BARBARA EHRENREICH
Monday, January 15 at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall Seattle, 1119 Eighth Avenue

Co-presented with the TOWN HALL CENTER FOR CIVIC LIFE. We are delighted to welcome back noted social critic and historian Barbara Ehrenreich. After her recent acclaimed books on contemporary conditions for various classes of workers—Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch—she returns to work of a more historical nature previously evidenced by her book on the passion for war, Blood Rites. In Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Metropolitan), she looks at the many forms communal celebration have taken over the years—and assesses where they are today. "Ehrenreich teases out the many incarnations of sanctioned public revelry, starting with the protofeminist oreibasia, or Dionysian winter dance, in antiquity, and from there covering trance, ancient mystery cults and carnival, right up to rock and roll and sports-related mass celebrations of our own day. 'Why is so little left' of such rituals, she asks, bemoaning the 'loss of ecstatic pleasure.' Ehrenreich necessarily delineates the repressive reactions to such ecstasy by the forces of so-called 'civilization,' reasonably positing that rituals of joy are nearly as innate as the quest for food and shelter." - Publishers Weekly. $5 admission at the door (no advance tickets), handled by Town Hall. Town Hall Seattle is located at 1119 Eighth Avenue (corner of 8th & Seneca). For more information, please see www.townhallseattle.org or call (206) 652-4255.

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