may 3

Ammiel Alcalay & Kate Tarlow Morgan
Walking in the Archive

Poetics Lab No. 1 from the Center for Poetics and Social Practice
5:00 p.m. 1301 33rd St. NW

The phrase “Poetics Lab” suggests there is a definition to be attained for "poetics" as the container for what poetry can encompass as process, perception, movement, effort, and concept. Alcalay and Morgan, whose paths have crossed over the past thirty years, will be the first to collaboratively consider the "poetics lab" as the Petri-dish for thinking about poetry/poetics in the broadest sense, as form and function of human thought, human perception, and the location of experience in time. more >

RSVP by April 30 to Ammiel Alcalay at aaka@earthlink.net.

september 14

Nuruddin Farah & Dinaw Mengestu
Fictional Places: A Conversation
Moderated by Professor Ammiel Alacaly
Old North 205 4:00 p.m.

Named the 1998 laureate of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Nuruddin Farah was born in Baidoa, Somalia, and now lives in Cape Town, South Africa. He is the author of the trilogies Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship and Blood in the Sun. His most recent novels are Links (2004) and Knots (2007). Born in Ethiopia, Dinaw Mengestu has written on the tragedy of Darfur for Rolling Stone magazine and other periodicals. His first novel, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, appeared earlier this year to wide acclaim. Poet, editor, translator, and scholar Ammiel Alcalay holds the Lannan Foundation Visiting Chair of Poetics in the Department of English.

Co-sponsored by the Marino Family International Writers’ Academic Workshop.

OCTOBER 18

Thomas Sayers Ellis & Pierre Joris
Nomads: The Poetry of Movement
Seminar: ICC 462 5:30PM
Reading: Copley FL 8:00PM

Poet, translator & essayist, Pierre Joris has published over 20 books & chapbooks of poetry, among them Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999. His essays include the 2003 volume A Nomad Poetics; he has published award winning translations of the work of Paul Celan, and, with Jerome Rothenberg, co-edited Poems of the Millennium. Thomas Sayers Ellis, a contributing editor to Callaloo and Poets and Writers, teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence. His works include The Maverick Room, The Genuine Negro Hero and Breakfast and Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets. Among his many prizes and honors is a 2005 Mrs. Giles Whiting Writers’ Award. 

october 25

Monica Arac de Nyeko
Celebration of the Caine Prize in African Writing, 2007
Reading: Copley FL 8:00PM (Reception and book-signing to follow)

Winner of the 2007 Caine Prize for “Jambula Tree,” Monica Arac de Nyeko was also short-listed for the prize in 2004 for “Strange Fruit.” She sees herself as part of the new generation of African writers seeking an imperative voice in Africa today: “It is my Uganda, my land, Africa, my world, my universe, too after all and it will be for my children.” Arac will be in residence in the Department of English in Fall 2007.

http://www.caineprize.com/

November 15

Carl Phillips & Cole Swensen
Translations from the Archives
Seminar: ICC 462 5:30PM
Reading: Copley FL 8:00PM

Carl Phillips is the author of nine books of poems, most recently Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems 1986-2006. A Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Phillips teaches at Washington University in St. Louis. Cole Swensen is a poet and a translator of contemporary French poetry, prose, and art criticism. Her 2004 poetry collection, Goest, was a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award.

November 29 - december 1

Danny Hoch
Takin' Over
Performance: Gonda Theatre 8:00PM

Danny Hoch’s new solo show Takin' Over is a hilarious and heartbreaking look at gentrification in the new millennium. Invading artists, hipsters, developers, real estate agents, co-conspirators and longtime community folk are explored through the eyes, ears and voice of one of the Hip-Hop generations leading actors and playwrights.

In partnership with ArenaStage

Ticket Prices:
General: $25
Faculty/Staff/Senior (65 or older): $10
Student $5

To purchase: Call 202.687.ARTS or click to buy online

January 29

Ammiel Alcalay
Lannan Foundation Visiting Professor of Poetics
Cross-Cultural Poetics
Seminar: ICC 462 5:30PM
Reading: Copley FL 8:00PM

Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, translator, critic and scholar, focusing on Hebrew and Jewish literature of the Middle East, in its Islamic, Levantine Arabic, and Israeli contexts. Recent works include Scrapmetal and from the warring factions, a book length poem dedicated to the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. 

February 19

Laura Moriarty & Elizabeth Robinson
Series
Seminar: ICC 462 5:30PM
Reading: Copley FL 8:00PM

Laura Moriarity's most recent books are Ultravioleta, a novel, and Self-Destruction, a book of poetry. A Semblance: Selected & New Poetry 1975-2007 is forthcoming in 2007. She has taught at Mills College and Naropa University and is currently Deputy Director of Small Press Distribution, in Berkeley, California. Elizabeth Robinson is the author most recently Under That Silky Roof. Robinson is co-editor of 26, a magazine of poetry and poetics, and EtherDome Press, which publishes chapbooks by emerging women poets. She is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Colorado.

March 11

Ilya Kaminsky & E. Ethelbert Miller
Ancestors
Seminar: ICC 462 5:30PM
Reading: Copley FL 8:00PM

A graduate of Georgetown’s English Department, Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Dancing in Odessa, named the Best Poetry Book of 2004 by ForeWord Magazine. He teaches in the graduate writing program in San Diego State University. E. Ethelbert Miller’s memoir Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer was selected for Washington DC’s one book, one city program in 2003; his most recent volume of poetry, How We Sleep On The Nights We Don’t Make Love, was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist.

APRIL 15 - 17

Amiri Baraka & Nikki Giovanni
"Let Freedom Ring": Art and Democracy in the King Years, 1954-1968
Lannan Symposium & Festival 2008

On the 40^th anniversary of Dr. King’s passing, Amiri Baraka and Nikki Giovanni join other distinguished poets, scholars and activists to celebrate role of the arts in the Civil Rights Movement. Symposium discussions, poetry readings, and lectures will take place over three days at Georgetown