In Elephants and Kings, Trautmann traces the history of the war elephant in India and the spread of the institution to the west—where elephants took part in some of the greatest wars of antiquity—and Southeast Asia. He shows that because elephants eat such massive quantities of food, it was uneconomic to raise them from birth. Rather, in a unique form of domestication, Indian kings captured wild adults and trained them, one by one, through millennia. Kings were thus compelled to protect wild elephants from hunters and elephant forests from being cut down. By taking a wide-angle view of human-elephant relations, Trautmann throws into relief the structure of India’s environmental history and the reasons for the persistence of wild elephants in its forests. Thomas Trautmann is professor emeritus of history and anthropology at the University of Michigan. Andrew Shryock is is chair and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan.
One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. Tonight: Joah Berg and Scott Seres.
This month we will host a full hour of Open Mic when area poets can read their own work of share a favorite poem by another author. This is a monthly poetry series held on the second Thursday of each month.
Storytellers Guild members present a program of old tales and personal stories for grownups.
annarborstorytelling.org, facebook.com/annarborstorytellers. 665-2757.
One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. Tonight: Francis Santana and Cab Tran.
The University of Michigan’s MiSciWriters, Rackham Graduate School and Literati Bookstore invite you to a unique opportunity to hear a panel of scientists discuss “Contributing to Science through Writing.” Panelists will include Nick Wigginton, Senior Editor at Science Magazine; Liz Wason, Science Writer for the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at U-Michigan; Theresa Cesena, Manager of Medical Writing at MMS Holdings Inc., and Larissa Sano, Science Writing Specialist at Sweetland Writing Center, U-Michigan.
Join us as our panelists explore and discuss how they apply their scientific training in a variety of writing professions. With fields ranging from medical writing to translating science to a lay audience in the media, our panelists will discuss the significance of written communication in the scientific community and beyond. They will also share some of the joys and challenges they face staying current and committed to the practice of science in these roles.
Storytellers Guild members present a program of old tales and personal stories for grownups.
annarborstorytelling.org, facebook.com/annarborstorytellers. 665-2757.
One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. Tonight: fiction writer Belle Baxley and poet Kayla Krut.
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.
One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. Tonight: fiction writer Allie Tova Hirsach and Warner James Wood.
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.
Literati is pleased to welcome Scott Ellsworth in support of The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball’s Lost Triumph.
The Secret Game is the true story of the game that never should have happened–and of a nation on the brink of monumental change. In the fall of 1943, at the little-known North Carolina College for Negroes, Coach John McLendon was on the verge of changing basketball forever. A protégé of James Naismith, the game’s inventor, McLendon taught his team to play the full-court press and run a fast break that no one could catch. His Eagles would become the highest-scoring college team in America–a basketball juggernaut that shattered its opponents by as many as sixty points per game. Yet his players faced danger whenever they traveled backcountry roads.
Across town, at Duke University, the best basketball squad on campus wasn’t the Blue Devils, but an all-white military team from the Duke medical school. Composed of former college stars from across the country, the team dismantled everyone they faced, including the Duke varsity. They were prepared to take on anyone–until an audacious invitation arrived, one that was years ahead of anything the South had ever seen before. What happened next wasn’t on anyone’s schedule.
Based on years of research, The Secret Game is a story of courage and determination, and of an incredible, long-buried moment in the nation’s sporting past. The riveting, true account of a remarkable season, it is the story of how a group of forgotten college basketball players, aided by a pair of refugees from Nazi Germany and a group of daring student activists, not only blazed a trail for a new kind of America, but helped create one of the most meaningful moments in basketball history.
Scott Ellsworth has written about American history for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Formerly a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, he is the author ofDeath in a Promised Land, a groundbreaking account of the 1921 Tulsa race riot. He lives with his wife and twin sons in Ann Arbor, where he teaches at the University of Michigan.
