• Wednesday, May 7th at 5:00pm (Book launch party)

Join University of Massachusetts English professor Asha Nadkarni in celebrating the publication of her new book, Eugenic Feminism: Reproductive Nationalism in the United States & India.   Nadkarni’s Eugenic Feminism contends that whenever feminists lay claim to citizenship based on women’s biological ability to “reproduce the nation” they are participating in a eugenic project—sanctioning reproduction by some & prohibiting it by others.   Employing a range of sources from the U.S. & India, Nadkarni shows how the exclusionary impulse of eugenics is embedded within the terms of nationalist feminism.

• Thursday, May 8th at 7:00pm (Reading/Talk)

Austin Sarat will talk about his new book, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions & America’s Death Penalty.   Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College.   He is author of many books including When the State Kills; Mercy on Trial; & Reimagining To Kill a Mockingbird: Family, Community, & the Possibility of Equal Justice under Law.

• Wednesday, May 14th at 7:00pm (Reading)

John Clayton will read from his new collection of fiction, Many Seconds into the Future: Ten Stories .   Clayton is author of several novels including, Kuperman’s Fire, The Man I Never Wanted to Be & a collection of stories, Wrestling with Angels: New & Collected Stories. His stories have appeared in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, as well as Commentary, AGNI, TriQuarterly, & Sewanee Review, among other journals.

• Thursday, May 15th at 7:00pm (Poetry reading)

Mark Hart will read from his from his prize-winning collection of poetry, Boy Singing to Cattle.   Hart, a practicing Buddhist, is a therapist & serves as a religious advisor at Amherst College.

• Thursday, May 22nd at 7:00pm (Talk, Book signing)

Historians Doron Ben-Atar & Richard D. Brown will talk about their new book, Taming Lust: Crimes Against Nature in the Early Republic, in the Woodbury Room, Jones Library, Amherst.   Taming Lust examines the trials & cultural context of an 85 year-old Leverett man & an 83 year-old Litchfield, Connecticut, man who were tried & executed in the late 1790's for bestiality.   Ben-Atar is Professor of History at Fordham University & author of Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy & the Origins of American Industrial Power.   Brown is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Connecticut & coauthor of The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest, & Justice in Early America.   For more information, go to the Jones Library Calendar of Events.