FLAG-RAISING

Pledges of Allegiance

In partnership with the Spencer Museum of Art, The Commons presents the nationwide public art project Pledges of Allegiance, commissioned by Creative Time, a New York–based public arts non-profit. The project is a serialized commission of 16 flags, each created by an acclaimed artist to reflect the current political climate.
The project began on Flag Day in June 2017 and will run through July 30, 2018. The Commons and the Spencer Museum of Art partnered to host the project at the University of Kansas, beginning with the sixth flag Imagine Peace by multi-media artist Yoko Ono. All flags will go on display outside The Commons at Spooner Hall at 14th St and Jayhawk Blvd.

FILM SCREENING

Adieu au language (Goodbye to Language)

In this experimental drama by French director, Jean-Luc Godard, "Adieu au language” (Goodbye to Language) (2014) explores the underlying joys and complexities of everyday life. This film navigates the meanings of connection across stunning images of urban landscapes, relationships, nature, love and demise.
This film is screened in conjunction with the public art project Pledges of Allegiance. Running time: 70 min. Not Rated. French with English subtitles.

FACULTY EVENT

Red Hot Research No. 49

Red Hot Research is intended to bring together scholars from all disciplines, in response to the call set forth by Bold Aspirations. The format of these sessions is inspired by Pecha Kucha, which features short, slide-based talks that introduce audiences to a topic. Each installment features faculty members, speaking for six minutes each. Audience members are encouraged to connect with the speakers (and each other) during breaks. We hope that through these sessions, faculty members will have a venue for cross-disciplinary partnering and exploration.

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a global network for writers that offers:
• committed, condensed time to write, and
• built-in feedback from peers

It began as a movement for writers in San Francisco to structure their time and connect with other writers. The idea was simple: write for an hour, then grab coffee afterward to converse and build community. Academics embraced the practice, and the idea spread. Dr. Sioban O’Dwyer founded a virtual Shut Up & Write Tuesdays to provide the benefits of the traditional meetups for those who could not attend in-person. The event has a basic structure: Two 25-minute writing blocks, separated by 5-minute breaks. Afterward, attendees are encouraged to connect via Twitter, using #suwtna. Learn more about the SUWT team; read about tips for improving writing time; and find non-academic reads to inform practice at https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a global network for writers that offers:
• committed, condensed time to write, and
• built-in feedback from peers

It began as a movement for writers in San Francisco to structure their time and connect with other writers. The idea was simple: write for an hour, then grab coffee afterward to converse and build community. Academics embraced the practice, and the idea spread. Dr. Sioban O’Dwyer founded a virtual Shut Up & Write Tuesdays to provide the benefits of the traditional meetups for those who could not attend in-person. The event has a basic structure: Two 25-minute writing blocks, separated by 5-minute breaks. Afterward, attendees are encouraged to connect via Twitter, using #suwtna. Learn more about the SUWT team; read about tips for improving writing time; and find non-academic reads to inform practice at https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/

PUBLIC EVENT

Reading & Book Signing
Michelle Tea
Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions & Criticisms

Michelle Tea is the author of the memoirs The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, The Chelsea Whistle, the illustrated Rent Girl and Valencia, and is the winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction.

Valencia was made into a collaborative feature-length film with 21 different directors, and toured film festivals globally after a sold-out premiere at San Francisco’s Castro Theater. Valencia the book has been translated into Slovenian, Japanese, and German. Michelle’s self-published poetry chapbooks, produced in the 90s, are compiled in the poetry collection The Beautiful.

In her most recent book, Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions & Criticisms, (Feminist Press, 2018), Michelle Tea blurs the line between telling other people’s stories and telling her own. She turns an investigative eye to the genre that’s nurtured her entire career—memoir—and considers the extent to which art preys on life.

Please check back for ticketing information.

PUBLIC EVENT

Red Hot Research No. 50: Activism

Red Hot Research is intended to bring together scholars from all disciplines, in response to the call set forth by Bold Aspirations. The format of these sessions is inspired by Pecha Kucha, which features short, slide-based talks that introduce audiences to a topic. Each installment features faculty members, speaking for six minutes each. Audience members are encouraged to connect with the speakers (and each other) during breaks. We hope that through these sessions, faculty members will have a venue for cross-disciplinary partnering and exploration.

HUMANITIES LECTURE SERIES

Maria Hinojosa, Emmy award-winning news anchor and journalist
Frontline: Latinos and Immigration from a Woman's Perspective

Maria Hinojosa is a four-time Emmy award-winning news anchor and journalist and the executive producer of NPR’s "Latino USA" and PBS’s "America by the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa." She is a frequent guest on MSNBC and "CBS Sunday Morning," the author of two books and the recipient of many awards, including the John Chancellor Award, the Studs Terkel Community Media Award, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Ruben Salazar Lifetime Achievement Award.

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a global network for writers that offers:
• committed, condensed time to write, and
• built-in feedback from peers

It began as a movement for writers in San Francisco to structure their time and connect with other writers. The idea was simple: write for an hour, then grab coffee afterward to converse and build community. Academics embraced the practice, and the idea spread. Dr. Sioban O’Dwyer founded a virtual Shut Up & Write Tuesdays to provide the benefits of the traditional meetups for those who could not attend in-person. The event has a basic structure: Two 25-minute writing blocks, separated by 5-minute breaks. Afterward, attendees are encouraged to connect via Twitter, using #suwtna. Learn more about the SUWT team; read about tips for improving writing time; and find non-academic reads to inform practice at https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Red Hot Graduate Research No. 7

Red Hot Graduate Research is intended to bring together graduate researchers from all disciplines. The format of these sessions is inspired by Red Hot Research, which features short, slide-based talks that introduce audiences to a topic. In this iteration, Red Hot Graduate Research will feature five graduate researchers speaking for six minutes each.

Audience members are encouraged to connect with the speakers (and each other) during breaks. We hope that through these sessions, graduate students will have an opportunity for cross-disciplinary discourse that will in turn give new perspectives on their work and provide a forum for future work in their chosen research fields.

PUBLIC EVENT

Reading & Book Signing
Morgan Parker & Tommy Pico

Morgan Parker is the author of There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé (Tin House Books 2017) and Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night (Switchback Books 2015). In 2019, a third collection of poems, Magical Negro, will be published by Tin House, and a young adult novel will be published by Delacorte Press. Her debut book of nonfiction will be released in 2020 by One World.

Parker received her Bachelors in Anthropology and Creative Writing from Columbia University and her MFA in Poetry from NYU. Her poetry and essays have been published and anthologized in numerous publications, including The Paris Review, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, Best American Poetry 2016, The New York Times, and The Nation. Parker is the recipient of a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a 2016 Pushcart Prize, and a Cave Canem graduate fellow. She is the creator and host of Reparations, Live! at the Ace Hotel in New York. With Tommy Pico, she co-curates the Poets With Attitude (PWA) reading series, and with Angel Nafis, she is The Other Black Girl Collective. She is a Sagittarius, and she lives in Los Angeles.

Tommy Pico is the founder and editor in chief of birdsong, an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press, and zine that publishes art and writing. He is the author of absentMINDR (2014), IRL (2016), Nature Poem (2017), and Junk (2018). From the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation. In his poetry, he creates unsettling juxtapositions, which can have a comic or a dramatic effect—or, most often, some combination of the two.

ART INSTALLATION

Red Dirt Rug
Rena Detrixhe

Rena Detrixhe received her BFA in Expanded Media and Art History from the University of Kansas in 2013. Her contemplative work combines repetitive process and collected or scavenged materials to produce large-scale objects and installations. Often utilizing natural materials, a continuing objective in her practice is to investigate the relationship between art and environment. Her recent work includes a labor-intensive installation and performance with collaborator, Eli Gold, at La Esquina Gallery in Kansas City and a site-specific sculptural drawing made from thousands of individually formed resin droplets created for the Grand Rapids Public Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

She is the recipient of numerous awards including a scholarship to attend the prestigious art school at Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea, the Brosseau Award from the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, and a studio residency with Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri. Detrixhe is one of twelve artists selected for the inaugural year of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and is currently living and working in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a global network for writers that offers:
• committed, condensed time to write, and
• built-in feedback from peers

It began as a movement for writers in San Francisco to structure their time and connect with other writers. The idea was simple: write for an hour, then grab coffee afterward to converse and build community. Academics embraced the practice, and the idea spread. Dr. Sioban O’Dwyer founded a virtual Shut Up & Write Tuesdays to provide the benefits of the traditional meetups for those who could not attend in-person. The event has a basic structure: Two 25-minute writing blocks, separated by 5-minute breaks. Afterward, attendees are encouraged to connect via Twitter, using #suwtna. Learn more about the SUWT team; read about tips for improving writing time; and find non-academic reads to inform practice at https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/

FACULTY EVENT

Red Hot Research No. 51

Red Hot Research is intended to bring together scholars from all disciplines, in response to the call set forth by Bold Aspirations. The format of these sessions is inspired by Pecha Kucha, which features short, slide-based talks that introduce audiences to a topic. Each installment features faculty members, speaking for six minutes each. Audience members are encouraged to connect with the speakers (and each other) during breaks. We hope that through these sessions, faculty members will have a venue for cross-disciplinary partnering and exploration.

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a global network for writers that offers:
• committed, condensed time to write, and
• built-in feedback from peers

It began as a movement for writers in San Francisco to structure their time and connect with other writers. The idea was simple: write for an hour, then grab coffee afterward to converse and build community. Academics embraced the practice, and the idea spread. Dr. Sioban O’Dwyer founded a virtual Shut Up & Write Tuesdays to provide the benefits of the traditional meetups for those who could not attend in-person. The event has a basic structure: Two 25-minute writing blocks, separated by 5-minute breaks. Afterward, attendees are encouraged to connect via Twitter, using #suwtna. Learn more about the SUWT team; read about tips for improving writing time; and find non-academic reads to inform practice at https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Red Hot Graduate Research No. 8

Red Hot Graduate Research is intended to bring together graduate researchers from all disciplines. The format of these sessions is inspired by Red Hot Research, which features short, slide-based talks that introduce audiences to a topic. In this iteration, Red Hot Graduate Research will feature five graduate researchers speaking for six minutes each.

Audience members are encouraged to connect with the speakers (and each other) during breaks. We hope that through these sessions, graduate students will have an opportunity for cross-disciplinary discourse that will in turn give new perspectives on their work and provide a forum for future work in their chosen research fields.

FACULTY EVENT

Red Hot Research No. 52

Red Hot Research is intended to bring together scholars from all disciplines, in response to the call set forth by Bold Aspirations. The format of these sessions is inspired by Pecha Kucha, which features short, slide-based talks that introduce audiences to a topic. Each installment features faculty members, speaking for six minutes each. Audience members are encouraged to connect with the speakers (and each other) during breaks. We hope that through these sessions, faculty members will have a venue for cross-disciplinary partnering and exploration.

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a global network for writers that offers:
• committed, condensed time to write, and
• built-in feedback from peers

It began as a movement for writers in San Francisco to structure their time and connect with other writers. The idea was simple: write for an hour, then grab coffee afterward to converse and build community. Academics embraced the practice, and the idea spread. Dr. Sioban O’Dwyer founded a virtual Shut Up & Write Tuesdays to provide the benefits of the traditional meetups for those who could not attend in-person. The event has a basic structure: Two 25-minute writing blocks, separated by 5-minute breaks. Afterward, attendees are encouraged to connect via Twitter, using #suwtna. Learn more about the SUWT team; read about tips for improving writing time; and find non-academic reads to inform practice at https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/

GRADUATE STUDENT EVENT

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a global network for writers that offers:
• committed, condensed time to write, and
• built-in feedback from peers

It began as a movement for writers in San Francisco to structure their time and connect with other writers. The idea was simple: write for an hour, then grab coffee afterward to converse and build community. Academics embraced the practice, and the idea spread. Dr. Sioban O’Dwyer founded a virtual Shut Up & Write Tuesdays to provide the benefits of the traditional meetups for those who could not attend in-person. The event has a basic structure: Two 25-minute writing blocks, separated by 5-minute breaks. Afterward, attendees are encouraged to connect via Twitter, using #suwtna. Learn more about the SUWT team; read about tips for improving writing time; and find non-academic reads to inform practice at https://suwtuesdays.wordpress.com/

PUBLIC EVENT

Reading & Book Signing
Fatimah Asghar, If They Come For Us
Safia Elhillo, Halal If You Hear Me

Safia Elhillo is the author of The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017) and holds an MFA in poetry from the New School. Safia is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and recipient of the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize and the 2016 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation, and Crescendo Literary and The Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Incubator. Safia’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, Callaloo, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day series, among others, and in anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. Her work has been translated into Arabi, Japanese, Estonian, and Greek, and has been commissioned by Under Armour and the Bavarian State Ballet. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019). Safia is of Sudanese origin and lives in Washington, DC.

PUBLIC EVENT

Reading & Book Signing
Hieu Minh Nguyen
Not Here

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of This Way to the Sugar, (Write Bloody Press, 2014) which was a finalist for both a Minnesota Book Awards and a Lambda Literary Awards. His most recent work, Not Here, was released via Coffee House Press in April of 2018.

Tickets will be available at no cost. Please check back for information.