Social Justice Reading Club to Discuss Book on Poverty and Housing

Duquesne’s Social Justice Reading Club will host a discussion of Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, which follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to survive in poverty.

The discussion will take place on Wednesday, March 27, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Africa Room. Dr. Anita Zuberi, assistant professor of sociology who studies housing and poverty, will be a guest speaker.

Event co-organizers Cathryn Miller, Gumberg Library social sciences librarian, and Terra Merkey, music librarian, said that the Social Justice Reading Club provides the campus community with a space to reflect on the experiences of others.

“Terra and I focus on creating a discussion that is open to different ideas in which people are challenged to think about the broader human experience,” Miller said. “In fall 2018, we read a graphic novel about a refugee (The Arrival by Shaun Tan), and now we are reading an ethnography that focuses on the experiences of impoverished inner-city families.”

“Students in the Social Justice in Education Settings classes have been reading (Desmond’s) book as part of the curriculum,” Merkey said. “This book isn’t an easy read. It doesn’t sit well to read about these experiences of others when we know that tonight we are going to go home and have enough food to eat, a safe place to rest and a place we can be ourselves. In living with this discomfort, we hope that participants will develop empathy and compassion for those around them.”

Interested readers can pick up a copy of Evicted at Gumberg Library. For more information, contact Miller at millerc12@duq.edu.