Calendar

Feb
6
Thu
Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan: Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus @ Rackham Amphitheater
Feb 6 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Literati is pleased to be on hand as a bookseller as the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan presents Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan, authors of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power and Assault on Campus. 

The fear of campus sexual assault has become an inextricable part of the college experience. But why is sexual assault such a common feature of college life? And what can be done to prevent it? Drawing on the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) at Columbia University, the most comprehensive study of sexual assault on a campus to date, Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan’s new book presents an entirely new framework that emphasizes sexual assault’s social roots, transcending current debates about consent, predators in a “hunting ground,” and the dangers of hooking up.

Based on years of research interviewing and observing college life―with students of different races, genders, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic backgrounds―Hirsch and Khan’s study reveals the social ecosystem that makes sexual assault so predictable, explaining how physical spaces, alcohol, peer groups, and cultural norms influence young people’s experiences and interpretations of both sex and sexual assault.

Book sales and signing will follow the discussion.

Cosponsors: Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC), Departments of American Culture, Sociology, Women’s Studies, School of Education

Zell Visiting Writers: Rya Kaminsky @ UMMA Auditorium
Feb 6 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Literati is pleased to be the official bookseller for the Zell Visiting Writing Series, produced by the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. 

Ilya Kaminsky’s widely acclaimed parable in poems, Deaf Republic (Graywolf, 2019), reads like a two-act political drama in which lyric poems trace the experiences of citizens living under martial law. A New Yorker review called it a work of “profound imagination.” Poems from Deaf Republic were awarded Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize and the Pushcart Prize.

Kaminsky is also the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), and Musica Humana (Chapiteau Press, 2002). Kaminsky has won the Whiting Writer’s Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and the Foreword Magazine’s Best Poetry Book of the Year award. Recently, he was on the short-list for the Neusdadt International Literature Prize. His poems have been translated into numerous languages and his books have been published in many countries including Turkey, Holland, Russia, France, Mexico, Macedonia, Romania, Spain and China, where his poetry was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize. His poems have been compared to work by Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Marina Tsvetaeva.

He is the editor of several anthologies, among them The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Ecco, 2010), co-edited with Susan Harris, which John Ashbery praised as “immediately indispensable;” A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith(Tupelo Press, 2012), co-edited with Katherine Towler; Gossip and Metaphysics: Russian Modernist Poets and Prose (Tupelo Press, 2014), co-edited with Katie Farris and Valzhyna Mort; and In the Shape of the Human Body I am Visiting the Earth: Poems from Far and Wide (McSweeney’s, 2017) with Dominic Luxford and Jesse Nathan. With Jean Valentine, he has co-translated Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva.

The Zell Visiting Writers Series brings outstanding writers to campus each semester. UMMA is pleased to be the site for most of these events. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from U-M alumna Helen Zell (BA ’64, LLDHon ’13). For more information, please visit the Zell Visiting Writers Program webpage: https://lsa.umich.edu/writers

Feb
7
Fri
Charles Eisendrath: Downstream from Here @ Argus Farm Stop
Feb 7 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Time Magazine journalist, professor, farmer, and inventor Charles Eisendrath reads from his new memoir Downstream From Here, retracing a life lived in many worlds, from interviewing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on the morning after the coup, to extracting maple syrup on the shores of Lake Charlevoix. Free and open to the public!

Members are encouraged to share their own poems or poems they like – they may or may not relate to the theme of the evening. This is not primarily a workshop – we may hold special workshop nights, but mostly we listen to and talk about poems for the sake of inspiring new writing.

Whether you are a published poet or encountering poetry for the first time, we invite you to join us!

$5 suggested donation for food, drinks and printing costs.

8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.

 

 

 

Fiction at Literati: Madeline Miller: Circe @ Literati
Feb 7 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We’re pleased to welcome acclaimed author and Orange Prize for Fiction recipient Madeline Miller in support of her beloved novel, Circe. This event is free and open to the public. Seating will be limited and will be first come / first served. We will seek accommodate additional standing room guests in an overflow area with audio from the event. 

About the book: Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.

Madeline Miller was born in Boston and attended Brown University where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. She lives in Narbeth, PA with her husband and two children. The Song of Achilles was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction and has been translated into twenty-five languages.

Feb
10
Mon
Dan Murphy: Start By Believing @ Literati
Feb 10 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome ESPN investigative reporter and Peabody Award recipient Dan Murphy to discuss start by Believing: Larry Nassar’s Crimes, the Institutions that Enabled Him, and the Brave Women Who Stopped a Monster.  A book signing will follow the author talk. The event is free and open to the public. 

About the book: The definitive, devastating account of the largest sex abuse scandal in American sports history-with new details and insights into the institutional failures, as well as the bravery that brought it to light.

For decades, osteopathic physician Larry Nassar built a sterling reputation as the go-to doctor for America’s Olympians while treating countless others at his office on Michigan State University’s campus. It was largely within the high-pressure world of competitive gymnastics that Nassar exploited young girls, who were otherwise motivated by fear and intimidation, sexually assaulting hundreds of them under the guise of medical treatment.

In Start by Believing, John Barr and Dan Murphy confront Nassar’s acts, which represent the largest sex abuse scandal to impact the sporting world. Through never-before-released interviews and documents they deconstruct the epic institutional failures and individuals who enabled him. When warnings were raised, self-serving leaders chose to protect their organizations’ reputations over the well-being of young people.

Following the paths traveled by courageous women-featuring a once-shy Christian attorney and a brash, outspoken Olympic medalist-Barr and Murphy detail the stories of those who fought back against the dysfunction within their sport to claim a far-from-inevitable victory. The gymnasts’ uncommon perseverance, along with the help of dedicated advocates brought criminals to justice and helped to fuel the #MeToo revolution.

Start by Believing reveals the win-at-all-costs culture in elite athletics and higher education that enabled a quarter century of heinous crimes.

Dan Murphy is an investigative reporter at ESPN. He was honored with a Peabody Award and the IRE Sports Investigations Award in 2019. His coverage of college athletics and broader issues in the world of sports has appeared on ESPN’s digital, television and print outlets. Based now in Michigan, Murphy is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Emerging Writers Presents: Local Writers LIVE: Bethany Grey, Johnny Thompson, Miranda Kruse, Loretta J. Poisson, Coach Roscow @ AADL Westgate, West Side Room
Feb 10 @ 7:00 pm – 8:45 pm

Emerging Writers Presents: Local Writers LIVE

When

Monday February 10, 2020: 7:00pm to 8:30pm

Where

Westgate Branch: West Side Room

Description

Join us for an evening with five local authors doing short readings from their published books, and have a chance to chat and buy their books too!

We’ll kick off the evening with readings by two authors with books published with the library’s Fifth Avenue Press imprint:

Bethany Grey will read from All That We Encounter, a literary novel with a metaphysical and time-travel slant that addresses the complexity of family bonds, explores self-discovery at every age, and raises the question: to truly move on from one’s past, must one first come to terms with it?

Johnny Thompson will read selections from Breaking Through,  a novel about Sam, a twenty-eight year old teacher, who navigates changing friendships and her own out-of-control love life as forgotten pieces of her past begin to resurface.

Meet the other authors:

Miranda Kruse is the author of the To Be Loved series, first published on Amazon in 2015. Miranda is a volunteer fire fighter in her home town in Michigan. On the sandy shores of Luna Pier’s beach front, she writes this spell-binding series that has captivated the hearts of her fellow heroes and friends. In To Be Loved, Asher Stone, a firefighter in the city of Luna Pier, Michigan, faces the worst night of his life during a Marina fire that leaves his brother, Curtis, badly burned fighting for his life. Asher discovers that the arsons going on in Luna Pier, like the Marina fire, is happening all around the world.  Emie Whitby has lived her entire life being what she’s destined to be, a vampire angel, taking the lives of the lost while saving the lives of the chosen ones. Apocalyptic war is coming to Luna Pier with a force driven to stop Asher and Emie from being together. Can they overcome their differences, fight the demonic forces and their prejudice families, to be loved?

Loretta J. Poisson’s new book is titled A Woven Truth. She  is also the author of Between a Pyramid and a Hard Place, Interview with Death, and Unearthing Hidden Jewels. Loretta has lived and worked in Ann Arbor for fifty years, many of those under the guise of hairdresser. A Woven Truth is a thick and meaty world history textbook which tells the real beginnings of humankind on earth.  This is for anyone who has a soul and longs for the knowing of its origins on earth.

Coach Roscoe was born with Spina bifida, but never let that hold him back from doing what he was determined to do. In high school he wrestled and played football.  He went on to coach wrestling and football  in the Willow Run school District for 15 years, until he retired on medical leave. Currently Coach Roscoe helps coach and inspire students at Concordia University in Ann Arbor and is a published author. His life goal is to be an inspiration to people young and old. Coach Roscoe’s books are God Spoke To Me and Listen To Him.

This is part of the monthly Emerging Writers Workshops, which offer support, learning, and advice for local authors. 

Do you have a completed manuscript? Consider submitting it to the library’s imprint Fifth Avenue Press.

This event includes a signing with books for sale.

Do you have a completed manuscript? Consider submitting it to the library’s imprint Fifth Avenue Press.

Feb
11
Tue
Christopher Fort: translator of Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon: Night and Day @ Literati
Feb 11 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

We welcome Christopher Fort, who holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literature from the University of Michigan in support of his translation of preeminent Uzbek poet and litterateur Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon, Night and Day. The event is free and open to the public, signing to follow. 

About the book: Night and Day, an unfinished dilogy by Uzbek author Cho’lpon, follows the terrible fate of a young Uzbek girl condemned to marry a sexual glutton. The novel raises questions about the nature of Russian colonialism, resistance to it, and the intentions of the author, whose life was lost to Stalinist terror.

Christopher Fort holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Michigan and an MA in Russian Area Studies from The Ohio State University. He is also the translator of Uzbek author Isajon Sulton’s “The Eternal Wanderer”.

Harry Dolan: The Good Killer @ Nicola's Books
Feb 11 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Harry Dolan will be in store signing his newest release The Good Killer. Please note that Harry will be doing a 30 minute talk at the beginning of the event.

About the Book

Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living quietly and cautiously in Houston when a troubled, obsessive stranger shatters the safety they have carefully constructed for themselves. Sean is at a shopping mall when Henry Alan Keen, scorned by a woman he’s been dating, pulls out a gun at the store where she works and begins shooting everyone in sight. A former soldier, Sean rushes toward Keen and ends the slaughter with two well-placed shots — becoming a hero with his face plastered across the news.

But Sean’s newfound notoriety exposes him to the wrath of two men he thought he had left safely in his past. One of them blames Sean for his brother’s death. The other wants to recover a treasure that Sean and Molly stole from him. Both men are deadly and relentless enemies, and Sean and Molly will need to draw on all their strength and devotion to each other if they hope to elude them. Thus begins a cross-country chase that leads from Texas to Montana, from Tennessee to New York to Michigan, as the hunters and their prey grow ever closer and, in a heart-stopping moment, converge.

​A wickedly clever and exhilarating thriller, The Good Killer offers a sophisticated, breathtaking look at the extremes people will reach for love, greed, and survival.

About the Author

Harry Dolan is the author of the mystery/suspense novels Bad Things Happen (2009), Very Bad Men (2011), The Last Dead Girl (2014), and The Man In The Crooked Hat (2017). He graduated from Colgate University, where he majored in philosophy and studied fiction-writing with the novelist Frederick Busch. A native of Rome, New York, he now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Feb
12
Wed
Poetry Salon: One Pause Poetry @ Argus Farm Stop
Feb 12 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

ONE PAUSE POETRY SALON is (literally) a greenhouse for poetry and poets, nurturing an appreciation for written art in all languages and encouraging experiments in creative writing.

We meet every Weds in the greenhouse at Argus Farm Stop on Liberty St. The poems we read each time are unified by form (haiku, sonnet, spoken word), poet, time / place (Tang Dynasty, English Romanticism, New York in the 70s) or theme / mood (springtime, poems with cats, protest poems). We discuss the poems and play writing games together, with time for snacks and socializing in between.

Members are encouraged to share their own poems or poems they like – they may or may not relate to the theme of the evening. This is not primarily a workshop – we may hold special workshop nights, but mostly we listen to and talk about poems for the sake of inspiring new writing.

Whether you are a published poet or encountering poetry for the first time, we invite you to join us!

$5 suggested donation for food, drinks and printing costs.

8-10 p.m., Argus Farm Stop greenhouse, 325 W. Liberty. $5 suggested donation. onepausepoetry.org, 707-1284.

 

 

 

Feb
13
Thu
Andrea Turpin: Coeducation for Democracy: The Changing Moral Vision for Educating the Sexes at the University of Michigan, 1870-1920 @ Ford Presidential Library
Feb 13 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the admission of women to U-M. Andrea Turpin, associate professor of history at Baylor University and author of the recent award-winning book, A New Moral Vision: Gender, Religion, and the Changing Purposes of American Higher Education, 1837-1917, will speak on the struggle for women’s admission at U-M and the experiences of women students here during the early decades of coeducation. This lecture is part of a new monthly series on the history of the University, sponsored by the Bentley Historical Library.

Dr. Andrea L. Turpin is Associate Professor of History at Baylor University. Her first book, A New Moral Vision: Gender, Religion, and the Changing Purposes of American Higher Education, 1837-1917 (Cornell, 2016) explores how the entrance of women into U.S. colleges and universities shaped changing ideas about the moral and religious purposes of higher education in unexpected ways, and in turn profoundly shaped American culture. The book has won three awards: the 2018 biennial Linda Eisenmann Prize from the History of Education Society for the best first book on the history of higher education, the 2017 Lilly Fellows Program Biennial Book Award for scholarship from any field related to religion and higher education, and Baylor University’s 2016 Guittard Book Award for Historical Scholarship. Dr. Turpin has also published several peer-reviewed articles in journals including the History of Education QuarterlyPerspectives in the History of Higher Education, and The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Her second book project, tentatively entitled A Debate of Their Own: Educated Women in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, positions college-educated women as key players in the narrative of the Protestant fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century, the split between theological and social liberals and conservatives which many credit with giving birth to the modern culture wars. Dr. Turpin is co-chair of the Higher Education affinity group of the History of Education Society and serves on the Council of the American Society of Church History. She contributes to the group blog The Anxious Bench and tweets @AndreaLTurpin.

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