This lecture asks how the spatial politics of migration have been inflected by histories of colonialism. Using the example of the Anglo-Caribbean island of Barbados and its majority African-descended population, Osayimwese examines migration to the Global North as a response to the inequitable structure of plantation society. She shows that migration fundamentally transformed the structure of Barbadian society by enabling property acquisition through remittances. The remittance landscape that ensued, however, encompassed both land and houses on the island and property purchased in receiving countries, which remain connected by particular Afro-Caribbean approaches to land ownership and modes of dwelling.
Itohan Osayimwese is an architectural and urban historian. She is assistant professor of history of art and architecture at Brown University. She engages with theories of modernity, postcoloniality, and globalization to analyze German colonial architecture, urban design, and visual culture; modern architecture in Germany; African and African diaspora material cultural histories; and the architecture of development in Africa. Another research interest is the architectural and urban lives of religious cults.
Tom Brzezina has had work in Chiron, Rusty Truck, Red Fez, Third Wednesday, Peninsula Poets, and The 5-2. His poems draw heavily upon drug experiences of his youth, the underbelly of society, and growing up in Detroit. He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, dog, and way too many books.
Lynn Gilbert is a founding editor of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and currently associate editor of Third Wednesday in Ann Arbor. Her poems have been published in The Texas Observer, Kansas Quarterly, Exquisite Corpse, Southwestern American Literature, Peninsula Poets, and Water Music: The Great Lakes State Poetry Anthology, which she co-edited.
Crazy Wisdomn Bookstore and Tea Room, 114 S. Main St. Free. 7346652757.info@crazywisdom.net www.crazywisdom.net
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.
“Beyond Solidarity” traces a genealogy of rebel care work. Without imposing a future, what political, cultural and social questions emerge when we center dignity in thinking beyond solidarity? Specifically with regards to the complimentary, contested and contradictory relationships between the university and the prison, who produces and benefits from the creation and production of knowledge? What is considered knowledge?
What is the role of Ethnic Studies in how we imagine and create a society not centered and organized around the idea that vengeance is justice, that punishment should only mean exile and imprisonment? What is the role of the university in the after-life of incarceration and the after-life of detention, for the communities that students come from, or in relation to policy or pedagogy? How does/can the university reproduce and undue the prison as a total institution? (Strike for print material)
Alan Eladio Gómez is a historian, Southwest Borderlands Scholar and associate professor of justice and social inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. He is also an affiliated faculty member with the School of Transborder Studies and the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. Gómez is the author of The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico: Chicana/o Radicalism, Solidarity Politics & Latin American Social Movements (University of Texas Press, 2016)
Literati is thrilled to be partnering with the Neutral Zone and the Ann Arbor District Library to celebrate the NEA Big Read month-long exploration of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen
Community members will come together and celebrate the culmination of this month-long NEA Big Read program around Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Featured artist Kush Thompson will perform poetry and talkback with the audience. Members of the Neutral Zone teen book club will also share their poetic responses to Citizen and all of the identity collages created earlier in the month will be displayed for viewing.
The NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to broaden our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the sharing of a good book. For more information, see www.arts.gov/national-initiatives/nea-big-read. This event is in partnership with the Neutral Zone.
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.
Literati is excited to welcome the Creative Writing Sub-concentration seniors in the English Department at the University of Michigan for a night of poetry and prose readings!
Each year the Creative Writing Sub-concentration selects no more than 14 students who spend their senior year working with faculty to complete a creative thesis of poetry or fiction. These collections, the same size as many MFA theses, are first attempts to create book-length manuscripts, and to prepare the writers for their work in the future.
Readers include…
Reema Baydoun transferred to the University of Michigan as a sophomore, and has since spent her time in Ann Arbor studying English and caring for her cat. As an Arab-American poet, she often spends weekends in Dearborn for inspiration and good food.
RC student Ariel Everitt hails from a one-stoplight town in Northeast Michigan and is a junior studying English and Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, where they have been a research assistant in a biogerontology lab, become a peer writing consultant, and won a Hopwood Award. Their fiction tackles the boundaries between people and genres, applying dream logic to science and human connections wherever possible. Ariel plans to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing in the near future.
Madeleine Gaudin is a writer and future Elementary School teacher originally from Austin, Texas. Formerly the Managing Arts Editor at the Michigan Daily, she wrote about movies, music, books and the wonderful hellscape of the Internet for four years before turning her attention to ghost stories and fiction about the apocalypse.
Jenny Hong is a senior studying English with a Sub-concentration in Creative Writing (Poetry). She loves cooking, blogging, and binging TV series on lazy days—and also chatting with people around campus. She is sad that she will no longer be a student in May and enroll in workshops that will give her friendly nudges to write, but she’s also pretty excited for what’s next!
Kate Velguth is a senior studying English. She’s received four Hopwood Awards, and her fiction has appeared in The Washington Square Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere.” Her thesis, a collection of short stories, is entitled The World of Hidden Things. She hopes to teach English in South Korea next year.
Maxim Vinogradov is a local playwright, Michigan student, and is very excited to be reading at Literati! You may have seen his work in productions at Theatre Nova, Slipstream Theatre Initiative, Basement Arts, Outvisible Theatre Company, and others in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. He has had the pleasure of receiving two Hopwood Awards in Drama, two Wilde Awards, the National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, and has spent this past summer in internships and residences with The Public Theater and O’Neill Theater Center. He’d love to thank the University of Michigan and Literati for this privilege, and hopes you enjoy his goofy writing!
Ellison Zak is a senior transfer student at the University of Michigan studying English, creative writing, and linguistics. Her thesis grapples with the secrets we all keep and the toll they can take on ourselves and our relationships. She spends her summers between school road tripping across the country and camping at national parks. More than anything else, she hopes to find employment after graduation.
Every story follows a recipe. There are scenes and pivotal moments that must be added to the mix to create a satisfying story. In this workshop on story structure, Alex Kourvo and Bethany Neal will break down the myth that plot and structure are formulaic and explain the common ingredients all novel-length stories need.
This is part of the monthly Emerging Writers Workshops, which offer support, learning, and advice for local authors. Each month, two weeks after the workshop, there is a meet-up where the instructors will read samples of your work and offer advice and assistance in a casual, supportive atmosphere.
Do you have a completed manuscript? Consider submitting it to the library’s imprint Fifth Avenue Press.
Marcin Wodzinski has produced the first cartographic reference book on Hasidism, one of the modern era’s most vibrant and important mystical movements. In this lecture, he will discuss Hasidism’s emergence and expansion in Eastern Europe; its spread to the New World; and its remarkable postwar rebirth. Wodzinski’s innovative mapping allows him to show to what extent Hasidism dominated the Eastern European Jewry, which Hasidic dynasties were strongest and why, and how the Hasidim resurrected in the Post-Holocaust era.
Marcin Wodziński (b. 1966) was born and raised in Silesia, Poland. He currently works at the Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław, Poland, where he is professor of Jewish history and literature. His research focuses on the history and culture of East European Jews in modern times, especially the Haskalah and Hasidism. Of his recent publications, he is most proud of “Historical Atlas of Hasidism” (2018) and “Hasidism: Key Questions” (2018).
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
BLUNDERS: Prepare a five-minute story about a time you goofed. Wax on about a gaffe, mistake, misstep or other oops. Recount a defining slip-up, blooper, or faux pas from your life and times. Recall saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, letting the cat out of the bag or other spectacularly bad decisions.
*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.
Media Sponsor: Michigan Radio.
