OCTOBER
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Next year’s presidential election and the 20th anniversary of the election of Chicago’s first African-American mayor are the springboards for an exploration of the current racial and political climate at this weekend’s two-day symposium, Harold Washington: His Legacy, Our Future. Today’s speakers include Source editor-at-large Akiba Solomon, Pulitzer-winning journalist Leon Dash, U.S. congressman John Conyers, DePaul political scientist Maria de los Angeles Torres, and In These Times publisher Jeff Epton (the son of Washington’s Republican opponent, Bernard Epton). The symposium runs tonight from 5:30 to 8 at the Chicago Historical Society, 1601 N. Clark, Chicago, and tomorrow from 8:30 to 3 at the University of Chicago’s International House, 1414 E. 59th, Chicago. It’s free; call 773-702-8063 or see www.ihouse.uchicago.edu for more.
25 SATURDAY
The provocateurs at the 15-year-old Hyde Park-based journal the Baffler spent much of the late 90s chronicling and critiquing the tech boom and bust. Their new anthology, Boob Jubilee: The Cultural Politics of the New Economy (out last month from W.W. Norton), includes updated versions of 32 essays from the last eight issues of the erratically published magazine plus an intro-duction by Studs Terkel. At 4 today Baffler editor Tom Frank (who recently moved to Washington, D.C.) will be joined by contributors Jim Arn-dorfer, Dan Raeburn, Mike Newirth, and Dan Kelly for a free reading at Quimby’s, 1854 W. North in Chicago. Call 773-342-0910.
29 WEDNESDAY
