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1:30-3:30 pm – Roundtable in Hebrew: Readings of texts and discussion with UM faculty and graduate students: Maya Barzilai, Yael Kenan, Nadav Linial, Marina Mayorski, Shachar Pinsker
4:00-5:30 pm – Panel in English: Discussion with the authors about shared themes and questions from U-M faculty and graduate students
Moderator: Maya Barizlai
5:30-6:30 pm – Reception with Authors
6:30-7:45 pm – Conversation with Authors: Maya Arad, Dory Manor, Ruby Namdar, and Moshe Sakal (in English. Books will be available for sale)
Moderator: Shachar Pinsker
The symposium brings four writers, who stand at the forefront of contemporary Hebrew literature in Israel and the US, in conversation with University of Michigan scholars and students. It features the highly acclaimed writers Maya Arad, Ruby Namdar, and Moshe Sakal, and the prize-winning poet, translator, and editor Dory Manor. Writers and scholars will discuss the meaning of writing Hebrew today in Israel and around the world, and the contacts between Hebrew and other languages. They will consider the challenges of translation, editing, and disseminating literature in a global context, as well as the political implications of Hebrew literature today.
The front entrance of Rackham, located on East Washington, is accessible by stairs and ramp. There are elevators on both the east and wends ends of the lobby. The assembly hall is on the fourth floor.
If you have a disability that requires an accommodation, contact the Judaic Studies office at judaicstudies@umich.edu or 734-763-9047.
Talk by this CNN political commentator and bestselling writer, author of For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough, winner of the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Nonfiction in 2013.
2 p.m., EMU Student Center Auditorium, 900 Oakwood, Ypsilanti. Free. 487-1849.
This Georgetown University sociology professor and New York Times opinion writer–a Detroit native–discusses MLK and African American leadership in the 21st century.
2-4:30 p.m., 100 U-M Hatcher Grad Library Gallery, enter from the Diag. Free. 764-7522.
Panel discussion on U-M Afroamerican and African studies professor Naomi André’s book, with André, RC and U-M women’s studies professor Abigail Stewart, and U-M musicology professor Gabriela Cruz.
3:30 p.m., 2239 Lane Hall, 204 S. State. Free. 764-9537
Literati is proud to be the bookseller at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of Ann Arbor’s event with Kentaro Toyama at the Washtenaw Community College.
The Future of Work
Speaker’s Synopsis: Will artificial intelligence (AI) take away jobs or usher in a prosperous utopia? Will self-driving cars reduce our use of fossil fuels or accelerate emissions? What will a college degree be worth when knowledge work can be done by machine? This talk considers these and other questions through the lens of technology’s “Law of Amplification.” Paradoxically, what is needed most in a world of advanced technology is greater attention to human values.
Kentaro Toyama is W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information, a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, and author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. In previous lives, Kentaro taught at Ashesi University in Ghana and co-founded Microsoft Research India, where he did research on the application of information and communication technology to international development.
Yale law professor James Forman, Jr. reads from his Pulitzer-winning book examining the response by African American elected officials and citizens to the surge in crime and drug addiction that began in the 1970s.
4-5:30 p.m., 1010 Weiser Hall, 500 Church. Free. 615-8482.
Retired Detroit minister Bill Wylie-Kellerman discusses his new book about his wife’s illness and death, written from his spiritual perspective. Signing.
Transformation, Aesthetics, and Beauty: Translating Zen Master Ikkyu and Classical Chinese Poetry
Translators Sarah Messer and Kidder Smith will introduce Zen Master Ikkyu, an unconventional 14th century enlightened Zen Master who wrote poems in Classical Chinese, upended gender roles, and transformed the aesthetics of medieval Japan. They will also discuss how they translated Ikkyu’s poetry since Sarah didn’t know any Chinese at the start. All of us together will then translate a poem from Chinese into English, using the same method that Sarah and Kidder employed. We will conclude by enjoying some cheese from White Lotus Farms (where Sarah works), understanding that cheesemaking also involves transformation, aesthetics, mindfulness, and beauty.
RC alumna Sarah Messer is the author of four books, a hybrid history/memoir, Red House (Viking), a book of translations, Having Once Paused: Poems of Zen Master Ikkyu (University of Michigan Press) and two poetry books Bandit Letters (New Issues), and Dress Made of Mice (Black Lawrence Press). Messer co-founded One Pause Poetry and teaches Creative Writing at the RC and is a cheesemaker at White Lotus Farms.
For many years Kidder Smith taught Chinese history at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he also chaired the Asian Studies Program. He is the lead translator of Sun Tzu—the Art of War (Shambhala), and (with Sarah Messer), Having Once Paused: Poems of Zen Master Ikkyu (University of Michigan Press).
Let Me Sing and I’m Happy is the history of an actress who sings popular songs. It is also a handbook detailing an approach to bringing the song to life. Author Morris writes “For forty years I’ve been privileged to sing the greatest songs from our American musical theater history – Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, and Rodgers and Hart. I was fortunate to find a musical partner, William Bolcom, who felt the same way, who helped me illuminate and bring to life the history and drama in each song. Our approach gained us entry into the serious-music concert world. It helped us, in Schiller’s words, to ‘…unite that which fashion had sternly parted.’”
5:30 p.m., 100 U-M Hatcher Grad Library Gallery, enter from the Diag. Free. 763-8994.
