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Author Stephen Bloom to lecture at St. Olaf College,Thursday, Nov. 8

CLE
November 8, 2001

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ? Stephen Bloom, author of Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America, will discuss religion and his book in two lectures at St. Olaf College on Thursday, Nov. 8.

Bloom will speak at the 11:10 a.m. chapel service in Boe Memorial Chapel on the topic of "Faith and Religiosity." Following that, he will sign books from 2?3 p.m. in the St. Olaf Bookstore. Bloom?s second lecture, "Lessons from Postville," is at 7 p.m. in the St. Olaf Science Center 280. The lectures, free and open to the public, are sponsored by St. Olaf College?s O.C. and Patricia Boldt/NEH Distinguished Chair in the Humanities.

"Postville" tells the true story of the small town in Iowa where, in 1987, a group of orthodox Jews opened a kosher slaughterhouse. The successful business divided the small population into the well-established Christian community of quiet and neighborly people, and the Hasidic Jewish community, which kept to itself and refused to follow the unwritten laws so central to the town?s core.

Publishers Weekly calls "Postville" "a model of sociological reportage and personal journalism." Bloom discusses the conflicts that plague the town when the newcomers arrive, examining religious, financial, social and political issues.

St. Olaf Philosophy Professor and Boldt Chair Ed Langerak writes that "Postville is an unusual story of both the problems and the opportunities of culture clash and economic change."

Bloom, a professor of journalism at the University of Iowa and also a secular Jew, moved to Iowa City from San Francisco with his wife and son. His interest in Postville?s story stemmed from his experiences as a new Midwesterner. "Postville" was selected as Best Book of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Denver Rocky Mountain News.

St. Olaf College prepares students to become responsible citizens of the world, fostering development of mind, body and spirit. A four-year, coeducational liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), St. Olaf has a student enrollment of 2,950 and a full-time faculty complement of approximately 300. It is one of Money Guide?s top 100 "elite values in college education today," and it leads the nation?s colleges in percentage of students who study abroad.

Contact Carole Engblom at 507-786-3315 or leigh@stolaf.edu.