The Black Mountain Institute (BMI) at UNLV presents the following events as part of its Readings & Panels Series. Distinguished speakers and writers from across the nation who specialize in literature, politics and social issues are part of this season's thought-provoking lecture series. Events are subject to change. Please check the Black Mountain Institute Web site for updated event information or call (702) 895-5542. All events are free and open to the public. Directions to UNLV and campus locations may be found on the campus maps web page.
Reading: Emerging Writers Series featuring Leslie Jamison
Date/Time: Tuesday, February 19, 7 p.m.
Location: UNLV Greenspun Hall Auditorium
Leslie Jamison's debut novel, "The Gin Closet," published when she was just 26, earned recognition as one of the Best Books of 2010 by the San Francisco Chronicle, was named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award, and garnered critical praise for its unflinching yet lyrical portrait of addiction. Her forthcoming book, "The Empathy Exams: Essays on Pain," which covers subjects from slum tourism to ultra-running, won the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and will be published in the fall. Jamison has taught courses in fiction at Wesleyan University, Yale University, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She also mentors through the PEN Prison Writing Program. A native of Los Angeles, Jamison has earned degrees from Harvard and the Iowa Writer's Workshop and is pursuing a Ph.D. in literature at Yale.
The Emerging Writers Series is made possible by a grant from Nevada Humanities.
Panel: Arab Spring: Between Hopes & Impediments
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 6, 7 p.m.
Location: UNLV Student Union Ballroom
In 2011, popular uprisings swept across North Africa and the Middle East, fundamentally reshaping the political landscape of the Muslim world. But how does the Arab Spring look in 2013? John P. Entelis, professor of political science at Fordham University; Hamadi Redissi, professor of law and political science at the University of Tunis; and Sophie Bessis, Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation of Human Rights, will assess the successes and failures, the fears and hopes, and the prospects for the future in the midst of revolution. The discussion will be led by Mustapha Marrouchi, UNLV Dean's Professor of Post-Colonial Literature.
Reading: Emerging Writers Series featuring Amaranth Borsuk
Date/Time: Tuesday, April 16, 7 p.m.
Location: UNLV Greenspun Hall Auditorium
As a poet and scholar, Amaranth Borsuk's work focuses on textual materiality--from the surface of the page to the surface of language. She is the author of a book of poems, "Handiwork," which won the 2011 Slope Editions Poetry Prize; a chapbook, "Tonal Saw; and, with Brad Bouse." Borsuk is the 2011 recipient of the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize and is currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at MIT. In addition to teaching creative writing and digital poetry, she is at work on a monograph about technological mediation in the work of modernist and contemporary poets.
The Emerging Writers Series is made possible by a grant from Nevada Humanities.
Founded in 2006, Black Mountain Institute: An International Center for Creative Writers and Scholars at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is dedicated to advancing literary and cross-cultural dialogue. Through public programs, residential fellowships, and publishing initiatives, BMI provides a cultural lens through which today's most pressing issues can be addressed and evaluated.
