Start your National Letter Writing Month off right with a letter and card writing party! We’ll have stationery, pens, envelopes, stamps, and stickers—you bring your address book! We’ll get you on track with ideas to keep the letter writing going all month long.
Featuring 3 RC alumni. This alumni panel will showcase and celebrate the university’s rich history of contributions made by International Studies alumni, while providing valuable insight for current students as they start to develop their own career paths. The panel will include a student Q&A portion; a networking reception with light appetizers will follow.
5-6:30 p.m., 555 Weiser Hall, 500 Church. Free.
When
Monday March 18, 2019: 7:00pm to 8:45pm
Where
Westgate Branch: West Side Room
Description
Come with questions, a work in progress, or an empty notebook. All writers are welcome in this casual, supportive environment. Authors Bethany Neal and Alex Kourvo will be on hand to answer questions and give encouragement. Bethany and Alex will also provide private, one-on-one critiques if you choose to have them read your work. Sharing your writing with other attendees is not required and is completely voluntary.
This is an excellent opportunity to meet your fellow Ann Arbor writers as well as get feedback from published authors. This is a monthly meet-up that welcomes all writers to ask questions, connect with other writers, or simply have a dedicated time and place to work on their projects. Do you have a completed manuscript? Consider submitting it to the library’s new imprint, Fifth Avenue Press.
During our 2018-19 Year of Humanities and Environments, we’ve organized faculty panels to explore contributions of humanistic inquiry around specific environmental subjects. Today: “Criminal Justice and the Built Environment” with: Claire Zimmerman (Architecture, History of Art), Heather Thompson (History, Residential College), and David Thatcher (Architecture, Public Policy).
Join the Conversation
In October, 2017, The New Yorker published reporter Ronan Farrow’s exposé detailing the first on-the-record accounts of alleged assault and rape by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, followed by a series of pieces on the systems that enabled him. Farrow’s investigation helped spur a worldwide movement that redefined our cultural and institutional responses to sexual harassment and assault. Word of Weinstein’s abusive behavior had circulated among Hollywood and media circles for years. In 2002, the acclaimed author and New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta published a deeply reported profile detailing the powerful producer’s threats and intimidation tactics, but he could not get any of the women alleging sexual assault to go on the record. What changed—in Hollywood, in media, in society—to make 2017 such a turning point?
Join Wallace House Presents for an evening with reporters Ken Auletta and Ronan Farrow as they discuss their individual attempts to get to the truth about Harvey Weinstein and how reporters ultimately stood together in confronting one of the biggest stories in recent memory.
Questions for speakers? Tweet us using #WallaceHouse.
About the Speakers
Ronan Farrow is a contributing writer for The New Yorker and the author of “War and Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence.” His next book, “Catch and Kill,” about how Weinstein and other power brokers wield influence to suppress explosive stories, is forthcoming. In 2018, Farrow received a Livingston Award for his New Yorker investigation of Harvey Weinstein. A native of New York City, he is a lawyer and former government advisor. Farrow is a graduate of Bard College and Yale Law School.
Ken Auletta is an author and media writer who has written the “Annals of Communications” profiles and essays for The New Yorker since 1992. He joined the Livingston Awards national judging panel 37 years ago and is now the program’s longest serving judge. He recused himself from voting in the national reporting category in 2018. The author of twelve books, his most recent book, “Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else),” was published in 2018. His writing and journalism has been recognized with numerous awards and honors including the 2002 National Magazine Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Silurians.
This event is co-sponsored by
U-M College of Literature, Arts and Science
Department of American Culture
Department of Women’s Studies
Department of English Language and Literature
This event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Literati is pleased to parnter with First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor to welcome author and theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber who will be discussing her new book Shameless.
NADIA BOLZ-WEBER first hit the New York Times list with her 2013 memoir–the bitingly honest and inspiring Pastrix–followed by the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints in 2015. A former stand-up comic and a recovering alcoholic, Bolz-Weber is the founder and former pastor of a Lutheran congregation in Denver, House for All Sinners and Saints. She speaks at colleges and conferences around the globe.
U-M Near Eastern Studies and history professor Ellen Muehlberger is joined by a U-M Sweetland Center for Writing faculty member to discuss writing.
7 p.m., Literati, 124 E. Washington. Free. 585-5567.
Open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit that also produces a weekly public radio show. Ten storytellers are selected at random to tell a 3-5 minute story–this month’s themes are “Envy” (Mar. 5) & “Ruse” (Mar 19)–judged by a 3-person team recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Seating limited, so arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. General admission tickets $10 in advance only at themoth.org beginning a week before each event. 764-5118.
Christiane Gruber (history of art) and Juan Cole (history) discuss Gruber’s new book The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Text and Images
About the book:
In the wake of controversies over printing or displaying images of the Prophet Muhammad, Christiane Gruber’s aim is to bring back into scholarly and public discussion the ‘lost’ history of imagining the Prophet in Islamic cultures. By studying the various verbal and visual constructions of the Prophet’s character and persona over the course of more than one thousand years, Gruber seeks to correct public misconceptions and restore to Islam its rich artistic heritage, illuminating the critical role Muhammad has played in Muslim constructions of self and community at different times and in various cultural contexts.
The Praiseworthy One is an exploration of the Prophet Muhammad’s significance in Muslim life and thought from the beginning of Islam to today. It pays particular attention to procedures of narration, veneration, and sacralization. Gruber stresses that a fruitful approach to extant textual and visual materials is one that emphasizes the harnessing of Muhammad’s persona as a larger metaphor to explain both past and present historical events, to build and delineate a sense of community, and to help individuals conceive of and communicate with the realm of the sacred. The Praiseworthy One shows that Muhammad has served as a polyvalent symbol rather than a historical figure with fixed significance.
