tension and his characters’ peculiar self-awareness to their limits, giving Walker a fractured, knowing quality that doesn’t always hold.
The best moments from Walker’s disparate, disturbing coming-of-age come in lush passages detailing Walker’s conflicted, incestuous love life (paramount to his education as a human being, but a violation of his self-made promise to live as an ethical human being). As the plot moves toward a Heart of Darkness–style journey into madness, the limits of Auster’s formalism become more apparent, but this study of a young poet doomed to life as a manifestation of poetry carries startling weight.”
Lush Life: A Novel, by Richard Price
Saturday, October 17, 3pm
For more information please contact: jean@nysalon.org
“No one has a better ear and eye for the American city than Richard Price, and in Lush Life, his first novel in five years, he leaves the fictional environs of Dempsy , New Jersey , where Clockers, Freedomland, and Samaritan were set, for a few crowded blocks of Manhattan ‘s Lower East Side.
There’s a crime at the heart of the story, but you don’t read Price for plot. Instead, you listen as he peels apart layers of class and history through the way his characters talk to each other: hipster bartenders who tell people they’re really writers, homeboys from housing projects named after the Jewish immigrants who have long left the neighborhood, and cops, cops, cops, circling the streets looking for a collar, disappearing into their cases as their own lives go to ruin.”
At NY Salon, we believe passionately in free speech and discussing ideas robustly. We agree with the quote generally attributed to Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."
Perhaps the spirit of the renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci, should live on in our own attempt to navigate the contemporary landscape: "He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast."
The clash of ideas is at the heart of the NY Salon; the last word can go on this to Oscar Wilde, ever the wit: "Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing."
Get the Book Between 2007 and 2009, Rich Benjamin, a journalist-adventurer, packed his bags and embarked on a 26,909-mile journey throughout the heart of white America, to some of the fastest-growing and whitest locales in our nation. By 2042, whites will no longer be the American majority. As immigrant populations – largely people of color – increase in cities and suburbs, more and more whites are moving to small towns and exurban areas that are predominately, even extremely, white. Rich Benjamin calls these enclaves “Whitopias” (pronounced: “White-o-pias”). His journey to unlock the mysteries of Whitopias took him from a three-day white separatist retreat with links to Aryan Nations in North Idaho to the inner sanctum of George W. Bush’s White House–and many points in between. And to learn what makes Whitopias tick, and why and how they are growing, he lived in three of them (in Georgia, Idaho, and Utah) for several months apiece. A compelling raconteur, bon vivant, and scholar, Benjamin reveals what Whitopias are like and explores the urgent social and political implications of this startling phenomenon.
Dr. Kristene Doyle 
