Calendar

Nov
14
Thu
Braylon Edwards and Tom VanHaaren: Doing It My Way @ Literati
Nov 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome college All-American and NFL wide receiver Braylon Edwards in support of his book with Tom VanHaaren, Doing It My Way: My Outspoken Life as a Michigan Wolverine, NFL Receiver, and Beyond

About the book: Braylon Edwards has heard all the talk–that he’s only out for himself, only about the money; he’s a bust, a bad guy, a troublemaker, a typical wide receiver who doesn’t get it. He’s also heard the cheering fans, heard them singing “The Victors” after wins in the Big House, and cherished the smiles he saw in the crowd. All of it leaves an impression, just as Edwards has left his mark in return. In this frank, unflinching autobiography, Edwards reveals the heartbeat behind the padded armor and shares how football helped him find his place and gave him a voice. He details his transformative time in Ann Arbor, how he felt when he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, what was going through his head when he got traded to the Jets, and lays bare all the bumps, bruises, and unexpected turns along the way.

Braylon Edwards played college football at the University of Michigan, where he received unanimous All-American honors and became the first receiver in Big Ten Conference history to record three consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. He played in the NFL for the Cleveland Browns, New York Jets, San Francisco 49ers, and Seattle Seahawks. Tom VanHaaren has covered college football and recruiting for ESPN since 2011. A Michigan native, Tom started his career in 2009, focusing on Michigan Wolverines football and recruiting. Tom, his wife, Laura, and their three children currently reside in southeast Michigan.

Open Mic and Share: Jasmine An @ Bookbound
Nov 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

 Jasmine An comes from the Midwest. Her first chapbook, Naming the No-Name Woman, won the 2015 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize and her second, Monkey Was Here, is forthcoming from Porkbelly Press. Her work has been supported by residencies at Hedgebrook and Willapa Bay AiR and can be found in Stirring: A Literary Collection, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Nat. Brut and Waxwing, among others. Currently, she is an Editor at Agape Editions and pursuing a PhD in English and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan.  

 The event begins with an Open Mic session when area poets can read their own work or share a favorite poem by another author in a welcoming atmosphere. This is part of a monthly series on the 2nd Thursday of most months in partnership with Les Go Social Media Marketing and Training.   Signing to follow.

“In clear and luxurious language, Jasmine An navigates the slippery worlds of identity politics, botany, and desire—and pulls us toward an elegant horizon. I’m grateful for such a sumptuous and (not-so) safe passage of fine poems and the fragrant world that she’s created in such a small space, one where “…even the saplings wear crabs as crowns.”” — Aimee Nezhukumatathil 

Poetry Night: Doug Smith: Selections from This Iris and Ransom Note Poems, and Jane Bridges: Social Work and Other Myths @ Nicola's Books
Nov 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We are delighted to host local poets Doug Smith with Jane Bridges for a night of poetry.

About the Book

Selections from This Iris and Ransom Note Poems There are 8 poems that center around life with her husband of 40 years, his sudden death, and her response to it.  There are 8 poems that are made with cut-out words from magazines, which she calls ransom note poems.  These poems are inspired by classic Japanese haiku, and while they aren’t haiku, they are zen-like.

Social Work and Other Myths These poems emerge from the writer’s long experience as a social worker and community organizer. Doug Smith has worked with low income households, the afflicted, and the homeless for more than forty years. His carefully crafted work reflects that experience and conveys his hard-won insights. Writers, critics, and others have already taken notice of Social Work and Other Myths. Keith Taylor, author of The Bird While (from the Wayne State Press) says: “The poems are right. They sing beautifully, and they remember.” Carol McCabe, founding Director of Avalon Housing, says: (Smith’s) “eye for detail and his heart for the struggle come through with a rare combination of grit and warmth.” Brian Cox, an award-winning Michigan playwright, observes that “Smith is a poet who creates an awareness that burrows into you and changes how you see.” Jill Dearman, editor of Mudfish Anthology, says simply: “Smith has a great collection here. I was truly moved.”

About the Author

Jane Bridges spent her early years were in Texas, New Hampshire and India and all of her adult years in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  She studied biology and taught science and English in both public and private schools.  Her husband of 40 years died suddenly in 2002 and their two children were adults at that time.  Her love of nature has taken her to wild places in the tropics. Crows and butterflies that come to her backyard are of particular interest to her.

She is grateful to many poetry teachers, including Richard Tillinghast, Marge Piercy, Gerry LaFemina, Matthew Lippman, and Zilka Joseph.  Members of Paper Kite and Tornado Wine have helped take her poems to wild places.  She has won and placed in several national contests, and has been published in The MacGuffin,  Paterson Literary Review, Margie, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Third Wednesday, Mudfish, and elsewhere.

Local poet Douglas Smith is co-editor of Mayapple Press’s In Drought Times: Scenes from Rural and Small Town Life. He was a finalist in the 2016 Mudfish Magazine and the 2017 New Guard Knightville Poetry contests. His poetry has been published in numerous journals and publications. Smith’s latest collection of poems is Social Work and Other Myths. Award-winning Michigan playwright Brian Cox calls this work a “poignant expression of compassion. These poems beseech us to identify with the humanity in the desperate, the afflicted, the abandoned, the evicted and the exiled.. Smith is a poet who creates an awareness that burrows into you and changes how you see.”

Nov
15
Fri
Andrei Pop: A Forest of Symbols @ Literati
Nov 15 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome art historian Andrei Pop in support of his latest, A Forest of Symbols: Art, Science, and Truth in the Long Nineteenth Century. A book signing will follow. The event is free and open to the public. 

About the book: A groundbreaking reassessment of Symbolist artists and writers that investigates the concerns they shared with scientists of the period–the problem of subjectivity in particular.

In A Forest of Symbols, Andrei Pop presents a groundbreaking reassessment of those writers and artists in the late nineteenth century associated with the Symbolist movement. For Pop, “symbolist” denotes an art that is self-conscious about its modes of making meaning, and he argues that these symbolist practices, which sought to provide more direct access to viewers and readers by constant revision of its material means of meaning-making (brushstrokes on a canvas, words on a page), are crucial to understanding the genesis of modern art. The symbolists saw art not as a social revolution, but as a revolution in sense and how to conceptualize the world. The concerns of symbolist painters and poets were shared to a remarkable degree by theoretical scientists of the period, who were dissatisfied with the strict empiricism dominant in their disciplines, which made shared knowledge seem unattainable.

The problem of subjectivity in particular, of what in one’s experience can and cannot be shared, was crucial to the possibility of collaboration within science and to the communication of artistic innovation. Pop offers close readings of the literary and visual practices of Manet and Mallarmé, of drawings by Ernst Mach, William James and Wittgenstein, of experiments with color by Bracquemond and Van Gogh, and of the philosophical systems of Frege and Russell–filling in a startling but coherent picture of the symbolist heritage of modernity and its consequences.

Andrei Pop is a member of the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago.

Webster Reading Series: Charlotte Ruddy and Jennifer Huang @ UMMA Auditorium
Nov 15 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends – a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

 

RC Players: The Dybbuk on Orchard @ East Quad Keene Theater
Nov 15 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

U-M senior Marilyn Schotland directs The Dybbuk on Orchard, with themes of queer Jewish identity, deception, and free will.

Nov
16
Sat
RC Players: The Dybbuk on Orchard @ East Quad Keene Theater
Nov 16 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

U-M senior Marilyn Schotland directs The Dybbuk on Orchard, with themes of queer Jewish identity, deception, and free will.

Nov
17
Sun
Mickey Lyons: City on a Still: Detroit During Prohibition @ AADL Malletts Creek
Nov 17 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

Rumrunners and bootleggers and speakeasies, oh my! Mickey Lyons of DetroitProhibition.com takes us through Detroit’s intoxicating history during the prohibition years, from sloshing the stuff across the Detroit River to raiding the liquor cabinets and speakeasies with a whole lot of intemperance.

Mickey is a Detroit-based author and researcher on Detroit Prohibition history. Her upcoming book, City on a Still: Detroit During Prohibition, is in the works. In the meantime, she spends her days trudging through old bars and buildings and sifting through old newspapers.

This event is in partnership with the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor (CHAA), an organization of scholars, cooks, food writers, nutritionists, collectors, students, and others interested in the study of culinary history and gastronomy. Their mission is to promote the study of culinary history through regular programs open to members and guests, through the quarterly newsletter Repast, and through exchanges of information with other such organizations.

Nov
18
Mon
Poetry at Literati: Malcom Tariq with Jonah Mixon-Webster @ Literati
Nov 18 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Malcom Tariq in support of his collection, Heed the Hollow, as part of our ongoing Poetry at Literati Series, reading with Jonah Mixon-Webster. A Book signing will follow. The event is free and open to the public. 

Malcolm Tariq is from Savannah, Georgia, and is the author of Extended Play, winner of the 2017 Gertrude Press Poetry Chapbook Contest. A graduate of Emory University, he has a PhD in English from the University of Michigan. He lives in New York.

Jonah Mixon-Webster is a poet and conceptual/sound artist from Flint, MI. His debut poetry collection, Stereo(TYPE), received the 2017 Sawtooth Poetry Prize from Ahsahta Press, the 2019 PEN America/Joyce Osterweil Award, and was a finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. He is the recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, The Conversation Literary Festival, ivoh, and Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. His poetry and hybrid works are featured in various publications including PEN America Poetry SeriesBest New Poets 2017PennSound, and Best American Experimental Writing 2018.

Nov
19
Tue
Guest Lecture: Jugo Kapetanovic: About Zlata’s Diary @ Room 1506, East Quad
Nov 19 @ 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm

Professor Hottman-Wei, Director of the U-M Residential College’s Chinese Music Ensemble, presents a rare opportunity to hear the bowed stringed instrument considered a symbol of the Mongolian nation. She will also discuss the numerous cultural contexts in which the Morin Khurr is played.

The Center for World Performance Studies Faculty Lecture Series features our Faculty Fellows and visiting scholars and practitioners in the fields of ethnography and performance. Designed to create an informal and intimate setting for intellectual exchange among students, scholars, and the community, faculty are invited to present their work in an interactive and performative fashion.

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