• Wednesday, October 1st at 5:00 P.M. (Book launch party)

Join cartoonist Jesse Reklaw in celebrating the publication of The Night of Your Life, the second Slow Wave collection, with cartoonists Ken Dahl, Robyn Chapman, Alec Longstreth, Clutch, Samuel C. Gaskin, Colleen Frakes, & the Center for Cartoon Studies.   Reklaw‘s Slow Wave is a collective dream diary authored by different people from around the world & drawn as a comic strip.   Reklaw won an Excellence in Journalism Award in 2004 from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his regular publication of Slow Wave in the East Bay Express, & he received awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies in 2001, 2003, & 2004 for Slow Wave, including "Best cartoon" & "Format buster."   Dahl is author of Welcome to the Dahl House, Gordon Smalls Goes to Jail: An Act of Comicide, & Monsters #1 & Monsters #2, among others. Chapman’s work is included in the collection of Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age, edited by Ariel Schrag.   Longstreth is the author of Phase 7 comics.   Clutch, as Clutch McBastard, the Charlie Brown-ish main character, is the author of the long-running zine, most recently collected as Clutch # 16.   Gaskin is author of Fatal Faux-Pas.   Frakes is author of Tragic Relief.

• Wednesday, October 1st at 8:00 P.M. (Poetry reading)

Poet Martín Espada & attorneys Buz Eisenberg & Bill Newman will read from Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak.   Edited by Mark Falkoff with a preface by Flagg Miller & an afterword by Ariel Dorfman, the collection includes the soul-wrenching poems of seventeen Guantánamo detainees. As Adrienne Rich observed, the book “brings to light figures of concrete, individual humanity, against the fabric of cruelty woven by the ‘war on terror.’   The poems & poets’ biographies reveal one dimension of this officially obscured narrative, from the perspective of the sufferers; the legal & literary essays provide the context which has produced–under atrocious circumstances—a poetics of human dignity.”   Espada has published thirteen books in all as a poet, essayist, editor & translator.   His most recent collection of poems is The Republic of Poetry.   He has received numerous awards & fellowships, including the American Book Award, the Robert Creeley Award, the Antonia Pantoja Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, a Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the Charity Randall Citation, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, & a Guggenheim Fellowship.   He teaches at the University of Massachusetts.   Eisenberg teaches law related topics at Greenfield Community College & is of counsel to the litigation firm of Weinberg & Garber, P.C. of Northampton.   Aside from being a cooperating ACLU attorney of 25 years, Buz has been representing Guantanamo detainees since 2004.   Newman is a civil rights attorney in Northampton, Massachusetts who is currently representing a detainee at Guantanamo.   He is the director of the Western Regional Office of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts & a member of The Bill of Rights Defense Committee’s Advisory Board.   Co-sponsored by the Pioneer Valley Committee Against Secrecy & Torture.

• Thursday, October 2nd at 4:00 P.M. (Talk)

Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, 2008-2009: “Measuring the Value of Human Life”

Jennifer Heuer, Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts, Brian Ogilvie, Associate Professor of History, University of Massachusetts, Anna Taylor, Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts, & Melissa Mueller, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Massachusetts, will speak to “What Price Immortality? The Cost of Eternal Life” in Herter Hall, Room 601, University of Massachusetts.   Heuer is author of The Family Nation: Gender & Citizenship in Revolutionary France ; & Ogilvie is author of The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe .

The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lectures Series is hosted by the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.   For more information go here.

• Thursday, October 2nd at 5:00 P.M. (Book launch party)

Join Oriole Farb Feshbach in celebrating Wallace Stevens' birthday with publication of her new book, Luminations: Images for the poem “The Auroras of Autumn”  by Wallace Stevens (with a foreword by Paul Mariani & an introduction by Martica Sawin).   Feshbach provides brilliant images that capture the poet, Wallace Stevens’ elegiac lines addressed to a world that may just be on the brink of disappearing.   She matches (& illuminates) his descriptions of auroras, that flash across the northern sky, with her dazzling paintings.   She refers throughout to his lines describing the weather, the seasons, & cosmic happenings in her vivid presentations in this wondrous collection of art meeting poetry.   Feshbach is long experienced in this extraordinary genre of matching her art to poetry.   In her previous books, such as Illuminations, she made images for William Carlos Williams’ poem “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”, & in Parallels: Artists/Poets, for poems by sixteen women poets.

• Thursday, October 2nd at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Heidi Julavits will read in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts as part of the M.F.A. Program's Visiting Writers Series.   Julavits is founding editor of The Believer, a monthly magazine of interviews, book reviews & fiction. She is the author of three novels, The Mineral Palace; The Effect of Living Backwards; & most recently, The Uses of Enchantment; as well as a collaborative book, Hotel Andromeda, with the artist Jenny Gage.

• Wednesday, October 8th at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Poet, critic, translator, fiction writer, William Jay Smith will read at Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115), Amherst College, as part of the Amherst College Writing Center's Visiting Writers Series.   Smith served as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress (the position now known as the U.S. Poet Laureate) from 1968 until 1970, & has been a member of The Academy of Arts & Letters since 1975, as well as a former vice-president for literature.   Smith, noted for his translations, has won awards from both the French Academy, the Swedish Academy, & the Hungarian government.   He has published more than ten volumes of poetry, including The Cherokee Lottery: A Sequence of Poems, & World below the Window: Poems 1937-1997.   His most recent collection of poetry & prose is Words By Water.

• Friday, October 10th at 8:00 P.M.(Reading)

“Live Lit”   Students in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts will read from their recent work.   Evenings usually include a mix of poetry & fiction.   Tonight’s readers are Jack Christian, Mike Young, Robin McClean, Henk Rossouw, & Luke Gobel.

• Tuesday, October 14th at 7:00 P.M. (Book launch party)

Help us celebrate the publication of a new book by Amherst College professor, Elizabeth Aries: Race & Class Matters at an Elite College.   In her new book, Aries provides a rare glimpse into the challenges faced by black & white college students from widely different class backgrounds as they come to live together as freshmen.   Based on an intensive study Aries conducted with 58 students at Amherst College during the 2005–2006 academic year, this book offers a uniquely personal look at the day–to–day thoughts & feelings of students as they experience racial & economic diversity firsthand, some for the first time.   Aries is author of Men & Women in Interaction: Reconsidering the Differences, & Adolescent Behavior: Readings & Interpretations.

• Wednesday, October 15th at 7:30 P.M. (Talk)

Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, 2008-2009: “Measuring the Value of Human Life”

Richard Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Research Professor, Harvard University; Diane Paul, Associate of Zoology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; & Laura Lovett, Associate Professor of History, University of Massachusetts, will speak to “Unnatural Selection: Eugenics, Race, & Ideas of Biological Value” in The Commons, 2nd floor, Studio Arts Building, University of Massachusetts.   Lewontin is author of many books, including Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, & Health; & Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, & Environment.   Paul is author of The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, & the Nature-Nurture Debate & Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present.   Lovett is author of Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, & the Family in the United States, 1890-1938.

The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lectures Series is hosted by the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.   For more information go here.

• Friday, October 17th at 8:00 P.M. (Poetry reading)

Winners of the Bateau Press' 1st & 2nd Annual Boom Chapbook Contest Allison Titus & Ryan Flaherty will read from their prize-winning poetry chapbooks.   Titus is author of Instructions from the Narwhal & co-edits the poetry journal, Handsome.   Flaherty is author of Novas.   His poems have appeared in a range of journals including Denver Quarterly, Conduit, The New Republic, Typo, & Columbia.

• Sunday, October 19th at 3:00 P.M.(Poetry reading)

“Jubilat/Jones Reading Series”   Michael Teig & Liz Hughey will read from their recent work as part of the jubilat/Jones Reading Series in the Trustees Room at the Jones Library, 43 Amity Street in Amherst.   Teig’s first book, Big Back Yard, was selected by Stephen Dobyns to receive the inaugural A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.   His poems have appeared in periodicals including FIELD, The Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, The Ohio Review, & The Gettysburg Review.   He is a founding editor of jubilat.   Hughey's first volume of poetry, Sunday Houses the Sunday House, won the Iowa Poetry Prize.   Her poems have appeared in La Petite Zine; The Hat; Vanitas; Shampoo; Birmingham Poetry Review; & The Southern Poetry Review.   She is currently a 2008 Fellow with the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

The reading will be preceded by a ‘Poetry Swap' at 2:00 PM.

• Wednesday, October 22nd at 7:30 P.M. (Talk)

Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, 2008-2009: “Measuring the Value of Human Life”

Nancy Folbre, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, will speak to “What is She Worth? How (or How Not) to Value a Woman’s Life” in The Commons, 2nd floor, Studio Arts Building, University of Massachusetts.   Folbre is author of many books, including Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family; & Invisible Heart: Economics & Family Values.

The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lectures Series is hosted by the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.   For more information go here.

• Wednesday, October 22nd at 8:00 P.M. (Poetry reading)

Stephen Haven will read at Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115), Amherst College, as part of the Amherst College Writing Center's Visiting Writers Series.   Haven is Director of the Ashland University MFA Program at Ashland University.   He is author of several volumes of poetry, including The Long Silence of the Mohawk Carpet Smokestacks, & Dust & Bread; several chapbooks; &, most recently, a memoir, The River Lock: One Boy’s Life Along the Mohawk.   Haven is the editor of The Poetry of W.D. Snodgrass: Everything Human, & co-editor of two anthologies of contemporary poetry.

• Thursday, October 23rd at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Sam Michel & Lynn Lurie will read their fiction.   Michel, who has taught in the English Department at the University of Massachusetts, is author of two collections of short stories: Under the Light &, more recently, Big Dogs & Flyboys.   George Saunders wrote, “Michel is such a smart, manic, virtuosic stylist.   He’s also a surprising, big-hearted, courageous storyteller, whose considerable talent is firing on all cylinders in Flyer, a book full of odd/beautiful language, & the kind of deep insights that make you suddenly & newly appreciative, of the world around you.”   Lurie, who won the Juniper Prize For Fiction in 2007 for Corner of the Dead, depicts the reign of violence perpetrated in Peru in the 1980s by the Shining Path guerrillas, a Maoist-based organization, & the subsequent authoritarian counterattack by the Peruvian government.   It explores these horrific events through the eyes of a young American photojournalist & humanitarian worker who bears witness to the genocide of the Peruvian Indians in whose village she has chosen to live.   Elie Wiesel wrote, “Lynn Lurie’s report about political aberration & organized cruelty is an eloquent appeal for compassion for & solidarity with their victims.”

• Friday, October 24th at 8:00 P.M. (Poetry reading)

Local poet Kristin Bock will read from her new volume of poetry, Cloisters.   Bock received her M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts.   Her poems have appeared in many literary magazines & journals, including Columbia, The Seattle Review, Prairie Schooner, The Black Warrior Review, & FENCE.   David St. John said, “Kristin Bock’s marvelous debut collection enacts an aesthetic of discrete moments, offering her reader an intelligence that works simultaneously upon the heart & at the margins of experience.   The perspective here is edgy, nervous, compelling, & wise.   In the pared delicacy of these poems, we discover both exceptional nuance & resonance—these are poems that trust their readers, poems that don’t oversell their emotions or perceptions.”

• Wednesday, October 29th at 4:00 P.M. (Talk)

Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, 2008-2009: “Measuring the Value of Human Life”

Audrey Altstadt, Professor of History, University of Massachusetts, will speak to “Democratization at $130 per barrel: The Value of Human & Political Rights in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan” in Herter Hall, Room 601, University of Massachusetts.   Altstadt is author of Azerbaijani Turks: Power & Identity Under Russian Rule.

The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lectures Series is hosted by the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.   For more information go here.

• Friday, October 31st at 8:00 P.M. (Reading)

Local poet & alumn of the University of Massachusetts M.F.A. Program Chris Carrier will read from his new collection of poetry, After Dayton.   The suburban world of After Dayton is radioactive, diseased & energetic in equal measure.   It pulses and strobes with the exothermic reactions of modern science & the familiar everyday colliding: “battery–operated candlesticks still burn the secrets of Christmas.”   These poems strive desperately to name, but objects & people squirm & metamorphose before them.   Bodies & machines become indistinguishable: “diaphragmatic camshafts,” “anvils in my ears.”   These poems offer us a strange & frightening animation, the phenomenal world alive in singular ways.   This is, as Carrier writes at one point, “avant garde choreography.”   Carrier has given us an innovative reworking of the lyric voice, unsettling what we can expect from lyric poetry.