Calendar

Jan
20
Mon
MLK Symposium Memorial Lecture: Angela Davis @ Hill Auditorium
Jan 20 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am

Angela Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world, through her activism and scholarship over many decades. Her work as an educator – both at the university level and in the larger public sphere – has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice.

Professor Davis’ teaching career has taken her to San Francisco State University, Mills College, and UC Berkeley. She also has taught at UCLA, Vassar, Syracuse University the Claremont Colleges, and Stanford University. Most recently she spent fifteen years at the University of California Santa Cruz where she is now Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness – an interdisciplinary Ph.D program – and of Feminist Studies.

Angela Davis is the author of ten books and has lectured throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. In recent years a persistent theme of her work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. She draws upon her own experiences in the early seventies as a person who spent eighteen months in jail and on trial, after being placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List.” She also has conducted extensive research on numerous issues related to race, gender and imprisonment. Her recent books include Abolition Democracy and Are Prisons Obsolete? about the abolition of the prison industrial complex, a new edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and a collection of essays entitled The Meaning of Freedom. Her most recent book of essays, called Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, was published in February 2016.

Angela Davis is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex. Internationally, she is affiliated with Sisters Inside, an abolitionist organization based in Queensland, Australia that works in solidarity with women in prison.

Like many educators, Professor Davis is especially concerned with the general tendency to devote more resources and attention to the prison system than to educational institutions. Having helped to popularize the notion of a “prison industrial complex,” she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge a 21st century abolitionist movement.

Co-sponsored by the University of Michigan Annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium; the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, a unit in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Michigan Athletics; and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business with support from the William K. McInally Memorial Lecture Fund.

Susan Rice: Tough Love: My Story of The Things Worth Fighting For @ Weill Hall (Annenberg Auditorium)
Jan 20 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

Free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided beginning at 11:30 am: Click here(link is external) to provide lunch dietary restrictions. RSVP does not guarantee a seat– first come first seated until room is full. (Overflow seating available to watch livestream.)

Dessert reception to follow.

This event will be livestreamed. Please check back here just before the event for viewing details.

Join us for an arm-chair conversation between Ambassador Susan Rice and Michael Barr, Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, as they discuss Ambassador Rice’s distinguished career and her book, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. Recalling pivotal moments from her dynamic career on the front lines of American diplomacy and foreign policy—as National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations—Ambassador Rice’s memoir delivers an inspiring account of a life in service to family and country.

From the speaker’s bio:

Ambassador Susan E. Rice served as U.S. National Security Advisor and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations under President Barack Obama. In her role as National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017, Ambassador Rice led the National Security Council staff of approximately 400 defense, diplomatic, intelligence, and development experts. As U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Obama’s cabinet from 2009 to 2013, Ambassador Rice worked to advance U.S. interests, defend universal values, strengthen the world’s security and prosperity, and promote respect for human rights.

Prior to these roles, Ambassador Rice also served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, and as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping on the National Security Council staff. Currently she is a Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow at American University’s School of International Service and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Ambassador Rice received her master’s degree and PhD in international relations from New College of Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She received her BA in history with honors and distinction from Stanford University, where she was junior Phi Beta Kappa and a Truman Scholar.  In 2017, French president Francois Hollande presented Ambassador Rice with the Award of Commander, the Legion of Honor of France, for her contributions to Franco-American relations. She is also a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and the author of the best-selling memoir, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For.

Jan
21
Tue
Fiction at Literati: Alexander Weinstein: Universal Love @ Literati
Jan 21 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We’re pleased to welcome Alexander Weinstein back to the store as part of our ongoing Fiction at Literati series, in support of his new story collection Universal Love. Free and open to the public. Book signing to follow. 

About the book: A hypnotic collection of speculative fiction about compassion, love, and human resilience in the technological hyper-age, from Alexander Weinstein, author of Children of the New World.

Universal Love welcomes readers to a near-future world where our everyday technologies have fundamentally altered the possibilities and limits of how we love one another. In these gripping stories, a young boy tries to understand what keeps his father tethered to the drowned city they call home. A daughter gets to know her dead mother’s hologram better than she ever knew her living mother. And, at a time when unpleasant memories can be erased, a man undergoes electronic surgery to have his depression, and his past, forever removed.

Alexander Weinstein is the author of the critically acclaimed Children of the New World and the director of the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Among his many publications, his fiction was awarded the Lamar York Prize and the Gail Crump Prize, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and has been collected in the anthology 2013 New Stories from the Midwest. He is a professor of creative writing at Siena Heights University and a lecturer at the University of Michigan.

The Moth Storyslam: Beauty @ Blind Pig
Jan 21 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Open-mic storytelling competitions. Open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night’s theme. Come tell a story, or just enjoy the show!

6:30pm Doors Open | 7:30pm Stories Begin

*Tickets for this event are available one week before the show, at 3pm ET.

*Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please be sure to arrive at least 10 minutes before the show. Admission is not guaranteed for late arrivals. All sales final.

BEAUTY: Prepare a five-minute story about that which is skin and/or soul-deep. Works of art, works of nature, and works of parents with stunning genes. What lengths have you gone to to emulate your ideal aesthetic, and where have you uncovered unexpected examples of gorgeousness?

 

Jan
22
Wed
Donia Human Rights Lecture: Khalil Gibran Muhammad @ Weiser Hall (Room 1010)
Jan 22 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

The history of racism in the South is well known—the chain gangs, lynch mobs and views of black southern criminals that defined the Jim Crow period are, for the most part, common knowledge today. But what do we know about the role the urban North played in shaping views on the intersection of race and crime in American society?

In this talk, Khalil Gibran Muhammad reveals how the idea of black criminality was crucial to the making of modern urban America, as were African Americans’ own ideas about race and crime. In the North, crime statistics, immigration trends, and references to America as the “land of opportunity” were woven into a cautionary tale about the threat Black people posed to modern urban society. Excessive arrest rates and overrepresentation in Northern prisons were pointed to by whites—liberals and conservatives alike—as proof of Blacks’ inferiority. The prevailing feeling was that, in the heyday of “separate but equal,” what else but pathology could explain Black people’s challenges in the “land of opportunity”?

Chronicling the beginning of the deeply embedded notion of Black people as a dangerous race of criminals, Muhammed explores a different side of the history of racism, weaving a narrative that is both engaging and educational.

Khalil Gibran Muhammad is author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, which won the John Hope Franklin Best Book Award in American Studies. Also the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. Muhammad is a contributor to a National Research Council study, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Recently, he also appeared in several popular documentaries, lending his expertise to Ava DuVernay’s Netflix feature, 13th , Slavery By Another Name (PBS), and Forgotten Four: The Integration of Pro Football.

Muhammad is the former Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library and the world’s leading library and archive of global black history. Much of his research focuses on racial criminalization in modern U.S. history. His work has been featured in a number of f national print and broadcast media outlets, including The New York Times—notably as one of the contributors to its’ viral 1619 Project, which explores and exposes the true history of slavery in America— The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC. Muhammad was an associate editor of The Journal of American History and prior Andrew W. Mellon fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice. He holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, two honorary doctorates, and is on the board of The Museum of Modern Art, The Barnes Foundation, and The Nation magazine.

Poetry and the Written Word: Khaled Mattawa @ Crazy Wisdom
Jan 22 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and David Jibson • Second and Fourth Wednesdays, 7-9 p.m. in the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room • Second Wednesdays are poetry workshop nights. All writers welcome to share and discuss their own poetry and short fiction. Sign up for new participants begins at 6:45 p.m.

Fourth Wednesdays have a featured reader for 50 minutes and then open mic for an hour. All writers welcome to share. Sign up begins at 6:45 p.m. Free. Contact Ed at 668-7523; eacmorso@sbcglobal.net or cwpoetrycircle.tumblr.com.

Jan. 22 • Khaled Mattawa has published five books of poems, translated several books of poetry, and edited anthologies of Arab American writing. Recently his Mare Nostrum appeared from the Quarternote Chapbook Series of Sarabande Books. He has a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. He teaches creative writing at UMich and edits Michigan Quarterly Review.

 

Poetry Salon: One Pause Poetry @ Argus Farm Stop
Jan 22 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

ONE PAUSE POETRY SALON is (literally) a greenhouse for poetry and poets, nurturing an appreciation for written art in all languages and encouraging experiments in creative writing.

We meet every Weds in the greenhouse at Argus Farm Stop on Liberty St. The poems we read each time are unified by form (haiku, sonnet, spoken word), poet, time / place (Tang Dynasty, English Romanticism, New York in the 70s) or theme / mood (springtime, poems with cats, protest poems). We discuss the poems and play writing games together, with time for snacks and socializing in between.

Members are encouraged to share their own poems or poems they like – they may or may not relate to the theme of the evening. This is not primarily a workshop – we may hold special workshop nights, but mostly we listen to and talk about poems for the sake of inspiring new writing.

Whether you are a published poet or encountering poetry for the first time, we invite you to join us!

$5 suggested donation for food, drinks and printing costs.

8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.

 

 

 

Jan
23
Thu
Zell Visiting Writers: Rion Amilcar Scott @ UMMA Auditorium
Jan 23 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Literati is pleased to be the official bookseller for the Zell Visiting Writing Series, produced by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. 

Rion Amilcar Scott’s story collection, The World Doesn’t Require You (Norton/Liveright, August 2019), shatters rigid genre lines to explore larger themes of religion, violence, and love—all told with sly humor and a dash of magical realism.

Scott’s debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His work has been published in journals such as The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, and The Rumpus, among others. One of his stories was listed as a notable in Best American Stories 2018 and one of his essays was listed as a notable in Best American Essays 2015. He was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, and earned an MFA from George Mason University where he won both the Mary Roberts Rinehart award and a Completion Fellowship. He is currently a Kimbilio fellow and lives in Annapolis, MD.

This event is free and open to the public. Onsite book sales will be provided by Literati Bookstore.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series brings outstanding writers to campus each semester. UMMA is pleased to be the site for most of these events. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from U-M alumna Helen Zell (BA ’64, LLDHon ’13). For more information, please visit the Zell Visiting Writers Program webpage: https://lsa.umich.edu/writers

Fiction at Literati: Luke Geddes: Heart of Junk @ Literati
Jan 23 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome author Luke Geddes as part of our ongoing Fiction at Literati series and in support of his novel, Heart of Junk. Free and open to the public. Book signing to follow. 

About the book: A hilarious debut novel about an eclectic group of merchants at a Kansas antique mall who becomes implicated in the kidnapping of a local beauty pageant star.

“Luke Geddes is a master of humor. Heart of Junk deftly explores the loneliness of the human condition through a dazzling spectrum of characters. You will laugh ’til you cry, and cry ’til you laugh. This book is an instant cult classic. Meet your new favorite author.”– Alissa Nutting, author of Made for Love and Tampa

Luke Geddes holds a PhD in comparative literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. Originally from Appleton, Wisconsin, he now lives Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of the short story collection I am a Magical Teenage Princess and his writing has appeared in ConjunctionsMid-American ReviewHayden’s Ferry ReviewWashington Square ReviewThe Comics JournalElectric Literature, and elsewhere.

Jan
24
Fri
Poetry at Literati: Matthew Thorburn and Mary Biddinger @ Literati
Jan 24 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Matthew Thoburn & Mary Biddinger to read from their latest collections as part of our ongoing Poetry at Literati Series. Book signing to follow. Free and open to the public. 

Matthew Thorburn is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Dear Almost, winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and son.

Mary Biddinger is the author of six poetry collections: Prairie Fever (Steel Toe Books, 2007), the chapbook Saint Monica (Black Lawrence Press, 2011), O Holy Insurgency (Black Lawrence Press, 2013), A Sunny Place with Adequate Water (Black Lawrence Press, 2014), Small Enterprise (Black Lawrence Press, 2015), and a collaboration with Jay Robinson titled The Czar (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). She is also the co-editor of a volume of essays, The Monkey and the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics (with John Gallaher, University of Akron Press, 2011). Her latest is a collection of prose poems, Partial Genius. 

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