Loading Events

« All Events

  • This event has passed.

PCL Reads: Leslie Kern, Author Talk

April 12, 2021 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Free
Leslie Kern, a feminist geographer and the Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Mount Allison University, joins us virtually to discuss her latest book, Feminist City!
Librarians love getting book recommendations too! As a citywide initiative, we invited Groundwork Rhode Island’s Executive Director, Amelia Rose, to co-host PCL READS this month and to select the next book. Combining personal memoir, feminist theory and pop culture analysis, Feminist City is a revelatory work that “offers intersectional insights into the gendered nature of the modern city” (Kirkus). Join us on Monday, April 12th at 6PM as we meet the author, feminist geographer Leslie Kern, at this very special event! We also invite YOU to participate in our lively discussion. Get free tickets through Eventbrite to receive the Zoom link.
Dr. Leslie Kern is an Associate Professor of Geography and Environment and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Mount Allison University. She is the author of Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-made World and Sex and the Revitalized City: Gender, Condominium Development, and Urban Citizenship. Her research focuses on gentrification in North American cities, exploring issues such as embodiment, gendered labor conditions, and environmental and human health using feminist urban theory.
Feminist City is an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world. We live in the city of men. Our public spaces are not designed for female bodies. There is little consideration for women as mothers, workers, or carers. The urban streets often are a place of threats rather than community. Gentrification has made the everyday lives of women even more difficult. What would a metropolis for working women look like? A city of friendships beyond Sex and the City. A transit system that accommodates mothers with strollers on the school run. A public space with enough toilets. A place where women can walk without harassment.
In Feminist City, through history, personal experience, and popular culture Leslie Kern exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the social inequalities built into our cities, homes, and neighborhoods. Kern offers an alternative vision of the feminist city. Taking on fear, motherhood, friendship, activism, and the joys and perils of being alone, Kern maps the city from new vantage points, laying out an intersectional feminist approach to urban histories and proposes that the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping a new urban future. It is time to dismantle what we take for granted about cities and to ask how we can build more just, sustainable, and women-friendly cities together.

Venue

Virtual Event