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.
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 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.com, shapiroatmichigan@gmail.com.
BRING ABOUT SIX COPIES OF YOUR WORK. COPIES WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU.
Hosted by Joe Kelty, Ed Morin, and Dave Jibson; see our blog at Facebook/Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room, 115 S. Main St. Free. 7346652757.info@crazywisdom.net www.crazywisdom.net
Storytellers Josie Barnes Parker and Laura Pershin Raynor join musicians Betsy Beckerman and Sara Melton Keller for an evening of funny and touching tales and tunes.
By sharing stories of adventures with their fathers, Josie and Laura explore universal themes, while Sara and Betsy mix it up with hammered dulcimer, guitar, and banjo tunes. Join these women as they celebrate Women’s History Month with this unique and humor-filled evening.
Invite your favorite friends for a girls’ night!
7-8:30 p.m., AADL Downtown multipurpose rm. Free. 327-4200.
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.
Literati is proud to be partnering with the Helen Zell Writers Program to host poet Marilyn Chin at the University of Michigan Art Museum Helmut Stern Auditorium.
Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong. She is the author of four previous poetry collections and a novel. Her work has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, and Best American Poetry, among other publications. She is the winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, five Pushcart Prizes, fellowships from the United States Artists Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among other honors. Presently, she serves as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and lives in San Diego.
Literati is thrilled to welcome novelist Halle Butler who will be reading and discussing her latest book The New Me.
About The New Me:
Im still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind.
Thirty-year-old Millie just can’t pull it together. Misanthropic and morose, she spends her days killing time at a thankless temp job until she can return home to her empty apartment, where she oscillates wildly between self-recrimination and mild delusion, fixating on all the little ways she might change her life. Then she watches TV until she drops off to sleep, and the cycle begins again. When the possibility of a full-time job offer arises, it seems to bring the better life she’s envisioning – one that involves nicer clothes, fresh produce, maybe even financial independence – within reach. But with it also comes the paralyzing realization, lurking just beneath the surface, of just how hollow that vision has become. Darkly hilarious and devastating, The New Me is a dizzying descent into the mind of a young woman trapped in the funhouse of American consumer culture.
“The New Me is a bouncy, profane, highly addictive novel about work, female friendship, and other alienations. Halle Butler’s insane talent shimmers on every page of this deadpan misanthrope’s ode. A must-read!”
–Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold Fame Citrus and Battleborn
“Halle Butler has a way of looking at our twenty-first-century neoliberalist condition that simultaneously exposes its brutality and renders that same brutality absurd, hilarious, fizzy with humor. She’s an incisive, curmudgeonly bard of the uniquely precarious times we live in, and it is crucial that you read her immediately.”
–Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
Halle Butler is the author of Jillian. She has been named a National Book Award Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a Granta Best Young American Novelist.
These 2 local writers discuss their work. Title 13 is Ferro’s recent debut novel about an alcoholic bureaucrat who struggles with mounting paranoia, his relationships with concerned family members, his dying grandmother, and a budding office romance. Awaiting Identification is Fox’s 2018 novel, set against the backdrop of a Devil’s Night party in Detroit, about 5 disparate characters whose paths cross en route to their respective demises. Signing.
7 p.m., Nicola’s, Westgate shopping center. Free. 662-0600.
This month we are hosting a full hour of open mic in a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere. Our guest emcee is David Jibson, local poet & co-editor of Third Wednesday Magazine. Please join us to hear some fantastic local poets, and feel free to share your own work or that of a favorite author.
This event is part of a poetry series held on the second Thursday of most months at 7pm in partnership with Les Go Social Media Marketing & Training.
