Calendar

Feb
23
Sat
Caryl Churchill Festival: Leigh Woods: Caryl Churchill at 80 @ Mendellsohn Theatre
Feb 23 @ 5:00 pm – 5:15 pm

U-M theater studies professor Leigh Woods gives a lecture on “Caryl Churchill at 80” (5 p.m.) at Mendelssohn Theatre.

 

32nd Annual Storytelling Festival @ The Ark
Feb 23 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Feb. 23 & 24 (different programs). Performances for adults (Sat.) & families (Sun.) by 3 top storytellers from around the country. Headliner is Hand Christian Andersen Storytelling Center (NYC) director Laura Simms, an internationally celebrated veteran storyteller whose repertoire includes both traditional tales and personal narratives. Also, playwright and performance artist Edgar Oliver, a celebrated NYC raconteur best known for his mesmerizing one-man show about his childhood in Savannah with his songster and his mentally ill mother, and Ivory D. Williams, a veteran Detroit storyteller known for his engaging, interactive renditions of traditional African and African American tales.
7:30 p.m. (Sat.) & 1 p.m. (Sun.), The Ark, 316 S. Main. Tickets $20 (Sat.) & $10 (Sun. family concert) in advance at the Michigan Union Ticket Office (mutotix.com) & theark.org, and at the door. To charge by phone, call 763-TKTS.

Feb
24
Sun
32nd Annual Storytelling Festival @ The Ark
Feb 24 @ 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Feb. 23 & 24 (different programs). Performances for adults (Sat.) & families (Sun.) by 3 top storytellers from around the country. Headliner is Hand Christian Andersen Storytelling Center (NYC) director Laura Simms, an internationally celebrated veteran storyteller whose repertoire includes both traditional tales and personal narratives. Also, playwright and performance artist Edgar Oliver, a celebrated NYC raconteur best known for his mesmerizing one-man show about his childhood in Savannah with his songster and his mentally ill mother, and Ivory D. Williams, a veteran Detroit storyteller known for his engaging, interactive renditions of traditional African and African American tales.
7:30 p.m. (Sat.) & 1 p.m. (Sun.), The Ark, 316 S. Main. Tickets $20 (Sat.) & $10 (Sun. family concert) in advance at the Michigan Union Ticket Office (mutotix.com) & theark.org, and at the door. To charge by phone, call 763-TKTS.

Feb
25
Mon
Lecture: Gillian Eaton: Displaced Children in an Uncertain World @ Room 1423 East Quad
Feb 25 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

This lecture is on Victim/Persecutor with Gillian Eaton, award-winning actress, director, and Prof. U-M School of Theatre, Music and Dance.
Room 1423, East Quadrangle, 701 East University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Free. rc.communications@umich.edu https://lsa.umich.edu/rc/news-events/all-events.detail.html/59958-14803944.html

Mar
12
Tue
Jason Rezalan: Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison @ Mendellsohn Theatre
Mar 12 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Iranian American journalist Jason Rezaian, Washington Post Tehran bureau chief, was convicted of espionage in Iran in 2015.
4-5:30 p.m., Mendelssohn Theatre, 911 North University. Free. 998-7666.

Belin Lecture: James Loeffler: Prisoners of Zion: American Jews, Human Rights, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict @ Forum Hall, Palmer Commons
Mar 12 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Literati is pleased to partner with the Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judiac Studies at the University of Michigan to have copies of Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century available for purchase. This year’s Belin Lecture is at the Forum Hall Palmer Commons.

29th David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish Affairs

2018 marks the 70th anniversary of two momentous events in 20th-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remain tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global antisemitism, and American foreign policy. Yet today American Jews are increasingly divided on the subject of Israel and human rights. Many on the Jewish Right and the Jewish Left increasingly imagine Zionism and international human rights as intrinsically incompatible – though they differ in their reasoning. Drawing on his recent book, Rooted Cosmopolitans, Professor Loeffler will discuss the deeper historical roots of this divide and its implications for the future of American Jewish politics.

James Loeffler is associate professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Virginia and former Robert A. Savitt Fellow at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Lecture: Ben Shapiro @ Rackham Auditorium
Mar 12 @ 7:00 pm – 7:15 pm

Lecture by Ben Shapiro, conservative political commentator and writer. He is editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire and former editor-at-large of Breitbart News. Q&A.
7 p.m., Rackham Auditorium. Free; tickets required in advance. Yafumich.comshapiroatmichigan@gmail.com.

Mar
15
Fri
Opening Lecture: Ken Mikolowski: Free Poems and Functional Art: 50 Years of The Alternative Press @ Hatcher Library, Room 100
Mar 15 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Former RC creative writing lecturer Ken Mikolowski founded the press; the exhibit runs from February 25-June 2 in the Hatcher Aububon Room.

Mar
19
Tue
Lecture: Jill Dougherty: The Truth about Lies in International Relations: Reflections on the Media in Russia and Beyond @ 1010 Weiser Hall
Mar 19 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Jill Dougherty (BA Russian ’70), former foreign affairs correspondent, CNN

Lots of countries lie.

Some call it “winning hearts and minds,” others call it “strategic communications,” still others call it “softening the battlefield.” However it’s described, propaganda is a key component of international relations, a tool employed both by diplomats and warriors. Russia has used propaganda since the 1917 Russian Revolution both to mold the minds of its own citizens and to spread the gospel of Marxism-Leninism around the world. Today’s Russia uses a well-honed media strategy to craft public opinion at home—and to promote the country’s public image abroad.

But the Kremlin also uses propaganda—now turbo-charged by digital advances like artificial intelligence, machine learning and big-data analytics—as a tool of war, a less-costly form of conflict than shedding blood, to undermine and weaken foes.

Jill Dougherty, former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief, examines how Russia uses information, and disinformation, to achieve its strategic objectives.

Jill Dougherty served as CNN correspondent for three decades, reporting from more than 50 countries. She is a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. and a CNN Contributor who provides expert commentary on Russia and the post-Soviet region. Ms. Dougherty joined CNN in 1983, and was appointed Moscow Bureau Chief in 1997. During nearly a decade in that post, she covered the presidencies of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s post-Soviet economic transition, terrorist attacks, the conflict in Chechnya, Georgia’s Rose Revolution and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. After a long career with CNN, Ms. Dougherty pursued academic interests, most recently as a Distinguished Visiting Practitioner at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. An alumna of the University of Michigan, she has a B.A. in Slavic languages and literature, a certificate of language study from Leningrad State University, and a master’s degree from Georgetown University. In addition to writing for CNN.com, her articles on international issues have appeared in the “Washington Post,” “Huffington Post,” and “The Atlantic,” among other publications. Jill Dougherty is also a member of track-two diplomatic initiatives seeking to improve the U.S.-Russia relationship.

Mar
21
Thu
Semester in Detroit’s Winter 2019 Detroiters Speaker Series: Whose Safety? Policing Minds, Bodies, and Borders in Detroit @ Cass Corridor Commons
Mar 21 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Containment & Surveillance: Shifting Borders and Boundaries will explore how policing and surveillance are being utilized to define and defend new borders and boundaries in a changing city. Topics will include Project Greenlight, the jurisdictions and powers of various law enforcement agencies in Detroit, and the role of policing in the shifting landscape of public and private space in the city.

Each week will feature different Detroit-based speakers and guests who will explore the given topic and engage the students through a combination of formal remarks, presentations, and public discussion. Light dinner provided; free transportation from Ann Arbor to Detroit; public welcome and encouraged to attend.

*Please note that the recommended readings list is subject to be added to and/or edited*

Recommended Readings:

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