Since early 2016, a shifting group of people who live and work in Muncie have been periodically recording and sharing accounts of their daily lives as part of the Everyday Life in Middletown (EDLM) project. James Connolly, Director of the Center for Middletown Studies and a Co-Director of EDLM along with Patrick Collier, will provide an update on the project and discuss some of the insights it has generated. Connolly and Collier are collaborating on a book based on these submissions, which include more than 700 written contributions as well as photos, video, and drawings. The project documents a period of sharp upheaval in American life that has included a pandemic and intense political conflict. It also explores the ongoing struggles of Muncie’s residents to come to grips with their city’s postindustrial character. Connolly’s talk will trace some of the ways that EDLM’s contributors have described their day-to-day experiences and consider what these accounts can tell us about recent and contemporary life in Muncie, the Rust Belt, and the United States.
The talk is sponsored by the Center for Middletown Studies, the Department of History and the Muncie Public Library. It is free and open to the public.
Time: March 31, 2025, 6 pm.
Place: Muncie Public Library, Kennedy Branch, 1700 W. McGalliard Road., Muncie.