Mount Pleasant Book Talk tomorrow

(I'm going to try to go because of the presentation by the author of Turf Wars)

From email:

Mara Cherkasky and Galey Modan, authors of Images of America: Mount Pleasant and Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place, respectively, will read from their books and host "Walking Mount Pleasant," a discussion about Mount Pleasant Street and the surrounding neighborhood -- past and present -- on Saturday, August 11, 2007, from 3:30 to 5:30 pm at the Mount Pleasant Branch Library, 16th and Lamont streets, Washington, DC 20010. For more information call 202-671-0159. Copies of both books will be for sale, courtesy of the Friends of the Mount Pleasant Library.

From the back cover: Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place is the fascinating story of an urban neighborhood undergoing rapid gentrification. It is a story about how the members of a multiethnic, multiclass, Washington DC community deploy language to protect conflicting images of their neighborhood. Waging wars around such issues as public toilets and public urination, the "morality" of co-ops and condos, and characterizations of "good" girls and "bad" boys, community members use these themes to create identities for themselves as legitimate community members (e.g., as tough urbanites or sophisticated historic preservationists) while creating identities to discredit others (e.g., "People who belong in the suburbs"). Turf Wars taps the power of discourse analysis to provide insight into the ways that local activity shapes larger urban social processes.

"Turf Wars gives voice to old and new immigrants in a complicated neighborhood. Modan makes a key contribution to understanding how language reflects and recreates processes of including and excluding other people as proper members of the community. Because so many people live in seemingly multicultural but deeply contested and changing communities, this book will engage readers drawn to the complexities of cities and those interested in more egalitarian urban policies."--- Brett Williams, American University

1512 (Silver Sightseer) at the Mt. Pleasant loop, the 17th St. NW side thereof. Summer, 1960 Caption data from John Shriver Ken Harrison photo, Dave's Railpix