Charles Eisendrath, retired University of Michigan Knight-Wallace journalism fellows director
Professor Eisendrath discusses his new book “Downstream from Here: A Big Life in a Small Place”, a series of essays about the loves of a place inhabited temporarily, but which shape a person permanently. “Prepare to be inspired.” –JEFF DANIELS
Literati Bookstore is pleased to be on hand to sell books for the Clements Library’s ongoing lecture series. This event features Jason S. Lantzer presenting his lecture Torn Asunder: Faith, Higher Education, Politics and the Davidson family during the Civil War. Literati will have copies of Jason’s related book, Rebel Bulldog, available for purchase.
About the lecture: The Davidson family of Indianapolis is a near-perfect microcosm of the United States during Civil War. With roots in the South, but living in the North the family’s ties to religious, education, and political leaders and institutions cast new light on the loyalties Americans felt towards their region, nation and the institution of slavery.
Central to the story is Preston Davidson, a Hoosier by birth, who fought for the Confederacy alongside his Virginian cousins. On the other side, stands his brother Dorman, who fought to preserve the Union. How these two ended up on opposing sides of the greatest conflict in American history is the story of how familial expectations, faith, higher educational opportunities, and political loyalties all played into the struggle over if the nation would be divided or united and whether or not slavery would flourish or be abolished.
Jason S. Lantzer holds a BA, MA, and PhD all from Indiana University. His research and writing interests center on the intersection of religion, politics, and law in American History. His book, “Rebel Bulldog: The Story of One Family, Two States, and the Civil War” was published in 2017. Dr. Lantzer serves as the Assistant Director of the Butler University Honors Program.
We are excited to welcome Kelly Fordon in support of her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House. Her work has appeared The Florida Review, The Kenyon Review, and other journals, as well as three poetry chapbooks. On the Street Where We Live won the 2012 Standing Rock Chapbook Award, and The Witness won the 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for the Chapbook. Her novel-in-stories, Garden for the Blind, was chosen as a Michigan Notable Book. She teaches at the College for Creative Studies, Springfed Arts, and InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit.
Ann Arbor’s Zilka Joseph has an MFA in Poetry from University of Michigan, and she teaches workshops, works as a manuscript coach and editor, and mentors writers in the Ann Arbor community. She has written several books of poetry including her most recent, Sharp Blue Search of Flame.
Signing to follow.
“With words as effective and as cunningly crafted as newly sharpened knives, a relentless insistence, and stunning wordplay, Fordon gives voice to those trapped behind the idyllic façade.”
–Gloria Whelan, author Homeless Bird, National Book Award winner
“Rich with the scents and sounds and colors of her native Kolkata, Zilka Joseph’s poetry is also haunted: by the real and imagined violence of the world, by the losses entailed in migration, by the loved ones left behind. Deeply felt and lushly rendered, these poems weave a tapestry of sorrow and celebration, tenderness and outrage, bodily longing and bodily vulnerability. A book as searching as its title.” –Linda Gregerson
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.
Pamela Reynolds will speak about her book The Uncaring, Intricate World: A Field Diary, Zambezi Valley, 1984-85 (Duke 2019). Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, Reynolds is author of War in Worcester: Youth and the Apartheid State. As U-M Presidential Professor she conducted the 2001-02 Mellon Seminar: Contested Childhood in a Changing Global Order. Following her talk, she is available for further conversation at a reception and book signing held in her honor. Reception RSVP at lizgoode@umich.edu
Monthly meeting of the AASG Open to the public. This Month we are at the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre’s Studio.
If you’ve ever thought about writing a novel, join us at the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Kick Off Party! Hosted by Ann Arbor municipal liaison Hilary Braley, you’ll find fellow first-time and experienced writers to get inspired! This event includes light refreshments.
National Novel Writing Month is a non-profit event that encourages teens and adults to tackle the challenge of writing a novel during the month of November. Participants begin writing on November 1 with the goal of writing a 50,000-word (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59 pm, November 30.
Official NaNoWriMo writing sessions will be held at AADL during November, but get a head start and celebrate with this great kick off party!
Come on out to Serendipity Books in Chelsea for a night of chills and thrills. The telling starts simple and small with not-so-scary stories for kids. The stories slowly become more scary and MORE ADULT as the night progesses. Stay if you dare, but BE WARNED! Things get pretty creepy around here.
Ellen Muehlberger (history, classical studies, Middle East studies) and Deborah Dash Moore (Judaic studies, history) discuss Muehlberger’s latest book, followed by Q & A.
Late antiquity saw a proliferation of Christian texts dwelling on the emotions and physical sensations of dying—not as a heroic martyr in a public square or a judge’s court but as an individual, at home in a bed or in a private room. In sermons, letters, and ascetic traditions, late ancient Christians imagined the last minutes of life and the events that followed death in elaborate detail. This book traces how, in late ancient Christianity, death came to be thought of as a moment of reckoning: a physical ordeal whose pain is followed by an immediate judgment of one’s actions by angels and demons and, after that, fitting punishment. This emphasis on the experience of death ushered in a new ethical sensibility among Christians, in which one’s death was to be imagined frequently and anticipated in detail. This was initially meant as a tool for individuals: preachers counted on the fact that becoming aware of a judgment arriving at the end of one’s life tends to sharpen one’s scruples. But, as this book argues, the change in Christian sensibility toward death did not just affect individuals. Death imagined as the moment of reckoning created a fund of images and ideas within late ancient Christian culture about just what constituted a human being and how variances in human morality should be treated. This had significant effects on the Christian adoption of power in late antiquity, especially in the case of power’s heaviest baggage: the capacity to authorize violence against others
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.
