Ithaca College

Arthur Flowers, author of De Mojo Blues and the children's story Cleveland Lee's Beale Street Band, will join the Multicultural Reading Circle from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 18, 2004. Flowers will give a select reading of his book Another Good Loving Blues in the Borg Warner Room at the Tompkins County Library.

New York State University's professor of English, Arthur Flowers is a self-proclaimed "literary hoodoo man." Professor Flowers considers himself part of two literary traditions -- the Western written tradition and the African oral tradition.

"Hoodoo," explains Flowers, is not the same thing as "voodoo." Hoodoo incorporates aspects of Catholicism and the Fon religion from Africa, a spiritual bridge between beliefs that arose when Africans were forced to become slaves in America and found different religious rites thrust upon them.

Though religion was suppressed, culture and spiritual tradition surpassed and evolved into the magic of hoodoo. Flowers says he sees each of his books as a spell trying to work a spell on the future, a spell on reality.

Flowers will read from his novel Another Good Loving Blues. The main character of the book, Lucas Bodeen, is a blues man. Flowers is a blues singer as well. He weaves the blues throughout his novel, which the narrator describes as "a fine old delta tale about a mad blues piano player and an Arkansas conjure woman."

This event is free and open to the public. Books are available for purchase at Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Ithaca or Borders at the Pyramid Mall in Lansing. For more information about this event, contact Sonja Baylor via e-mail or at 255-3976.

The Multicultural Reading Circle is sponsored by Cornell University, the Tompkins County Diversity Consortium and the Multicultural Resource Center. The Multicultural Reading Circle provides an opportunity for the Ithaca community to engage in dialogue on diversity related topics through the use of select monthly readings. The monthly book selection will seek to bring awareness and education in regard to a particular aspect of diversity.

The February Multicultural Reading Circle will be hosted by Traevena Byrd and Vicki Estabrook of Ithaca College. Ithaca College is a member of the Tompkins County Diversity Consortium.

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Arthur Flowers



Contributed by Vicki Estabrook