Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Latest News”

Chicago Region Is At Risk For A Census Undercount

By Chicago Public Media on September 11, 2020

Donald Dew directs the Counting on Chicago Coalition, and he's working to increase Chicago’s response rate in the 2020 census. Data collection is ending in just a few weeks, after the U.S. Census Bureau bumped up the deadline by a month to September 30...

Starting Freshman Year During A Pandemic

By Chicago Public Media on September 11, 2020

College is taking many forms this fall as some students return to campus for remote classes and others login from home. Reporter Kate McGee is following a few freshmen from the Chicago area during their first semester.

Host: Mary Dixon

5 Questions with Alexander Wragge-Morley, author of “Aesthetic Science: Representing Nature in the Royal Society of London, 1650–1720”

By PublicityTeam on September 10, 2020

In his new book, Aesthetic Science, Alexander Wragge-Morley explores scientific representation in the early modern period and shows us how vital the role of subjective experience is to the communication of knowledge about nature. It’s a fascinating, groundbreaking reconsideration of the role of aesthetic experience in the history of the empirical sciences, and we sent him a few questions about it. In Aesthetic Science, you explore the relationship between sensory experience and the production of knowledge. What drew you to the topic? What do you like about it? I’d say that there’s a lot to like when you think about the relationship between sensory experience and the production of knowledge. To start, the issue is obviously fundamental—and I like fundamental issues. I don’t think you can give a good account of knowledge production unless you think hard about how the senses—with all the feelings they provoke—give us access to the external world. What’s more, that fundamental question allows you to think about the history of science in new ways. By focusing on how the scientists of seventeenth-century England related to sensory experience, I was able to pull a wide range of disciplines together—disciplines that are usually studied separately. In Aesthetic […]

The post 5 Questions with Alexander Wragge-Morley, author of “Aesthetic Science: Representing Nature in the Royal Society of London, 1650–1720” appeared first on The Chicago Blog.

CPS Begins First Day Of Remote Classes

By Chicago Public Media on September 8, 2020

Chicago public school students logged in this morning for their first day of remote school. Reporters were with students and school leaders Tuesday, capturing the mix of hope and nerves across the city.

Host: Kate McGee
Reporter: Minju Park

Grave Of Nancy Green, Original ‘Aunt Jemima,’ Gets Headstone

By Chicago Public Media on September 8, 2020

For decades, Nancy Green played the Aunt Jemima character that has long been on pancake boxes. She died in 1923 and was buried in an unmarked plot of land on the city’s South Side. Over the weekend she got a headstone honoring her life and her legacy.
...

CPS Counselor Crowdfunds For A Special Return To School

By Chicago Public Media on September 8, 2020

A social worker in Chicago raised money over the summer so each of her students could get a special basket of things to help them deal with their feelings.

Host: Susie An
Reporter: Sarah Karp

Read an Excerpt from “Tacit Racism” by Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Duck

By PublicityTeam on September 8, 2020

As shown every time we read or watch the news, racism is ubiquitous in America. Yet racism is so insidious that it exists on a more micro, common level as well. Effecting all swaths of culture and society, it permeates aspects of day-to-day life, especially when it is unexpected. In Tacit Racism, Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Duck illustrate the many ways in which racism is coded into the everyday social expectations of Americans. The following is a slightly altered excerpt from the introduction to Tacit Racism.  Racism Is a Clear and Present Danger If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. —Lyndon B. Johnson Since the 1670’s, fifty years after the first Africans were sold into slavery at Jamestown in 1619, racism has steadily and relentlessly wormed its way so deeply into the foundations of the American democratic experiment that we typically don’t even notice it. Racism does not usually take an obvious form that we can see and prevent, rather it masquerades as the most ordinary of daily actions: […]

The post Read an Excerpt from “Tacit Racism” by Anne Warfield Rawls and Waverly Duck appeared first on The Chicago Blog.

What’s Behind The Legislative Probe Into Speaker Madigan

By Chicago Public Media on September 7, 2020

Republicans triggered a House investigation into State House Speaker Michael Madigan’s dealings with ComEd, but the speaker’s ouster appears to be a political longshot.

Host: Mary Dixon
Reporter: Dave McKinney

Senior Isolation Has Worsened During The Pandemic

By Chicago Public Media on September 7, 2020

Seniors struggle with isolation and the pandemic has only made that worse. Experts say isolation can be risky for their physical and mental health. But organizations around the Chicago area are trying to help with online classes, teletherapy, and visit...

Have An Interest And A Concern Beyond Yourself

By Chicago Public Media on September 5, 2020

Sister Carol Fox is 83 years old, a Dominican nun who lives on her own in suburban Chicago. A few months ago, Lenore Fox Monti asked her aunt to record a remote interview for StoryCorps.

Producer: Bill Healy

Six Questions with Thomas Milan Konda, author of “Conspiracies of Conspiracies”

By PublicityTeam on September 3, 2020

The viral spread and increasing normalization of incendiary conspiracy theories have been one of the most dismaying and dangerous trends in recent American political life. The QAnon conspiracy is most prominent of today’s Internet-borne fringe theories: its influence has even reached the seats of national governmental power, with at least ten current Republican Congressional candidates expressing support for it. We spoke at length with Thomas Milan Konda, author of Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusional Thinking Has Overrun America—called “the most detailed genealogy of American conspiracy theories yet written” by the American Historical Review—to gain some perspective on our current conspiracy crisis. The QAnon conspiracy is increasingly in the news these days—a formerly fringe phenomena that has now wormed its way into the mainstream. How does its rise fit in with what we know about how conspiracy theories work? How conspiracy theories “work” is really two questions: what is their appeal and how are they spread? Their appeal is always the same, and in this regard QAnon works the same way its predecessors did. Its three-part argument is the one that has always shored up conspiracy theories: (1) An insidious, powerful elite (2) secretly manipulates our various institutions from behind the […]

The post Six Questions with Thomas Milan Konda, author of “Conspiracies of Conspiracies” appeared first on The Chicago Blog.

Parents Launch DIY Learning Pods

By Chicago Public Media on September 2, 2020

Some families are hiring tutors to oversee remote learning pods, and some worry this could leave some kids further behind.

Host: Melba Lara
Reporter: Susie An

Community Raises Funds To Keep Heirloom Books Open

By Chicago Public Media on September 1, 2020

Community members in Chicago’s Edgewater and Rogers Park neighborhoods are trying to keep an independent bookstore open after its owner died last month. A GoFundMe campaign for Heirloom Books has already raised about $13,000.

Host: Melba Lara
Reporter...

Trump Visits Kenosha As Unrest Continues

By Chicago Public Media on September 1, 2020

Tensions are high again in Kenosha Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s visit to the town brought out demonstrators, some supporting the president and others opposing him.

Host: Melba Lara
Reporter: Michael Puente

Kenosha, Wisc. Was A Quiet Town Before The National Spotlight

By Chicago Public Media on September 1, 2020

President Trump is expected to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin Tuesday, a city once known for automotive manufacturing. Despite the turmoil of the last week and half, Kenosha residents say their city is a great place to raise a family.

Host: Mary Dixon
Repor...

Read Excerpts from “The Province of Affliction” by Ben Mutschler

By PublicityTeam on August 31, 2020

The following are two excerpts from Ben Mutschler’s recent publication, The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England.  The book explores the place of illness in everyday life—the ways in which it shaped families and households and became bound up in governance at all levels. The passages below draw from the introduction to a chapter on smallpox and the politics of contagion, followed by a small portion of a case study based on the diary of Ashley Bowen.  The sailor, ship rigger, painter, poet, husband, and father chronicled the ravages of smallpox as it burned through his town of Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1773—an event at once terrifying and all-too-common in early New England. Perhaps no other affliction in eighteenth-century New England received the attention given to smallpox. Even the most laconic of diarists noted its presence and charted its approach; others devoted entire journals to its rages. Letters written from infected areas to relatives, friends, and business partners survive despite authors’ pleas to burn such material lest the virulent distemper spread further. Newspapers reported on outbreaks throughout the Atlantic world. Chronologies of significant events compiled at the end of almanacs memorialized serious epidemics. Legislative records reveal extensive […]

The post Read Excerpts from “The Province of Affliction” by Ben Mutschler appeared first on The Chicago Blog.

Midwives Pursuing New Birthing Center For Women On The South Side

By Chicago Public Media on August 31, 2020

Two midwives have ambitious plans to open a freestanding birthing center on the South Side. Pregnant women have few options to deliver. And there will be fewer choices next year after Mercy Hospital in Bronzeville closes.

Host: Mary Dixon
Reporter: K...