Calendar

Nov
11
Mon
Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement @ Literati
Nov 11 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome contributors to this intersectional collection of essays, fiction, and poetry featuring black, Latinx, Asian, queer, and trans writers. Details and readers to be announced. 

About the book: “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” said Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford when she testified to congress in September 2018 about the men who victimized her. A year earlier, in October 2017, the hashtag #MeToo shone a light on the internalized, normalized sexual harassment and abuse that’d been ubiquitous for women for generations.

Among the first books to emerge from the #MeToo movement, Indelible in the Hippocampus is a truly intersectional collection of essays, fiction, and poetry. These original texts sound the voices of black, Latinx, Asian, queer, and trans writers, to name but a few, and says “me too” 23 times. Whether reflecting on their teenage selves or their modern-day workplaces, each contributor approaches the subject with unforgettable authenticity and strength.

Together these pieces create a portrait of cultural sea-change, offering the reader a deeper understanding of this complex, galvanizing pivot in contemporary consciousness.

Nov
12
Tue
Poetry at Literati: Michelle Penaloza: Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, and Bill Carty: Huge Cloudy @ Literati
Nov 12 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Michelle Peñaloza is the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019). She is also the author of two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). Her work can be found in River Styx, Prairie Schooner, upstreet, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships from the University of Oregon, Kundiman, and Hugo House as well as the 2019 Scotti Merrill Emerging Writer Award for Poetry from The Key West Literary Seminar. Michelle has also received support from Artist Trust, Lemon Tree House, Caldera, 4Culture, Vermont Studio Center, Literary Arts, VONA/Voices, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, among others. The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She now lives, farms, and writes in rural Northern California.

Bill Carty lives in Seattle and is the author of HUGE CLOUDY (Octopus Books, 2019) and the chapbook Refugium(Alice Blue Books). He has received poetry fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Artist Trust, and the Richard Hugo House. His poems have recently appeared (or will soon) in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, the Iowa Review, Willow Springs, Conduit, Oversound, and other journals.

Nov
13
Wed
Anne Nelson: Shadow Network @ Literati
Nov 13 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is pleased to partner with the Knight-Wallace Fellowship for Journalists at the University of Michigan in welcoming Anne Nelson in support of her latest book, Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. 

About the book: The chilling story of the covert group that masterminds the Radical Right’s ongoing assault on America’s airwaves, schools, environment, and, ultimately, its democracy.

In 1981, emboldened by Ronald Reagan’s election, a group of some fifty Republican operatives, evangelicals, oil barons, and gun lobbyists met in a Washington suburb to coordinate their attack on civil liberties and the social safety net. These men and women called their coalition the Council for National Policy. Over four decades, this elite club has become a strategic nerve center for channeling money and mobilizing votes behind the scenes. Its secretive membership rolls represent a high-powered roster of fundamentalists, oligarchs, and their allies, from Oliver North, Ed Meese, and Tim LaHaye in the Council’s early days to Mike Pence, Tony Perkins, and the DeVos family today.

In Shadow Network, award-winning author and media analyst Anne Nelson chronicles this astonishing history and illuminates the coalition’s key figures and their tactics. She traces how the collapse of American local journalism laid the foundation for the Council for National Policy’s information war and listens in on the hardline broadcasting its members control. And she reveals how the group has collaborated with the Koch brothers to outfit Radical Right organizations with state-of-the-art apps and a shared pool of captured voter data – outmaneuvering the Democratic Party in a digital arms race whose result has yet to be decided.

In a time of stark and growing threats to our most valued institutions and democratic freedoms, Shadow Networkis essential reading.

Anne Nelson has received a Livingston Award for her journalism, a Guggenheim Fellowship for her historical research, and a Bellagio Fellowship for her research on the social impact of digital media. A graduate of Yale University, she began her career as a journalist in the U.S and abroad. She won an Associated Church Press Award for her writing on the conflict in Central America, which she covered for the Los Angeles Times, NPR, and the BBC. She has taught at Columbia University for over two decades, first at the School of Journalism and then at the School of International and Public Affairs. Her previous books include Red Orchestra: The Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; andSuzanne’s Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. A native of Oklahoma, she lives in New York City.

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.

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.

 

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
Sweetland Writer to Writer: Jennifer Proctor @ Literati
Nov 19 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Sweetland’s Writer to Writer series lets you hear directly from University of Michigan professors about their challenges, processes, and expectations as writers and also as readers of student writing. Each semester, Writer to Writer pairs one esteemed University professor with a Sweetland faculty member for a conversation about writing. For this installment, host Shelley Manis will speak with Professor Jennifer Proctor.

Writer to Writer sessions take place at the Literati bookstore and are broadcast live on WCBN radio. These conversations offer students a rare glimpse into the writing that professors do outside the classroom. You can hear instructors from various disciplines describe how they handle the same challenges student writers face, from finding a thesis to managing deadlines. Professors will also discuss what they want from student writers in their courses, and will take questions put forth by students and by other members of the University community. If there’s anything you’ve ever wanted to ask a professor about writing, Writer to Writer gives you the chance.

Jennifer Proctor is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Screen Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and co-founder and director of the inclusive teaching initiative EDIT Media (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Teaching Media). She is a filmmaker and media artist whose internationally recognized, award-winning found footage work examines the history of experimental film, Hollywood tropes, and the representation of women in cinema. Her recent work, in particular, seeks to blur boundaries between avant-garde film practices and the scholarly video essay. Her 2018 film “Nothing a Little Soap and Water Can’t Fix,” which examines the bathtub as a feminized domestic space, won the Cutters Archival Film Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Top Grit at the Indie Grits Film Festival, and Best Experimental Film at the St. Francis College Women’s Film Festival, in addition to screening at more than forty film festivals around the world. Her recent video, “Am I Pretty?” appropriates the voices of tween girls from YouTube videos to explore the development of self-image and self-esteem in the modern era. In addition to screening at film festivals, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, “Am I Pretty?” appears in a special issue on audiography in [in]Transition: The Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies.

Nov
20
Wed
Tia Powell: Dementia Reimagined @ Literati
Nov 20 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We’re partnering with Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Center to welcome Tia Powell in support of her book Dementia Reimagined. A book signing will follow. The event is free and open to the public. 

About the book: The cultural and medical history of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease by a leading psychiatrist and bioethicist who urges us to turn our focus from cure to care.

Despite being a physician and a bioethicist, Tia Powell wasn’t prepared to address the challenges she faced when her grandmother, and then her mother, were diagnosed with dementia–not to mention confronting the hard truth that her own odds aren’t great. In the U.S., 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day; by the time a person reaches 85, their chances of having dementia approach 50 percent. And the truth is, there is no cure, and none coming soon, despite the perpetual promises by pharmaceutical companies that they are just one more expensive study away from a pill. Dr. Powell’s goal is to move the conversation away from an exclusive focus oncure to a genuine appreciation of care–what we can do for those who have dementia, and how to keep life meaningful and even joyful.

Reimagining Dementia is a moving combination of medicine and memoir, peeling back the untold history of dementia, from the story of Solomon Fuller, a black doctor whose research at the turn of the twentieth century anticipated important aspects of what we know about dementia today, to what has been gained and lost with the recent bonanza of funding for Alzheimer’s at the expense of other forms of the disease. In demystifying dementia, Dr. Powell helps us understand it with clearer eyes, from the point of view of both physician and caregiver. Ultimately, she wants us all to know that dementia is not only about loss–it’s also about the preservation of dignity and hope.

 

Dr. Tia Powell is Director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics and of the Einstein Cardozo Master of Science in Bioethics program. She is Professor of Epidemiology, Division of Bioethics, and Psychiatry. She has bioethics expertise in public policy, dementia, consultation, end of life care, decision-making capacity, bioethics education and the ethics of public health disasters. She served four years as Executive Director of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, which functions as New York State’s bioethics commission. She has worked with the Institute of Medicine on many projects related to public health and ethics, and most recently served on the 2017 report on community approaches to address health inequities. She is a board certified psychiatrist and Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, the American Psychiatric Association and The Hastings Center.

Nov
26
Tue
Skazat! Poetry Series: David Hornibrook @ Sweetwaters
Nov 26 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Skazat! is back, and have we got a season lined up for you! Join us at Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea Washington St. to celebrate with fabulous poetry and tasty treats. Whether you’re a page poet, slammer, performance artist or refuse a label, we want to hear your new stuff on our open mic. We look forward to sharing great poetry (and great coffee) with you and invite you to join this free open mic and monthly reading series!

Sign up! 7:00 p.m.
7:15 p.m. – Open mic
8:00 p.m. – Featured Reader
This month’s feature: David Hornibrook

lsa logoum logoU-M Privacy StatementAccessibility at U-M