Rupa Marya and Raj Patel

This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.

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Event is free, but registration is required

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(CLICK HERE) to register. (link to be posted soon!)

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(CLICK HERE) to purchase book. (link to be posted soon!)

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The coronavirus pandemic and the shocking racial disparities in its impact. The surge in inflammatory illnesses such as gastrointestinal disorders and asthma. Mass uprisings around the world in response to systemic racism and violence. Climate refugees. Our bodies, societies, and planet are inflamed.

Boldly original, Inflamed takes us on a medical tour through the human body: our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems. Unlike a traditional anatomy book, however, this groundbreaking book illuminates the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems. Inflammation is connected to the food that we eat, to the air that we breathe, and to the diversity of microbes living inside us, which regulate everything from our brain development to our immune system. It’s connected to the number of traumatic events we experienced as children and to the trauma endured by our ancestors. It’s connected not only to access to health care but to the very models of health that physicians practice.

Raj Patel, renowned political economist and New York Times bestselling author of The Value of Nothing, teams up with physician Rupa Marya to offer a radical new cure: the deep medicine of decolonization. Decolonization is to heal what has been divided, reestablishing our relationship to the earth and to each other. Combining the latest scientific research and scholarship on globalization, the stories of Marya’s work with patients in marginalized communities, activist passion, and the wisdom of indigenous groups, Inflamed points the way toward a deep medicine that has the potential to heal not only our bodies but the world.

Dr. Rupa Marya is a physician, activist, mother, and composer. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco where she practices and teaches Internal Medicine. Her research examines the health impacts of social systems, from agriculture to policing. She is a co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, a collective of health workers committed to addressing disease through structural change. She is the composer and frontwoman for the band Rupa & the April Fishes whose music was described by legend Gil Scott Heron as “Liberation Music.”

Raj Patel is a Research Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs, a professor in the University’s department of nutrition, and a Research Associate at Rhodes University, South Africa. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved, the New York Times bestselling The Value of Nothing, and co-author of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. A James Beard Leadership Award winner, he is completing a film on the global food system, and is a leading thinker and organizer around the Green New Deal. He serves on the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and has advised governments on causes and solutions to crises of sustainability worldwide.

Sponsored by the City Lights Foundation