Heather Ann Thompson (U-M Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, and History) reads from her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Blood in the Water, followed by a conversation with Angela Dillard (U-M Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies) and then audience Q & A and book sale & signing.
About the book:
On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed.
On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed thirty-nine men—hostages as well as prisoners—and severely wounded more than one hundred others. In the ensuing hours, weeks, and months, troopers and officers brutally retaliated against the prisoners. And, ultimately, New York State authorities prosecuted only the prisoners, never once bringing charges against the officials involved in the retaking and its aftermath and neglecting to provide support to the survivors and the families of the men who had been killed.
Drawing from more than a decade of extensive research, historian Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on every aspect of the uprising and its legacy, giving voice to all those who took part in this forty-five-year fight for justice: prisoners, former hostages, families of the victims, lawyers and judges, and state officials and members of law enforcement. Blood in the Water is the searing and indelible account of one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century.
A U-M Residential College creative writing alumna, Laura Hulthen Thomas heads the undergraduate creative writing program at the Residential College, where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction.
A U-M Residential College creative writing alumna, Laura Kasischke’s book of poems, Space, in Chains, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. She teaches writing at U-M English and the Residential College.
Set in Michigan small towns both real and fictional, the stories in Laura Hulthen Thomas’s State of Motion take place against a backdrop of economic turmoil and the domestic cost of the war on terror. As familiar places, privilege, and faith disappear, what remains leaves these broken characters wondering what hope is left.
Laura Kasischke’s Where Now: New and Selected Poems showcases her probing vision that subverts the so-called “normal.” A lover of fairy tales, Kasischke’s command of the symbolic includes a keen attention to sound in her exploration of the everyday—whether reflections on loss or the complicated realities of childhood and family.
Helen Fox is Lecturer Emerita in RC Social Theory and Practice.
Ann Evans Larimore is Professor Emerita, Geography and Women’s Studies, RC Social Theory and Practice.
Frederick Peters is Lecturer in RC Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Program
Martin Walsh, Lecturer and Program Head, RC Drama,
Charlie Bright, Former Director of the RC, Professor Emeritus, RC Social Theory and Practice Program, Peter Ferran, Professor Emeritus, Rochester Institute of Technology, Head, RC Drama Program 1973-1983
Henry Greenspan, Lecturer, RC Social Theory and Practice; Faculty Scholar Integrative Medicine; Faculty Fellow, Mellon Faculty Institute on Arts Academic Integration; RC Academic Advisor
David Turnley, RC ’77, Associate Professor, Photography, Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography, 1990
Janet Hegman Shier, Lecturer and Head, RC Intensive German Program, RC Academic Advisor and RC Deutsches Theater Alumni
Katherine Mendeloff, Lecturer, RC Drama and Martin Walsh, Lecturer and Program Head, RC Drama
