New Event! Sacco & Vanzetti Brown Bag Lunch 2/21

You are invited to bring your lunch to the following free events:

February 21 (Tuesday): THE TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS OF SACCO AND VANZETTI...
Discussion-- 12:15 pm, Husted Hall, Room 014, University at Albany Downtown Campus
Moderator: Frankie Bailey, Ph.D. – Professor of Criminal Justice
Panelists: Gerald Zahavi, Ph.D. – Professor of History, “The Anarchist World of Sacco and Vanzetti”
Richard Hamm, Ph.D. – Professor of History, “What the Sacco and Vanzetti Case Meant to One Legal Liberal”
Picture:  Ben Shahn's Sacco and Vanzetti
Sponsored by the School of Criminal Justice’s “Crime and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century”
series in association with Friday’s free upcoming film event:

February 24 (Friday): SACCO AND VANZETTI
Film screening followed by a conversation with director Peter Miller and film editor Amy Linton — 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Peter Miller (United States, 2006, 80 minutes, color)
This documentary, winner of the American Historical Association’s best film award, tells the story of two Italian politically radical immigrants charged with the 1920 robbery of a Massachusetts shoe factory and the murder of two of its employees. As it recounts their trials, public protests, and appeals on their behalf the film offers insights into present-day issues of civil liberties and immigrant rights. Ken Burns called it “A wonderful film, as timeless as the struggle for human justice, as relevant as today’s headlines.”
Peter Miller is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose films include the theatrically-released A.K.A. DOC POMUS, JEWS AND BASEBALL, and SACCO AND VANZETTI. He has directed numerous documentaries for PBS and has been a producer for documentaries by Ken Burns and Lynn Novak including THE WAR and JAZZ, and the Peabody Award-winning FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT.
Amy Linton has edited numerous award-winning films including Julie Dash’s DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST, a Sundance winner that was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. She has worked on dozens of documentaries, feature films, and music videos in her 25-year career.
Sponsored by the Writers Institute in conjunction with UAlbany’s School of Criminal Justice’s Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century: Crime, Justice, and Public Memory Film Series

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"I don't want to be called an immigrant novelist" -Akhil Sharma

Akhil Sharma (who visits tomorrow) in a Salon interview this past Sunday:

You’ve said that you want this book to be “useful.” Useful how?
Because the subject matter of this book is so important to me – illness, children in difficulty, the Indian immigrant community – I care a great deal about being able to provide comfort to people who are in a similar situation to the one that I and my family were in.

That seems like a very old-fashioned way to think about a novel.

It is, this idea that we can read books for guidance, or to not be alone. It is how I read books growing up and it is, to some extent, how I still read books. I think that books are fundamentally educational. For example, books teach us to practice loving. We read about imaginary characters and we learn to sympathize with strangers. This is an amazing thing.

 

More in Salon:  http://www.salon.com/2014/04/13/akhil_sharma_i_dont_want_to_be_called_an_immigrant_novelist/

More about Sharma's visit tomorrow:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/sharma_akhil14.html

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Larry La Fountain-Stokes on Sexual Persecution and Migration

Larry La Fountain-Stokes, Puerto Rican poet and performer who will participate in tonight's "Diasporican" Cafe at UAlbany, speaks in San Juan at a TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference about the persecution of people for their sexuality, and the profound effect this has on international migration (emigration and immigration).

View his talk on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoyjL23Bwhc

Books by La Fountain-Stokes include the scholarly work, Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora (2009), and the bilingual fiction collection, Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails (2009).

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In Search of America

The plotless (and widely acclaimed) novel Open City by Teju Cole (who visits Friday 2/10) is essentially a meandering story about meanderings.

At one point the Nigerian-American narrator visits an immigration detention center in Queens and meets a young Liberian man who has long nurtured dreams of emigrating to America.

The Liberian has undertaken an arduous journey from Liberia to Mali to Morocco to Spain to Portugal, gradually saving up enough money to purchase a false passport and fly to JFK airport in New York City. The narrator hears his story from behind a wall of plexiglass.

"The man who sat in front of me had a broad white smile. He was young, and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, as were all the other inmates. I introduced myself, and he smiled immediately and asked if I was African. He was as good-looking, as striking in appearance as any man I had ever seen. He had delicate cheekbones, a dark, even complexion, and the whites of his eyes were as vivid as his white teeth...."

To read more, buy the book.

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