For more than two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death\, no one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then\, however\, dozens of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English language. In this remarkable book\, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers and thinkers as Sigmund Freud\, Henry James\, Mark Twain\, and Helen Keller. It is a fascinating story\, replete with forgeries\, deception\, false claimants\, ciphers and codes\, conspiracy theories—and a stunning failure to grasp the power of the imagination.
As Contested Will makes clear\, much more than proper attribution of Shakespeare's plays is at stake in this authorship controversy. Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe\, Francis Bacon\, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays are fundamental questions about literary genius\, specifically about the relationship of life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden autobiography? Do Hamlet\, Macbeth\, and the other great plays somehow reveal who wrote them?
Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way\, explaining what it means\, why it matters\, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100506T010000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100506T010000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/andrzej-stasiuk URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/andrzej-stasiuk SUMMARY:Andrzej Stasiuk DESCRIPTION:Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the brightest new literary talents to emerge in East and Central Europe since the fall of communism. Novelist\, essayist\, playwright\, and public intellectual\, Stasiuk has carved out a place for himself as a highly original thinker and stylist\, conveying the bittersweet realities of the "\;New Europe"\; with grace\, irony\, and insight. His work has been widely translated throughout Europe\; four of his books have been made available in English\, including Tales of Galicia\, Nine and Fado (the last two translated by our collaborator Bill Johnston of Indiana University).
Andrzej Stasiuk will read from his work in Polish and in English translation\, and will discuss his writing in the context of present-day Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. He will be accompanied by his partner\, Monika Sznajderman\, publisher of Wydanictwo Czarne\, one of Poland's premier literary presses.
This event marks Andrzej Stasiuk's first appearance in the U.S.\; from Bloomington he travels to New York to take part in the opening reading of the PEN World Voices Festival\, alongside such writers as Salman Rushdie and Patti Smith.
Please click here to purchase tickets for this event.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T003000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T003000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jhumpa-lahiri URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jhumpa-lahiri SUMMARY:Jhumpa Lahiri DESCRIPTION:From the internationally best-selling\, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake\, comes Unaccustomed Earth\, a superbly crafted new work of fiction\: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers\, fathers and mothers\, daughters and sons\, and friends and lovers.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T233000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100511T233000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/fred-donner-muhammad-and-believers URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/fred-donner-muhammad-and-believers SUMMARY:Fred Donner - Muhammad and the Believers DESCRIPTION:The origins of Islam have been the subject of increasing controversy in recent years. The traditional view\, which presents Islam as a self-consciously distinct religion tied to the life and revelations of the prophet Muhammad in western Arabia\, has since the 1970s been challenged by historians engaged in critical study of the Muslim sources.
In Muhammad and the Believers\, the eminent historian Fred Donner offers a lucid and original vision of how Islam first evolved. He argues that the origins of Islam lie in what we may call the "\;Believers' movement"\; begun by the prophet Muhammad - a movement of religious reform emphasizing strict monotheism and righteous behavior in conformity with God's revealed law. The Believers' movement thus included righteous Christians and Jews in its early years\, because like the Qur'anic Believers\, Christians and Jews were monotheists and agreed to live righteously in obedience to their revealed law. The conviction that Muslims constituted a separate religious community\, utterly distinct from Christians and Jews\, emerged a century later\, when the leaders of the Believers' movement decided that only those who saw the Qur'an as the final revelation of the One God and Muhammad as the final prophet\, qualified as Believers. This separated them decisively from monotheists who adhered to the Gospels or Torah.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100512T233000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100512T233000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/travis-nichols-aaron-michael-morales URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/travis-nichols-aaron-michael-morales SUMMARY:Travis Nichols & Aaron Michael Morales DESCRIPTION:Travis Nichols &\; Aaron Morales will read from and discuss their novels\, published by Coffeehouse Press.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100514T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100514T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/george-anastaplo-christian-heritage-problems-prospects URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/george-anastaplo-christian-heritage-problems-prospects SUMMARY:George Anastaplo - Christian Heritage\: Problems & Prospects DESCRIPTION:The Christian Heritage delves into the history of the western Christian heritage. Challenges to the Christian heritage\, a heritage nourished both by Judaism and by the western classics\, have been stimulated by the very success of the way of life that is promoted\, a way of life that is somehow responsible for the emergence of modern science with its revolutionary technology.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100518T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100518T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/christine-stansell-feminist-promise-1792-present URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/christine-stansell-feminist-promise-1792-present SUMMARY:Christine Stansell - The Feminist Promise\: 1792 to the Present DESCRIPTION:For more than two centuries\, the ranks of feminists have included dreamy idealists and conscientious reformers\, erotic rebels and angry housewives\, dazzling writers\, shrewd political strategists\, and thwarted workingwomen. Well-known leaders are sketched from new angles by Stansell\, with her bracing eye for character\: Mary Wollstonecraft\, the passionate English writer who in 1792 published the first full-scale argument for the rights of women\; Elizabeth Cady Stanton\, brilliant and fearless\; the imperious\, quarrelsome Betty Friedan. But figures from other contexts\, too\, appear in an unforgettable new light\, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg\, who in the 1970s led a revolution in the constitutional interpretations of women’s rights\, and Toni Morrison\, whose bittersweet prose gave voice to the modern black female experience.
Stansell accounts for the failures of feminism as well as the successes. She notes significant moments in the struggle for gender equality\, such as the emergence in the early 1900s of the dashing “New Woman”\; the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment\, which granted women the right to vote\; the post–World War II collapse of suburban neo-Victorianism\; and the radical feminism of the 1960s—all of which led to vast changes in American culture and society. The Feminist Promise dramatically updates our understanding of feminism\, taking the story through the age of Reagan and into the era of international feminist movements that have swept the globe. Stansell provocatively insists that the fight for women’s rights in developing countries “cannot be separated from democracy’s survival.”
A soaring work unprecedented in scope\, historical depth\, and literary appeal\, The Feminist Promise is bound to become an authoritative source on this essential subject for decades to come on. At once a work of scholarship\, political observation\, and personal reflection\, it is a book that speaks to the demands and challenges—individual\, national\, and international—of the twenty-first century.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100519T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100519T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/rebecca-janowitz-culture-opportunity-obamas-chicago-people-politics-ideas-hyde-park URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/rebecca-janowitz-culture-opportunity-obamas-chicago-people-politics-ideas-hyde-park SUMMARY:Rebecca Janowitz - Culture of Opportunity\: Obama's Chicago - The People\, Politics & Ideas of Hyde Park DESCRIPTION:Rebecca Janowitz's portrait of Hyde Park - the Chicago South Side neighborhood long noted for its progressive politics - offers an expert\, insider's social and political perspective on this intriguing community that in many ways nurtured Barack Obama's political career and made possible his run for the presidency. Sixty years ago - due to a major community grassroots organizing effort\, followed by a publicly funded urban renewal program - the Hyde Park-Kenwood area of Chicago emerged as a diverse\, politically confident community in a key lakefront location within a city noted for its segregated neighborhoods\, cultivating a rich and congenial cultural tradition.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100521T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100521T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/writers-record-jane-smiley URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/writers-record-jane-smiley SUMMARY:Writers on the Record\: Jane Smiley DESCRIPTION:A riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winner that traverses the intimate landscape of one woman’s life\, from the 1880s to World War II.
Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post–Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their small town has ever produced\: a naval officer and a brilliant astronomer—a genius who\, according to the local paper\, has changed the universe. Margaret’s mother calls the match “a piece of luck.”
Margaret is a good girl who has been raised to marry\, yet Andrew confounds her expectations from the moment their train leaves for his naval base in faraway California. Soon she comes to understand that his devotion to science leaves precious little room for anything\, or anyone\, else. When personal tragedies strike and when national crises envelop the country\, Margaret stands by her husband. But as World War II approaches\, Andrew’s obsessions take a different\, darker turn\, and Margaret is forced to reconsider the life she has so carefully constructed.
Private Life is a beautiful evocation of a woman’s inner world\: of the little girl within the hopeful bride\, of the young woman filled with yearning\, and of the faithful wife who comes to harbor a dangerous secret. But it is also a heartbreaking portrait of marriage and the mysteries that endure even in lives lived side by side\; a wondrously evocative historical panorama\; and\, above all\, a masterly\, unforgettable novel from one of our finest storytellers.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100522T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100522T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/gillian-flynn-dark-places URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/gillian-flynn-dark-places SUMMARY:Gillian Flynn - Dark Places DESCRIPTION:___
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100525T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100525T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/translating-vilnius-elizabeth-novickas-laimonas-briedis URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/translating-vilnius-elizabeth-novickas-laimonas-briedis SUMMARY:Translating Vilnius - Elizabeth Novickas & Laimonas Briedis DESCRIPTION:The city of Vilnius -- Chicago’s sister-city -- embraces history with many voices\: known in Yiddish as Vilne\, in Polish as Wilno\, in Russian as Vilna\, and in German as Wilna\, the capital of Lithuania possesses a polyphony of national identities and cultural resonances. No single history or language can embrace this multitude of identities\, for each name resonates with different experiences\, memories\, and expectations of Europe. As such\, the city both unites and divides the continent\, making it a point of many departures and arrivals. Writing Vilnius\, then\, is always about narrative crossings\, real or imagined trespasses into foreign territories and unknown worlds. As a result\, Vilnius’s literature is first and foremost an act of translation\, an exploration of the place from a novel point of view.
Laimonas Briedis\, author of Vilnius\: City of Strangers\, and Elizabeth Novickas\, translator of Ričardas Gavelis’ Vilnius Poker\, discuss the challenges\, pleasures\, and discoveries of translating the story of Vilnius.
Written as a traveller’s tale of encounter\, Vilnius\: City of Strangers\, is the first biography of the city\, exploring the history of the place\, from its legendary beginnings in the fourteenth century to the twentieth century dramas of wars\, revolutions and massacres\, through the insightful impressions of foreign travelers. Napoleon\, Dostoyevsky\,
Stendhal\, Döblin\, Tolstoy\, Bakhtin and Brodsky\: these voices – among others equally compelling though lesser known – reveal the essence of Europe in their narrative encounter with this threshold city\, situated at the geographical centre of Europe. Briedis has woven their letters\, diaries\, utterances and reflections of Vilnius into a compelling and intimate story\, and shares with the reader a deep understanding of the Lithuanian\, Polish\, Russian and German identities of the place\, as well as its centrality in the life of Jewish diaspora.
Ričardas Gavelis’ Vilnius Poker\, included in the long list for Best Translated Book Award of 2010\, presents Lithuanian Vilnius as it existed under Soviet rule. In its pages the city of Vilnius emerges as a mysterious\, shifting\, sentient presence\, inhabited by gray beings whose brains have been destroyed\: a city of underground labyrinths\, morgues\, and lurking dragons. The story weaves together a multiplicity of the voices of Vilnius\, a place of floating\, unstable identities and histories\, and paradoxically fixing a portrait of the city as it was – or never was – in “a forceful statement that is on its way towards becoming a touchstone of 20th century literature.” (Andrew Wessels\, Bookslut.com)
Laimonas Briedis\, a native of Vilnius\, Lithuania\, received his doctorate from the University of British Columbia and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Lithuanian Literature Institute.
Elizabeth Novickas has a M.A. in Lithuanian Language and Literature from UIC. She has worked previously as a bookbinder\, newspaper designer\, cartographer\, and system administrator for the Chicago Sun-Times.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T161839Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100527T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20100527T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/breen-american-insurgents-american-patriots-revolution-people URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/breen-american-insurgents-american-patriots-revolution-people SUMMARY:T. H. Breen - American Insurgents\, American Patriots\: The Revolution of the People DESCRIPTION:Before there could be a revolution\, there was a rebellion\; before patriots\, there were insurgents. Challenging and displacing decades of received wisdom\, T. H. Breen’s strikingly original book explains how ordinary Americans—most of them members of farm families living in small communities—were drawn into a successful insurgency against imperial authority. This is the story of our national political origins that most Americans do not know. It is a story of rumor\, charity\, vengeance\, and restraint. American Insurgents\, American Patriots reminds us that revolutions are violent events. They provoke passion and rage\, a willingness to use violence to achieve political ends\, a deep sense of betrayal\, and a strong religious conviction that God expects an oppressed people to defend their rights. The American Revolution was no exception. A few celebrated figures in the Continental Congress do not make for a revolution. It requires tens of thousands of ordinary men and women willing to sacrifice\, kill\, and be killed. Breen not only tells the history of these ordinary Americans but\, drawing upon a wealth of rarely seen documents\, restores their primacy to America’s road to independence. Mobilizing two years before the Declaration of Independence\, American insurgents in all thirteen colonies concluded that resistance to British oppression required organized violence against the state. They channeled popular rage through elected committees of safety and observation\, which before 1776 were the heart of American resistance. American Insurgents\, American Patriots is the stunning account of their insurgency\, without which there would have been no independent republic as we know it.
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