Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City

Please join Associate Professor William Sites as he reads and discusses ideas from his new book, Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City. He’ll be joined by Professor Emeritus Larry Bennett of DePaul University, author of The Third City: Chicago and American Urbanism. Q&A will follow.

Presented by the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice in partnership with Seminary Co-op Bookstore

** Free to attend but registration is required. Registrants will receive a personal Zoom webinar link on the morning of the event**

Exclusive Offer from Seminar Co-op Bookstore
Preorder today and receive a signed copy of Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City by William Sites. See the registration confirmation email for more information.

https://www.semcoop.com/sun-ras-chicago

ISBN: 987022673217 | $30.00

About the Book:
Sun Ra (1914-93) was one of the most wildly prolific and unfailingly eccentric figures in the history of music. Renowned for extravagant performances in which his Arkestra appeared in neo-Egyptian garb, the keyboardist and bandleader also espoused an interstellar cosmology that claimed the planet Saturn as his true home. In Sun Ra's Chicago, William Sites brings this visionary musician back to earth--specifically to the city's South Side, where from 1946 to 1961 he lived and relaunched his career. The postwar South Side was a hotbed of unorthodox religious and cultural activism: Afrocentric philosophies flourished, storefront prophets sold "dream-book bibles," and Elijah Muhammad was building the Nation of Islam. It was also an unruly musical crossroads where the man then known as Sonny Blount drew from an array of intellectual and musical sources--from radical nationalism, revisionist Christianity, and science fiction to jazz, blues, Latin dance music, and pop exotica--to construct a philosophy and performance style that imagined a new identity and future for African Americans. Sun Ra's Chicago shows that late twentieth-century Afrofuturism emerged from a deep, utopian engagement with the city--and that by excavating the postwar black experience of Sun Ra's South Side milieu, we can come to see the possibilities of urban life in new ways.

About the Author:
William Sites is Associate Professor in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago. His fields of interest include urban and community studies, political economy, social movements, immigration, race, culture, social theory, and historical methods.

About the Interlocutor:
Larry Bennett retired from the Political Science department at DePaul University in 2017. His books include The Third City: Chicago and American Urbanism (University of Chicago Press) and the co-edited Neoliberal Chicago (University of Illinois Press). Professor Bennett is co-editor of the Temple University Press book series, Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy. In 2017 and 2018 he served as interim Executive Director of North Branch Works, a North Side neighborhood economic development nonprofit, and he currently serves as Chair of NBW’s Board of Directors.

Information about the virtual reading:

• Free to attend but, registration is required.
• **Registrants will receive a Zoom webinar link on the morning of the event**
• Closed-captioning will be available.
• Program will be recorded.
• For general information and questions about accessibility, contact events@ssa.uchicago.edu or call 773.702.9700.