Upcoming Book & Author Events
How the Soviet Jew Was Made - Book Discussion
How the Soviet Jew Was Made Book Discussion
Sasha Senderovich will discuss his new book, How the Soviet Jew Was Made, which offers a close reading of post-revolutionary Yiddish and Russian-language literature and film that recasts the Soviet Jew as a novel cultural figure: an ambivalent character navigating between the Jewish past and Bolshevik modernity. Senderovich urges us to see the Soviet Jew anew, as not only a member of a minority group, but also a particular kind of liminal being.
Hosted by the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Languages
About The Author
Sasha Senderovich is an Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the Jackson School of International Studies, and a faculty affiliate at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Together with Harriet Murav, he translated, from the Yiddish, David Bergelson’s novel Judgment (Northwestern University Press, 2017). Together with Harriet Murav, he is currently working on In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union, a collection of stories by several different authors translated from both Yiddish and Russian.
His first monograph, How the Soviet Jew Was Made, was published by Harvard University Press in 2022; he has also published on contemporary Soviet-born immigrant Jewish authors in America. In addition to scholarly work, he has also published essays on literary, cultural, and political topics in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New York Times, the Forward, Lilith, Jewish Currents, the Stranger, and the New Republic
Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Time: 5 PM - 7 PM EST
Location: William Pitt Union, Room 548
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Past Events
Persistence of Slavery - Book Celebration
Persistence of Slavery Book Celebration
Join us as Dr. Robin Chapdelaine speaks about her book, The Persistence of Slavery: An Economic History of Child Trafficking in Nigeria. Respondents will include Laura Lovett (series editor) and Matt Becker (press editor of Umass Press).
The Persistence of Slavery provides an invaluable investigation into the origins of modern slavery and early efforts to combat it, locating this practice in the political, social, and economic changes that occurred as a result of British colonialism and its lingering effects, which perpetuate child trafficking in Nigeria today.
About The Author
Dr. Robin Chapdelaine earned a Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender history and African history from Rutgers University and her research focuses on human trafficking, child slavery, equity in higher education, and Black Joy practices. She is currently working on her next book, Embrace Black Joy: How Empathetic Teaching Empowers All Students. This text aims to be a pedagogical tool that assists educators to embrace Black Joy as a worthy topic of inquiry in the classroom and one that benefits all students.
Date: Monday, October 30, 2023
Time: 5 PM - 7 PM EST
Location: Cathedral of Learning, Room 501
Additional Event Information
Purchase a Copy
Portraits of Irish Art in Practice
Jennifer Keating’s Portraits of Irish Art in Practice Book Launch
Portraits of Irish Art in Practice mines the space where aesthetic expression meets lived experience for Irish artists Rita Duffy, Mairéad McClean, Paula McFetridge and Ursula Burke. Portrait essays, woven with photographs, document each artist’s coming of age in Ireland and Northern Ireland, in the context of her emerging practice.
As individuals, their work considers infringements on human rights, systemic violence, gender roles and the negotiation of figurative and literal borders and boundaries. Together, they interrogate past and present conflict and emergence from conflict, locally and globally. Their critical work is threaded with hope in the context of past and present political fragmentation.
Sponsored by the European Studies Center, Writing Institute, English Department, Composition Program, and the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University.
About The Author
Jennifer Keating is a Teaching Professor of English and the Writing in the Disciplines Specialist in the William S. Dietrich II Institute for Writing Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh.
Date: Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Time: 4:30 PM EST
Location: 4310 Posvar Hall
Additional Event Information
Purchase a Copy
CAAAP's Craft of Blackness: Event 2
Craft of Blackness: Event 2
Readings and Conversation
Join CAAPP in Black Study and renowned poets Major Jackson, Omotara James, & Luther Hughes. Our esteemed guests will read new work and participate in a moderated, creative conversation.
The Craft of Blackness is a week-long collection of events in our Black Study series that sets out to highlight and consider ties between Blackness and craft in poetics and art-making.
The Center for African American Poetry & Poetics’ (CAAPP) series, The Craft of Blackness, is a week-long collection of events in our Black Study series that sets out to highlight and consider ties between Blackness and craft in poetics and art-making.
About The Poets
Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems and The Absurd Man. He is also the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson edited by Amor Kohli. A recipient of fellowships from Civitella Ranieri, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a Cave Canem Poetry Prize. He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Orion Magazine, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Poetry London. Major Jackson lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review and host of the poetry podcast The Slowdown. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Omotara James is the author of Song of My Softening, forthcoming from Alice James Books, 2023. Her chapbook, Daughter Tongue, was selected by The African Poetry Book Fund for The New Generation African Poetry Box Set (Tano), Akashic Books, 2018. James’ poems appear in print and digital journals, including The Poetry Foundation, The Nation, The Paris Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, BOMB Magazine, The Believer, Literary Hub, Guernica, Poetry Society of America and elsewhere. Her poetry has been featured several times in The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day series, James’ poems have been selected for publication in multiple anthologies.
She has received support from the African Poetry Book Fund, New York Foundation for the Arts, Lambda Literary, Cave Canem Foundation and other generous institutions. James' has performed on various stages including The 92NY, The Poetry Project, The New York City Poetry Festival and The Brooklyn Books Poetry Festival.
Born in Britain, she is the daughter of Nigerian and Trinidadian immigrants. She has lived in England, Scotland and was raised primarily in America. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Hofstra University and an MFA in Poetry from New York University. Currently, she writes, teaches and edits poetry in New York City.
Luther Hughes (they/them) is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves (BOA Editions, 2022), and the chapbook, Touched (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018). They are the founder of Shade Literary Arts, an organization for queer writers of color, and cohosts The Poet Salon Podcast with Gabrielle Bates and Dujie Tahat. Recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Rosenberg Fellowship and the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, their writing has been published in The Paris Review, The Seattle Times, American Poetry Review, and others. They live in the Southend of Seattle, where they were born and raised.
Date: Thursday, October 19, 2023
Time: 6 PM - 7:30 PM EST
Location: Heinz Memorial Chapel
Additional Event Information
Purchase Razzle Dazzle by Major Jackson
Purchase New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Tano)
Purchase A Shiver in the Leaves by Luther Hughes
Battlefield Cyber: A Lunchtime Dialogue
Battlefield Cyber: How China and Russia Are Undermining Our Democracy and National Security
A Lunchtime Dialogue
Pitt Cyber’s David Hickton will join authors Michael McLaughlin and William Holstein for a timely conversation about cyber warfare and the American response.
Hosted by Pitt Cyber and Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC
The United States is being bombarded with cyber-attacks. From the surge in ransomware groups targeting critical infrastructure to nation states compromising the software supply chain and corporate email servers, malicious cyber activities have reached an all-time high. Russia attracts the most attention, but China is vastly more sophisticated.
They have a common interest in exploiting the openness of the Internet and social media—and our democracy—to erode confidence in our institutions and to exacerbate our societal rifts to prevent us from mounting an effective response. Halting this digital aggression will require Americans to undertake sweeping changes in how we educate, organize and protect ourselves and to ask difficult questions about how vulnerable our largest technology giants are.
About The Authors
McLaughlin is the former Senior Counterintelligence Advisor for United States Cyber Command, where he was responsible for the coordination of all Department of Defense counterintelligence operations in cyberspace. He was at the heart of the Pentagon’s efforts, for example, to prevent Russia from using cyberattacks to disrupt Ukraine’s economy. He is now a cybersecurity attorney in Washington, D.C. and currently serves as a Research Affiliate at the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS), where he leads a team in evaluating Department of Defense policies and federal regulations to enable the integration of government and private sector cyberspace capabilities to provide for national defense
Bill Holstein was based in Hong Kong and Beijing for United Press International and has been following U.S.-China relations for more than 40 years. He also has specialized in covering technology since joining U.S. News & World Report in 1996. He has worked for or written for Business Week, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Fortune and other top publications.
Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Time: 12 PM - 1 PM EST
Location: University Club, Conference Room A
Additional Event Information
About Michael McLaughlin
| About William Holstein | Purchase a Copy
SpearIt - Muslim Prisoner Litigation
Muslim Prisoner Litigation: American Tradition
Book Launch and Discussion with author SpearIt
Pitt's Department of Religious studies presents Muslim Prisoner Litigation Book Launch written by SpearIt.
SpearIt, Professor of Law at Pitt, and Affiliated Faculty in Religious Studies, will discuss his new book, Muslim Prisoner Litigation: An Unsung American Tradition. Copies will be available for sale onsite and light refreshments will be served.
Since the early 1960s, incarcerated Muslims have used legal action to establish their rights to religious freedom behind bars and improve the conditions of their incarceration. Inspired by Islamic principles of justice and equality, these efforts have played a critical role in safeguarding the civil rights not only of imprisoned Muslims but of all those confined to carceral settings.
In this sweeping book—the first to examine this history in depth—SpearIt writes a missing chapter in the history of Islam in America while illuminating new perspectives on the role of religious expression and experience in the courtroom.
About The Author
SpearIt is an internationally recognized scholar and teacher, and is a Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is the author of American Prisons: A Critical Primer on Culture and Conversion to Islam (First Edition Design 2017), and his most recent book is entitled, Muslim Prisoner Litigation: An Unsung American Tradition (University of California Press 2023), which examines the history of Muslim prisoner litigation through the lens of OutCrit jurisprudence.
As an instructor, SpearIt has taught a range of courses in the law school curriculum, including Evidence, Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, Sentencing, Corrections Law, and Professional Responsibility, among other courses.
Date: Thursday, October 12, 2023
Time: 5:30 PM - 7 PM EST
Location: Cathedral of Learning, Room 501
Additional Event Information
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
Elaine Hsieh Chou - Disorientation
Disorientation: A Novel
Reading and Conversation with author Elaine Hsieh Chou
Join us for an evening of reading and conversation with the 2023 Fred R. Brown Award Winner Elaine Hsieh Chou.
A Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a college campus in this outrageously hilarious and startingly tender debut novel. A blistering send-up of privilege and power, and a profound reckoning of individual complicity and unspoken rage, in Disorientation Elaine Hsieh Chou asks who gets to tell our stories—and how the story changes when we finally tell it ourselves.
Presented by the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writer Series
About The Author
Elaine Hsieh Chou (pronounced SHAY-CHOW) is a Taiwanese American writer from California. Her debut novel Disorientation was a New York Times Editors' Choice Book, an NPR Best Book of 2022 and an NYPL Young Lions Finalist.
A former Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow at NYU and NYFA Artist Fellow, her Pushcart Award-winning short fiction appears in Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Tin House Online, Ploughshares, The Atlantic and elsewhere. As a writing and workshop instructor, she has taught fiction for NYU, Catapult, Accent Society, Kundiman and Tin House. Her multi-genre short story collection Where Are You Really From is forthcoming from Penguin Press.
The film adaptation of Disorientationis in development with Malala Yousafzai’s Extracurricular Productions and Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries for AppleTV+. Elaine will co-write the script.
Date: Thursday, October 12, 2023
Time: 7:30 PM EST
Location: Cathedral of Learning, Room 501
Additional Event Information
About the Author | Purchase a Copy: Hardcover | Paperback
Pitt Law - Death In Custody
Death In Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do About It
A Fireside Chat with Dr. Roger A. Mitchell, Jr. & Jay Aronson, PhD
Roger A. Mitchell, Jr., MD, and Jay D. Aronson, PhD will share highlights of their book, which tells the stories of individuals who have died in law enforcement custody and chronicles the efforts of activists and journalists to uncover the true scope of deaths in custody in the United States.
Pitt Law faculty members will offer reflections on the book, and our criminal legal system, as well.
About The Authors
Jay Aronson, PhD, is the founder and director of the Center for Human Rights Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Aronson’s research and teaching examine the interactions of science, technology, law, media, and human rights in a variety of contexts.
Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., is a professor and chair of pathology at the Howard University College of
Medicine. He is a forensic pathologist who previously served as the Chief Medical Examiner and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice of Washington, DC. He is the author of The Price of Freedom: A Son’s Journey.
Presented by Pitt Law Office for Equity and Inclusive Excellence, Black Law Students Association, Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice, Incarcerated Persons Legal Support Program & Pitt Law Legal Income Sharing Foundation.
Date: Thursday, September 28, 2023
Time: 12:30 PM - 2 PM EST
Location: Barco Law Building, Room 107
Registration Link: Register Here
Additional Event Information
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
Jennifer Silbaugh - A Dove In The Shadows
A Dove In The Shadows
Book Signing & Reading with Jennifer Silbaugh
A Dove In The Shadows is a memoir of Jennifer Silbaugh's journey from decades as a patient in the mental health system to becoming a person who helps others as they travel similar paths. She strives every day to maintain her recovery and make her wellness her number one priority.
Jennifer was caught in a system she depended on to keep her alive, but reached the end of the road, looked around, and saw nothing but darkness.
When the mental health community ran out of options to help her, she chose to turn within. She decided to live fully, with hope, seeking joy, knowing that she needed to be in charge to create what she wanted in life.
And that's when she transformed her darkness into the most beautiful light.
Though she was once behind locked doors, looking for ways to stop the pain in her head, she was able to heal and find peace. She discovered that the place where she'd suffered the greatest was the place where she was meant to work, to help others in the shadows. As a certified peer specialist, she could tell others she believes in them too, that they can recover like she did.
If you've struggled with mental health-through depression, anxiety, despair, desperation-then know there really is hope for change. And sometimes it lies within.
Jennifer's story inspires the reader to be their own advocate, friend, and hero on the journey from broken to belonging.
About The Author
Jennifer is a first-time author and a mental health advocate. She is a healthy, strong woman and a daughter, sister, wife, dog-mom, homeowner, artist, handbell ringer, consumer, advocate, and professional in the mental health field. She is dedicated to offering help and hope to those suffering from mental health challenges and finds joy in her family, friends, art, and God.
Jennifer's journey from patient to professional began in 1993 as a patient seeking help with her own mental health struggles. After many years and some changes in the system, she was (and is) considered a consumer. A tumultuous journey involving a great deal of pain, lots of self-initiated hard work, and some key medical professionals started Jennifer's advocacy path.
Beginning in 2010, she was an advocate for UPMC's Youth and Family Training Institute (YFTI) and worked on the Peer Support & Advocacy Network's (PSAN) Warmline from 2011-2013.A commitment to her own healing allowed Jennifer to become a certified peer specialist from 2013-2020. Jennifer was the first certified peer specialist to receive the UPMC Award for Commitment in Excellence and Service (ACES) in 2015.
Jennifer spends her summers camping and picking out beach glass on the shores of Lake Erie. She has a passion for recycling and finding beauty in what others see as trash. She loves finding treasures at garage sales and her local Goodwill outlet. Jennifer believes sharing her story is empowering and hopes it can help others in their healing journey. She lives in Rostraver Township, Pa., with her husband Scott and her poodle, Petey.
Proceeds from books sales will benefit UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital's "Making Minds Matter" fund.
Date: Thursday, September 14, 2023
Time: 1 PM - 4 PM EST
Location: University Store on Fifth
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
Katie Booth - The Invention of Miracles Book Event
The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness
Lecture with Katie Booth and The Thornburgh Family Lecture Series on Disability Law & Policy
Moderated by Dr. Kenneth DeHaan, Professor and Director of the MA in Sign Language Education Program at Gallaudet University.
Invention of Miracles is a story of brilliance and a reminder of the ethical responsibilities of great minds. Taking place in the Victorian Age and an era of expansive innovation and invention, Booth tells parallel stories - the first details the advent of one of the world’s most famous inventions, the telephone; while the second powerfully reveals the many unintended and dire consequences that were perpetrated during this time by its inventor, Alexander Graham Bell.
Booth’s biographical account of Alexander Graham Bell depicts a passionate and brilliant man who gained international fame racing to invent the telephone while he was also fixated on curing deafness by teaching the deaf to speak. Each of his pursuits originated from a place of love -- for his mother and his wife each of whom lived with non-congenital deafness, and for his father who was an internationally renowned elocutionist. Despite his good intentions, Bell had a profound and long-lasting negative impact on the language development and education of the world’s deaf community in the 19th and 20th centuries. This impact continues today.
As the story unfolds, Booth demonstrates that good intentions can easily be corrupted by the absence and the denial of scientific data. Join us to learn more!
About The Author
Katie Booth has been researching this story for more than fifteen years, poring over Bell’s papers, Library of Congress archives, and the records of deaf schools around America. But she’s also lived with this story for her entire life. Witnessing the damaging impact of Bell’s legacy on her family would set her on a path that overturned everything she thought she knew about language, power, deafness, and the telephone.
Katie Booth teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in The Believer, Catapult, McSweeney’s, and Harper’s Magazine, and has been highlighted on Longreads and Longform; “The Sign for This” was a notable essay in the 2016 edition of Best American Essays. Booth received a number of prestigious fellowships to support the research for The Invention of Miracles, including from the Library of Congress and the Massachusetts Historical Society. She was raised in a mixed hearing and deaf family. This is her first book.
Refreshments will be served. Parking suggested at Soldiers and Sailors auditorium garage.
This lecture series is co-sponsored by the Institute of Politics, Pitt Law, the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, the David C. Frederick Honors College, the department of Disability Resources and Services with assistance from the Office of the Chancellor.
Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2023
Time: 1 PM - 2 PM EST
Location: William Pitt Union, Lower Lounge
Event Information: Thornburgh Family Lecture Series
Event Registration: Register Here
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
All The Flowers Kneeling
All The Flowers Kneeling
Reading & Book Signing with Visiting Poet, Paul Tran
Writing Program Welcomes Visiting Poet Paul Tran
All events are open to members of the Pitt community
Please reach out to Diana K Nguyen with any questions at [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Time: 6 PM EST
Location: Cathedral of Learning, The Understory, Room B50
Event Information: Click Here
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
Translating Early Modern China
Translating Early Modern China
A Book Lecture and Discussion with Dr. Carla Nappi
Please join us for a lecture by Dr. Carla Nappi, Andrew W. Mellon Chair, Department of History, in which she discusses her book, "Translating Early Modern China: Illegible Cities". Nappi's book presents a significant new interpretation of the history of translation in China.
If you wish to attend this lecture via Zoom, please register here
Date: Friday, March 3, 2023
Time: 2 PM EST
Location: 4130 Posvar Hall & Zoom
Event Registration: Register Here
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
Global Burning
Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis
A Book Lecture and Discussion with Dr. Eve Darian-Smith
Join the Global Studies Center and Dr. Eve Darian-Smith for a lecture on her book followed by a discussion with attendees. Dr. Darian-Smith serves as the Chair of the Department of Global and International Studies and is a professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She has published several award-winning books focused on global issues.
Trained as a lawyer, historian and anthropologist, Dr. Darian-Smith is a critical interdisciplinary scholar interested in issues of postcolonialism, human rights, legal pluralism, and socio-legal theory. Her current work focuses on authoritarianism and crises of democracy.
Date: Friday, February 10, 2023
Time: 12:30 PM - 2 PM EST
Location: 4130 Posvar Hall & Zoom
Event Registration: Register Here
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
Kathleen George
Reading & Book Signing with Faculty Author, Kathleen George
Join us on Wednesday, December 7th during our Shop and Stroll event at 1 pm for a reading of Kathleen George's new novel, Mirth.
Reading will be hosted in Center 4 Creativity (C4C) on the lower level University Store on Fifth, with book signing and additional titles on the upper level afterward.
Date: Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Time: 1 PM - 2 PM EST
Location: University Store on Fifth
About the Author
| Purchase a Copy
| Other Titles by Kathleen George
Jennette McCurdy
An Evening with Jennette McCurdy
Join Pitt Program Council on Thursday, November 3rd at 8:30 pm in the Assembly Room of the William Pitt Union! The event will include a 45-minute moderated Q&A and 15 minutes for audience questions.
***Trigger/Content Warning: This event may contain emotionally difficult content dependent on participants’ discussions.
Date: Thursday, November 3, 2022
Time: 8:30PM EST
Location: William Pitt Union Assembly Room
Learn More |
Purchase a Copy
Dantiel Moniz
Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series: Dantiel W. Moniz, Milk Blood Heat
Reading and Q&A
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2022
Time: 7:30PM EST
Location: Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
Craft Talk
Date: Friday, October 28, 2022
Time: 11:00AM EST
Location: Room 252 - Cathedral of Learning
Learn More
Purchase a Copy: Paperback | Hardcover
queer panel
Revising the Imagination: An Author Panel on Queer Fantasy Fiction
Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Time: 11:00AM EST
Location:Online - Register Today
Recommended Titles: Shop Here
An Evening of Reading and Conversation with Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Time: October 22, 2020. 7:30PM - 9:00PM
Location: Online
2020 Transpride
The Critical Role of Dissent in Government and Foreign Affairs
The Critical Role of Dissent in Government and Foreign Affairs
Free Lecture
Date: Tuesday, September 22 2020
Time: 12:30 pm
Location: Online
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