Every Thurs-Sun., June 8-25. U-M Residential College drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs students and local actors an alfresco production of Shakespeare’s culminating work, a visionary romance set on a magical island ruled by the enigmatic but benevolent sorcerer Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. Prospero is in fact the exiled duke of Milan, who conjures a storm that shipwrecks his old enemies upon his island. He takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson before bestowing forgiveness, abandoning his magical powers, and preparing to return to the world. The Tempest is filled with verse and song (including the famous “Full fathom five”) and contains some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeously haunting poetry. The RC’s annual Shakespeare in the Arb productions have become a hugely popular local summer tradition. Director Mendeloff takes special care to make the shifting Arb environments an active force in the performance. Bring a blanket or portable chair to sit on; dress for the weather.
6:30 p.m., meet at the Peony Garden entrance at 1610 Washington Heights. $15 (students, seniors, & Friends of Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, $10; kids under 5, free) at the gate only. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 p.m. Space limited; come early. 998-9540.
Every Thurs-Sun., June 8-25. U-M Residential College drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs students and local actors an alfresco production of Shakespeare’s culminating work, a visionary romance set on a magical island ruled by the enigmatic but benevolent sorcerer Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. Prospero is in fact the exiled duke of Milan, who conjures a storm that shipwrecks his old enemies upon his island. He takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson before bestowing forgiveness, abandoning his magical powers, and preparing to return to the world. The Tempest is filled with verse and song (including the famous “Full fathom five”) and contains some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeously haunting poetry. The RC’s annual Shakespeare in the Arb productions have become a hugely popular local summer tradition. Director Mendeloff takes special care to make the shifting Arb environments an active force in the performance. Bring a blanket or portable chair to sit on; dress for the weather.
6:30 p.m., meet at the Peony Garden entrance at 1610 Washington Heights. $15 (students, seniors, & Friends of Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, $10; kids under 5, free) at the gate only. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 p.m. Space limited; come early. 998-9540.
Every Thurs-Sun., June 8-25. U-M Residential College drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs students and local actors an alfresco production of Shakespeare’s culminating work, a visionary romance set on a magical island ruled by the enigmatic but benevolent sorcerer Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. Prospero is in fact the exiled duke of Milan, who conjures a storm that shipwrecks his old enemies upon his island. He takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson before bestowing forgiveness, abandoning his magical powers, and preparing to return to the world. The Tempest is filled with verse and song (including the famous “Full fathom five”) and contains some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeously haunting poetry. The RC’s annual Shakespeare in the Arb productions have become a hugely popular local summer tradition. Director Mendeloff takes special care to make the shifting Arb environments an active force in the performance. Bring a blanket or portable chair to sit on; dress for the weather.
6:30 p.m., meet at the Peony Garden entrance at 1610 Washington Heights. $15 (students, seniors, & Friends of Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, $10; kids under 5, free) at the gate only. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 p.m. Space limited; come early. 998-9540.
Every Thurs-Sun., June 8-25. U-M Residential College drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs students and local actors an alfresco production of Shakespeare’s culminating work, a visionary romance set on a magical island ruled by the enigmatic but benevolent sorcerer Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. Prospero is in fact the exiled duke of Milan, who conjures a storm that shipwrecks his old enemies upon his island. He takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson before bestowing forgiveness, abandoning his magical powers, and preparing to return to the world. The Tempest is filled with verse and song (including the famous “Full fathom five”) and contains some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeously haunting poetry. The RC’s annual Shakespeare in the Arb productions have become a hugely popular local summer tradition. Director Mendeloff takes special care to make the shifting Arb environments an active force in the performance. Bring a blanket or portable chair to sit on; dress for the weather.
6:30 p.m., meet at the Peony Garden entrance at 1610 Washington Heights. $15 (students, seniors, & Friends of Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, $10; kids under 5, free) at the gate only. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 p.m. Space limited; come early. 998-9540.
Every Thurs-Sun., June 8-25. U-M Residential College drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs students and local actors an alfresco production of Shakespeare’s culminating work, a visionary romance set on a magical island ruled by the enigmatic but benevolent sorcerer Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. Prospero is in fact the exiled duke of Milan, who conjures a storm that shipwrecks his old enemies upon his island. He takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson before bestowing forgiveness, abandoning his magical powers, and preparing to return to the world. The Tempest is filled with verse and song (including the famous “Full fathom five”) and contains some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeously haunting poetry. The RC’s annual Shakespeare in the Arb productions have become a hugely popular local summer tradition. Director Mendeloff takes special care to make the shifting Arb environments an active force in the performance. Bring a blanket or portable chair to sit on; dress for the weather.
6:30 p.m., meet at the Peony Garden entrance at 1610 Washington Heights. $15 (students, seniors, & Friends of Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, $10; kids under 5, free) at the gate only. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 p.m. Space limited; come early. 998-9540.
Every Thurs-Sun., June 8-25. U-M Residential College drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs students and local actors an alfresco production of Shakespeare’s culminating work, a visionary romance set on a magical island ruled by the enigmatic but benevolent sorcerer Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. Prospero is in fact the exiled duke of Milan, who conjures a storm that shipwrecks his old enemies upon his island. He takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson before bestowing forgiveness, abandoning his magical powers, and preparing to return to the world. The Tempest is filled with verse and song (including the famous “Full fathom five”) and contains some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeously haunting poetry. The RC’s annual Shakespeare in the Arb productions have become a hugely popular local summer tradition. Director Mendeloff takes special care to make the shifting Arb environments an active force in the performance. Bring a blanket or portable chair to sit on; dress for the weather.
6:30 p.m., meet at the Peony Garden entrance at 1610 Washington Heights. $15 (students, seniors, & Friends of Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, $10; kids under 5, free) at the gate only. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 p.m. Space limited; come early. 998-9540.
Every Thurs-Sun., June 8-25. U-M Residential College drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff directs students and local actors an alfresco production of Shakespeare’s culminating work, a visionary romance set on a magical island ruled by the enigmatic but benevolent sorcerer Prospero and his beautiful daughter Miranda. Prospero is in fact the exiled duke of Milan, who conjures a storm that shipwrecks his old enemies upon his island. He takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson before bestowing forgiveness, abandoning his magical powers, and preparing to return to the world. The Tempest is filled with verse and song (including the famous “Full fathom five”) and contains some of Shakespeare’s most gorgeously haunting poetry. The RC’s annual Shakespeare in the Arb productions have become a hugely popular local summer tradition. Director Mendeloff takes special care to make the shifting Arb environments an active force in the performance. Bring a blanket or portable chair to sit on; dress for the weather.
6:30 p.m., meet at the Peony Garden entrance at 1610 Washington Heights. $15 (students, seniors, & Friends of Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, $10; kids under 5, free) at the gate only. Tickets go on sale at 5:30 p.m. Space limited; come early. 998-9540.
Literati is pleased to welcome Rebecca J. Kinney and Stephen M. Ward for a discussion of their recent books about Detroit and the people who form its heart.
What is the “new Detroit” that everyone keeps talking about? In Beautiful Wasteland: The Rise of Detroit as America’s Postindustrial Frontier, Rebecca J. Kinney reveals that the contemporary story of Detroit’s rebirth is an upcycled version of the American Dream, which has long imagined access to work, home, and upward mobility as race-neutral projects. She tackles key questions about the future of postindustrial America, and shows how the narratives of Detroit’s history are deeply steeped in material and ideological investments in whiteness.
Rebecca J. Kinney, who grew up in metropolitan Detroit, is assistant professor in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University.
In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs details both the personal and the political dimensions of the Boggses’ lives, highlighting the vital contributions these two figures made to black activist thinking. At once a dual biography of two crucial figures and a vivid portrait of Detroit as a center of activism, Ward’s book restores the Boggses, and the intellectual strain of black radicalism they shaped, to their rightful place in postwar American history.
Stephen Ward is associate professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS) and the Residential College at the University of Michigan. He is also a board member of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership in Detroit.
The authors will discuss how their fiction transforms home into character. How do writers use assumptions about familiar places to find the unexpected and surprising? When is a hometown the whole trouble, and also the last, best hope for change? The authors will also talk about how the unique landscape of the upper Midwest inspires their fiction.
Kelly Fordon’s work has appeared in The Florida Review, The Kenyon Review (KRO), Rattle and various other journals. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks. The first one, On the Street Where We Live, won the 2012 Standing Rock Chapbook Award and the latest one, The Witness, won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for the Chapbook and was shortlisted for the Grand Prize. Her novel-in-stories, Garden for the Blind, was chosen as a Michigan Notable Book, a 2016 Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, an Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist in the short story category. She works for The College for Creative Studies, Springfed Arts and The InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit.
Laura Hulthen Thomas is the author of the short fiction collection, States of Motion, published by Wayne State University Press. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The Cimarron Review, Nimrod International Journal, Epiphany and Witness. She received her MFA in fiction writing from Warren Wilson College. She currently heads the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College, where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction.
The Hummingbird Global Writers’ Circle is an international reading series started by Dr. Debotri Dhar, CEW Visiting Scholar (2015-17) and Lecturer in Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. The aim of this literary initiative is to bring writers and communities together in different parts of the world to foster a love of books, to discuss the craft of writing, and to promote creative dialogue and global understanding in small ways. The name was inspired by the tiny hummingbird which builds its home with just a few drops of nectar, a root here, a leaf there, and a little bit of sky.
The Circle’s themed readings by established and emerging writers are free and open to the community. The theme for the first event of the Circle is feminism/ gender, to be held on Monday August 21 (3-5 pm) at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The writer-speakers for this session are Linda Gregerson, Laura Hulthen Thomas, Mike Ferro and Debotri Dhar (writer bios below), who will read from their poetry and fiction, followed by conversation /Q&A.
Light refreshments will be served. All members of the community are welcome to attend, however, RSVP is required. If you wish to hear our speakers read from their work, share tips, and engage in conversation, please RSVP to debotri@umich.edu.
