Author Event | William D. Lopez: Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid

Mon, 03/02/2020 - 12:26pm

In Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid, local author William D. Lopez examines the lasting damage done by this daylong act of collaborative immigration enforcement in Washtenaw County, Michigan.

Exploring the chaos of enforcement through the lens of community health, Lopez discusses deportation's rippling negative effects on families, communities, and individuals. Focusing on those left behind, Lopez reveals their efforts to cope with trauma, avoid homelessness, handle worsening health, and keep their families together as they attempt to deal with a deportation machine that is militarized, traumatic and implicitly racist. 

This event was part of the 2020 Washtenaw Reads. For more information about Washtenaw Reads and previous years' reads, visit wread.org.

Author Event | Amy Auscherman: Herman Miller: A Way of Living

Mon, 03/02/2020 - 11:05am

Amy Auscherman, Corporate Archivist for Herman Miller, Inc, discusses her new book Herman Miller: A Way of Living, a chronicle of the rich history of the innovative furniture company, from its founding in the early twentieth century to today.

For more than 100 years, Michigan-based Herman Miller has played a central role in the evolution of modern and contemporary design, producing timeless classics while creating a culture that has had a remarkable impact on the development of the design world. Ten chapters and thousands of illustrations in this new book tell the Herman Miller story as never before, documenting its defining moments and key leaders.  

Desserts by Decade: The Fabulous 1950s!

Mon, 02/10/2020 - 5:00pm

The 1950s brought us the Mickey Mouse Club, Elvis Presley, and Mr. Potato Head. The cool cats liked Ike, hula hooped around the yard, and saw the first movie in 3D. And then there was the food, daddy-o! From Jello to chiffon cakes to Baked Alaskas, there was food for everyone from the flutter bums to the wet rags.

Learn about some hip recipes from the 1950s with Lakehouse owner/baker Keegan Rodgers and hear about national and local history from historian/writer Patti Smith.

Author Event | Sharon McRill on Decluttering and Downsizing

Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:51pm

Decluttering and relocation expert Sharon McRill discusses her book Downsizing the Silver Tsunami, a comprehensive reference tool to help people navigate the difficult pathways of estate sales, consignment dealers, picking the right real estate agent, and many other moving and downsizing questions. 

Bunraku-Style Puppetry with Tom Lee

Mon, 01/27/2020 - 1:53pm

U-M Center for World Performance Studies visiting puppet artist Tom Lee presents a special workshop exploring Japanese traditional puppetry techniques that have had an enormous influence on world puppetry performance. Following a short talk on bunraku-style puppetry, participants had a hands-on opportunity to handle traditional Japanese puppets and draw back the curtain on how these beautiful puppets are brought to life through skillful puppetry technique. ​​​​​​​

AADL Board Meeting - February 17, 2020

Thu, 01/23/2020 - 3:18pm

This is where you can watch the February 17th, 2020 Meeting of the AADL Board of Trustees.

Ann Arbor Wayzgoose & Printing Festival | Voices in Print Speaker Series

Tue, 01/21/2020 - 9:10am

The Voices in Print Speaker Series features three printmakers working in the field today. Each speak for 20-30 minutes on how they are involved in printmaking & related topics.

Ignite | Ann Arbor

Tue, 01/07/2020 - 9:24am

Enlighten us, but make it quick!

How would you share your passion in 5 minutes, with just 20 slides? We asked Ann Arbor this question; Ignite | Ann Arbor is the response. Watch your neighbors engage in this international phenomenon of fast-paced geekery!  Discover what your community geeks have to say – whether it's food, tech, business, music, art, history or something strange and new, it's sure to be a feverish night filled with discovery!

The first Ignite took place in Seattle in 2006.

Stars Rising: Why U-M's Detroit Observatory Matters and Where It's Going

Tue, 01/07/2020 - 8:49am

Why is an observatory in Ann Arbor named for Detroit? What made the Detroit Observatory a milestone for the University of Michigan and American higher education? How was the Observatory central to the growth of American astronomical science, when did it lose that role, and how did it get it back? And who were some of the people who made it all happen? Gary Krenz of the University’s Bentley Historical Library will explore these and other questions in this talk. In its 165-year history, the Observatory has gone through many transformations, and it is currently going through another—the construction of an addition to improve access, education, and programming. Krenz will also look at what that project entails and what lies ahead.

Author Event | Morgan Parker Discusses Magical Negro

Tue, 01/07/2020 - 8:11am

Magical Negro is an archive of black everydayness, a catalog of contemporary folk heroes, an ethnography of ancestral grief, and an inventory of figureheads, idioms, and customs. These American poems are both elegy
and jive, joke and declaration, songs of congregation and self-conception. They connect themes of loneliness, displacement, grief, ancestral trauma, and objectification, while exploring and troubling tropes and stereotypes of Black Americans. Focused primarily on depictions of Black womanhood alongside personal narratives, the collection tackles interior and exterior politics—of both the body and society, of both the individual and the collective experience.

In Magical Negro, Parker creates a space of witness, of airing grievances, of pointing out patterns. In these poems are living documents, pleas, latent traumas, inside jokes, and unspoken anxieties situated as firmly in the past as in the present—timeless black melancholies and triumphs.

For this event, Parker was in conversation with Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Visiting Professor of Creative Nonfiction at the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan.