| Thursday, February 18, 2016, 7:00 pm
Ross Howell's debut novel, Forsaken is a gripping, finely wrought work of historical fiction that recounts a sensational crime, raising contemporary questions about the racial politics of justice. When a young black girl murders her white employer in 1912 Hampton Roads, Virginia, the newspaper reporter covering her trial and electrocution finds himself deep in the poisonous waters of Jim Crow. His own life is indelibly altered when he crosses the color line in following her case.
Ross Howell Jr. lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. Forsaken, his first novel, was designated as a Winter 2016 "Okra Pick" by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance as one of the best titles in forthcoming Southern literature from an up-and-coming author.
Sunday, February 21, 3:00 pm
Durham County Library; Main Library; Main Library Auditorium
Kenneth Janken will discuss his book, The Wilmington Ten: Violence, Injustice and the Rise of Black Politics in the 1970's at the Main Branch of the Durham County Library. A book signing will follow the reading. (Please note the time and location.)
In February 1971, racial tension surrounding school desegregation in Wilmington, North Carolina, culminated in four days of violence and skirmishes between white vigilantes and black residents. The turmoil resulted in two deaths, six injuries, more than $500,000 in damage, and the firebombing of a white-owned store, before the National Guard restored uneasy peace. Despite glaring irregularities in the subsequent trial, ten young persons were convicted of arson and conspiracy and then sentenced to a total of 282 years in prison. They became known internationally as the Wilmington Ten. A powerful movement arose within North Carolina and beyond to demand their freedom, and after several witnesses admitted to perjury, a federal appeals court, also citing prosecutorial misconduct, overturned the convictions in 1980.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016, 7:00 pm
at the Smith Warehouse Garage, 114 S. Buchanan Blvd., Durham, NC
Patricia Bell-Scott's groundbreaking new book, The Firebrand and the First Lady--Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Racial Justice tells the story of a remarkable friendship. Pauli Murray -- raised in Durham, North Carolina, a brilliant writer turned Civil Rights activist, co-founder of the National Organization for Women, the first African American female Episcopal priest, and a granddaughter of a mulatto slave-- and Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady of the United States, forged an enduring friendship that changed each of their lives and helped to alter the course of race and racism in America.
Patricia Bell-Scott is professor emerita of women's studies and human development and family science at the University of Georgia. She lives in Athens, Georgia, with her husband.
This event is co-sponsored by Duke University's Pauli Murray Project.
Smith Warehouse (114 S. Buchanan Blvd., Durham) is located near the corner of Buchanan and Main; parking is available in the gravel lot across from Smith on Buchanan, immediately adjacent to the railroad. For more information: http://fhi.duke.edu/about/smith-warehouse.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016, 7:00 pm
A lifelong performer from a Hollywood family, actress Amber Tamblyn (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Two and a Half Men) is also an established poet who will read and sign copies of her book of poetry, Dark Sparkler.
As a working actress, Tamblyn has long been fascinated and familiar with the costs of fame and the demands placed on young women in movies and television. Tamblyn's interest in the lives and disappointments of actresses before her time-tragic stories of suicide, murder, obscurity, and other forms of death-inspired this insightful and emotionally charged collection of poetic portraits of the lives and troubling ends of more than thirty actresses famous and obscure. Featuring subjects like Brittany Murphy, Marilyn Monroe, and Jayne Mansfield-and paired with original artwork from David Lynch, Adrian Tomine, Marilyn Manson, and Marcel Dzama, and others- DARK SPARKLER is a surprising and thought-provoking collection from a searching and multi-talented young artist.
Thursday, February 25, 2016, 7:00 pm
Jedediah Purdy and Jonathan B. Weiner will lead our latest "Community Conversation" series--this one focusing on climate change. Purdy's book, After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene will serve as entry into topics including global warming projections, the Anthropocene, international and domestic climate policy, public support and understanding, politics, projections and more. This event is free & open to the public.
Jedediah Purdy is Everett Professor Law at Duke and the author of five books, most recently After Nature. His writing appears in, among other places, The New York Times, n+1, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Dissent, and The New Republic.
Jonathan B. Wiener is the Perkins Professor of Law at Duke Law School, Professor of Environmental Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment, and Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy, at Duke University. Wiener helped negotiate the world's first UN-backed climate treaty in 1992 and he co-authored a major report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2014.
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