CSU Stanislaus hosted “Conversations with Warrior Authors and Artists” in March, which took place both in person and on Zoom. Jesse Wolfe hosted Ryan Logan and Sebastian Sclofsky for an interview on both of their books.
The overall theme of the talk was about both books that are focused on societies and various aspects. Logan’s book is centered on community health care workers and Sclofsy is on state violence in similar communities but different countries.
Logan’s book, Boundaries of Care: Community Health Workers of the United States, explores health care workers that help with non-clinical services such as attending doctor appointments with patients who need assistance and helping with language barriers.
Logan attended Indiana University for both his bachelor’s and his master’s program. He was connected to the community healthcare workers organization in Indiana, where his research is being done.
He addresses that the book focuses on the community healthcare workers that help migrant labor workers.
Logan’s big focus was on why the community health care workers do what they do.
“A big aspect of that was a sense of obligation and commitment,” he said.
Sebastian Sclofsky is the writer of Black, Poor, and from the Periphery: Experiencing Police Violence in São Paulo and Los Angeles.
Sclofsky grew up in Uruguay and that is crucial in the work and background on the book.
“My childhood was during a dictatorship,” he said. “I think that is relevant to how I became interested in state violence.”
Seeing the success of CSU Stanislaus faculty and students is important and creates a great community.
Jesse Wolfe, a professor of English, put the events together.
“Given that lots of our faculty have done significant work, I have options in finding two whose work overlaps,” Wolfe said about finding a theme for his panel. “Often this means two people who have written books on the same topic. On another occasion, it will mean pairing a visual artist (Professor Mirabel Wigon) and an historian (Professor Phil Garone) who have both done environmentally themed work.”
This event happens twice a semester and will be happening again next fall and has turned into a series.
Moving forward, the series will be named Conversations with Authors and Artists.
“Its primary aim is to spotlight significant scholarly and creative achievement by faculty from the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe also previewed next semester’s guests.
He said one event will feature Professor Jenny Biedendorf, who has written a book about the International Criminal Court, and Professor Augustine Avwunudiogba, who has edited a book about human trafficking.
“The other event will feature Professor As’ad Abukhalil, who has written extensively on Middle Eastern politics, and Professor Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, who has written a book about oil, American diplomacy, and war,” he said.
