Calendar

Mar
9
Mon
Elizabeth Goodenough: Growing Up Near the Great Lakes @ Hatcher Graduate Library, Special Collections, 6th floor
Mar 9 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Dr. Elizabeth Goodenough explores the landscapes of the Great Lakes as they shape the lives of children, writers, and illustrators. She offers images and tales of lighthouses and shipwrecks from the inland seas, a biosphere with the power to influence artists forever. Stories of displaced children, indigenous youth, and runaways portray stormy passages. What geography constitutes “home” in picture books, Y/A and graphic novels, legends, and film?  How do we retain and preserve the settings we first encountered? Goodenough investigates how a sense of belonging and becoming abides within, sustaining or haunting a lifetime. In this session we recall regional memories, ideas about nature, and narratives of outdoor exploration. Registration is encouraged but not required.

Goodenough has taught literature at Harvard, Claremont McKenna, and Sarah Lawrence colleges, and the University of Michigan. She has published several volumes in Childhood Studies, and her award-winning PBS documentary, Where Do the Children Play?, helped initiate a national dialogue on outdoor play.

Immediately following the presentation, we invite you to this month’s Special Collections After Hours Event, The Great Lakes in Children’s Literature.

Special Collections After Hours: The Great Lakes in Children’s Literature @ Hatcher Graduate Library, Special Collections, 6th floor
Mar 9 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Look at the Great Lakes region through the eyes of Michigan children’s authors, including Tom Pohrt, Nancy Willard, and Joan Blos. In addition to published works, we will also have selected archival materials and artwork on display.

The Great Lakes represent the largest body of freshwater in the world and are surrounded by diverse ecosystems and communities, from the rust belt steel mills that sit on Indiana’s sand dunes to the protected forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Nonetheless, from Western New York to Eastern Minnesota, to grow up in the Great Lakes region means to grow up anchored to a landscape shaped by water, and to a social and economic environment built on a history of using (and often abusing) this abundant water source.

This event follows a lecture by Elizabeth Goodenough at 3:00pm, Growing Up Near the Great Lakes. Please join us for both events!

This event is part of Special Collections After Hours, a monthly open house series sharing highlights from the many books, documents, and artifacts in the Special Collections Research Center. Each event is open to everyone and will offer a new group of themed materials for visitors to explore. Open houses are held on the second Tuesday of each month during the academic year. Light refreshments are provided.

Mar
17
Tue
The Moth Storyslam: Co-Habitation @ Blind Pig
Mar 17 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Open-mic storytelling competitions. Open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night’s theme. Come tell a story, or just enjoy the show!

6:30pm Doors Open | 7:30pm Stories Begin

*Tickets for this event are available one week before the show, at 3pm ET.

*Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please be sure to arrive at least 10 minutes before the show. Admission is not guaranteed for late arrivals. All sales final.

CO-HABITATION: Prepare a five-minute story about living with someone, or something. Your crazy college roommate or the raccoons in your backyard. A very particular neighbor or your unique family. Tell us about how you can’t live with them, but you can’t live without them!

 

Mar
31
Tue
Faith A. Pennick: D’Angelo’s Voodoo @ Literati
Mar 31 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome filmmaker, writer and University of Michigan alumna Faith Pennick in support of her 33 1/3rd series entry, D’Angelo’s Voodoo. The event is free and open to the public, a book signing will follow. 

About the book: Voodoo, D’Angelo’s much-anticipated 2000 release, set the standard for the musical cycle ordained as “neo-soul,” a label the singer and songwriter would reject more than a decade later. The album is a product of heightened emotions and fused sensibilities; an amalgam of soul, rock, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. D’Angelo put to music his own pleasures and insecurities as a man-child in the promised land. It was both a tribute to his musical heroes: Prince, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, J Dilla…and a deconstruction of rhythm and blues itself.

Despite nearly universal acclaim, the sonic expansiveness of Voodoo proved too nebulous for airplay on many radio stations, seeping outside the accepted lines of commercial R&B music. Voodoo was Black, it was definitely magic, and it was nearly overshadowed by a four-minute music video featuring D’Angelo’s sweat-glistened six-pack abs. “The Video” created an accentuated moment when the shaman lost control of the spell he cast.

Faith Pennick is a Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based filmmaker and writer. Her most recent film is Weightless, a documentary short about plus-sized female scuba divers. Her other films include the documentary Silent Choices and narrative short film Running on Eggshells. Pennick is also a contributing writer to pop culture website The Learned Fangirl.

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