Why has it been so hard for American workers to make a living? Why haven’t the economy’s gains of the recent past meant higher wages for everyone? This week, as inequality and job insecurity are intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic, take look at “Workers and Wages in America Today” for a long- term perspective. Also, for a change of pace, enjoy a great discussion with Man Booker Prize-winner Marlon James about his venture into fantasy fiction.
While events are postponed at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the heart of Manhattan, videos of recent public programs from its archive will be featured here for your enjoyment. The videos offer illuminating discussions in two main categories: insights into current events and conversations with leading writers and artists. (Courtesy of GC CUNY’s Public Programs archive.)
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Eduardo Porter of The New York Times moderates a panel economists that examines the power, or weakness, of the American worker. They look at factors such as aspects of U.S. markets, technology, globalization, gendered wage patterns, and the decline of unions. The panel features Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize–winning economist, New York Times columnist, and distinguished professor at The Graduate Center); Heidi Shierholz (senior economist and director of policy at The Economic Policy Institute); and Arindrajit Dube (professor of economics at UMass Amherst).
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In this week’s second video Marlon James speaks about his acclaimed 2019 novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf, and about fiction and fantasy, with Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling and editor of the speculative fiction anthology A People’s Future of the United States. James—winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings—is on a quest to fuse epic fantasies like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones with the vast African mythology of his Jamaican childhood. Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which was praised by Neil Gaiman as “a fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made,” has been the result so far.
