April 05th - April 19th, 2024

Cynthia J. Sylvester reads from ‘The Half-White Album’

Date: Apr. 8, 2024

Time: 5:30 pm

Location: Francie & Finch Bookshop

“The Half-White Album,” a powerful debut collection, explores lives lived between worlds. Sylvester masterfully weaves together fiction, poetry, and nonfiction to give readers a poignant though fractured view of her characters’ lives, their loves, and their struggles. Told from the perspective of an urban Native, the work details a journey led by the nomadic band, the Covers. It is an experience meant to heal generational trauma and bring back into the light people who may otherwise be forgotten. At its heart, THE HALF-WHITE ALBUM is a healing ceremony of the author’s own creation, a process grounded in music that celebrates what it is to be human and imperfect and to love imperfectly.

Poetry reading by Erin Belieu

Date: Apr. 10, 2024

Time: 5:30 pm

Location: Francie & Finch Bookshop

In recognition of National Poetry Month, acclaimed poet and Nebraska native Erin Belieu will read from her work. Her most recent collection is COME-HITHER HONEYCOMB. She is also the author of: INFANTA, winner of the National Poetry Series and chosen one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, National Book Critics Circle, and Library Journal; ONE ABOVE & ONE BELOW, winner of the Midland Author’s and Ohioana Poetry Prizes; BLACK BOX, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and SLANT SIX.

Book critic Dwight Garner in the New York Times says “Belieu is a poet who can’t abide pretension,” and “She’s a comedian of the human spirit, in league with poets from Frank O’Hara, to Deborah Garrison, to Tony Hoagland.”

Belieu’s poetry has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Poetry, Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, the Academy of American Poet’s Poem a Day, the American Poetry Review, and in the Best American Poetry anthology series. Her prizes include the Rona Jaffe Foundation fellowship, and she was recently honored with the Barnes and Noble Writers For Writers Award, recognizing Belieu’s long career of literary activism, as well as AWP’s George Garrett Prize, honoring her “outstanding literary citizenship” in service to the national writing community.

Q&A with Cinematographer Tyler Graim

Date: Apr. 12, 2024

Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Location: Louise Pound Hall Room: 124

Join us for a conversation with Tyler Graim, whose latest feature BAD PRESS will show at the Ross Media Arts Center! Tyler is a cinematographer based in Denver, CO and shooting all over the world. Tyler has filmed commercials for VOGUE, COMCAST, INTEL and TOYOTA, as well as docu-style series for COORS, BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT, and MICROSOFT. He shot the SUNDANCE winning documentary, BAD PRESS, for directors Becca Landsberry and Joe Peeler. Recently he shot the short narrative film EXHORTATION, with director James Repici, featuring Roger Guenveur Smith. Tyler began his film career at the prominent Post Production house, Rock Paper Scissors, where he worked with many of his film heroes including Errol Morris and David Fincher.

https://www.tylergraim.com/

Uche Okonkwo book launch for A KIND OF MADNESS

Date: Apr. 18, 2024

Time: 6:00 pm

Location: Francie & Finch Bookshop

With the release of her debut short story collection, A KIND OF MADNESS, Uche Okonkwo will read from her work and discuss it with Timothy Schaffert, director of the Creative Writing Program. In vivid, evocative prose, A KIND OF MADNESS (an Oprah Daily “Most Anticipated Book of 2024”) unravels the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings, and more, marking the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction and inviting us all to consider the question: why is it that the people and places we hold closest are so often the ones that drive us to madness?

Uche Okonkwo’s stories have been published in A Public Space, One Story, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, and Lagos Noir, among others. A former Bernard O’Keefe Scholar at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and resident at Art Omi, she is a recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship at Phillips Exeter Academy and a Steinbeck Fellowship. Okonkwo grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and is currently pursuing a creative writing PhD at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Literary Editing & Publishing Poetry

Date: Apr. 19, 2024

Time: 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

Location: Nebraska Union Room: Platte River Room South

Drawing from their work as editors, the two poets will reflect on the role of literature in the advancement of intellectual and cultural modernity in Africa and the United States.

A poet, translator, and essayist, Daniel Simon is assistant director and editor in chief of World Literature Today magazine at the University of Oklahoma, where he also serves on the English, International Studies, and Judaic Studies faculty. The author of two previous verse collections, “Cast Off” (2015) and “After Reading Everything” (2016), his third book of poems, “Under a Gathering Sky,” is new from Stephen F. Austin State University Press.

Chibueze Darlington Anuonye, a P.hD student in the English Department, is the curator of “Selfies and Signatures: An Afro Anthology of Short Stories,” co-editor of “Daybreak: An Anthology of Nigerian Short Fiction” and editor of “Through the Eye of a Needle: Art in the Time of Coronavirus.” Anuonye was longlisted for the 2018 Babishai Niwe African Poetry Award. “Unbound,” his co-edited anthology of contemporary Nigerian poetry (with Nduka Otiono), is forthcoming.

First Friday at Great Plains Art Museum

Date: Apr. 5, 2024

Time: 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Location: Great Plains Art Museum

The museum is open late on April 5 from 5-7 p.m. with light refreshments, two exhibitions, and a community storytelling project.

As the Center for Great Plains Studies’ inaugural student storyteller in residence, Karla is leading a community storytelling project, Dear Great Plains, to gather and share the experiences of the region’s residents. During First Friday, visit the lower-level Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Studio & Education Lab to write a postcard to the Great Plains. Following a collection period, the postcards will become a public art installation at the Great Plains Art Museum.

“There is no right or wrong way to make your postcard: paint it your favorite shade of yellow, write a grocery list for your grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies, chronicle the worst snow day of your life,” Hernandez Torrijos wrote. “We are interested in the story of the Great Plains, as told by the people who live here.”

Supplies will be provided to create a postcard and Karla will be facilitating the process from 5-7 p.m. Can’t make it to First Friday? Create a digital version that will be copied onto a physical postcard.

On view:
“(Re)Connected: Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Angela Two Stars”
March 1–July 20, 2024
The Great Plains Art Museum’s 2024 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence is Angela Two Stars, a multidisciplinary visual artist, public artist, and curator. By reconnecting with the Dakota language and her ancestral homelands, Angela addresses healing from historical, intergenerational, and personal traumas in her recent work. About this exhibition, she writes: “Through personal, vulnerable installations and performances, (Re)Connected boldly addresses issues that have caused the traumas endured by Native women but also highlights their strength, beauty, and resilience, as well as their roles as leaders, caretakers, life-givers, and protectors of all their relations.”

“Sarah Kaizar: RARE AIR”
January 23–May 4, 2024
This family friendly art exhibition features original gouache and ink artwork from the book ”RARE AIR: Endangered Birds, Bats, Butterflies, and Bees.” Authored by Philadelphia-based illustrator and designer Sarah Kaizar, and featuring writings by A. Scott Meiser, ”RARE AIR” focuses on diminishing flighted species and citizen science. The exhibition, which shares the book’s stories and research, features striking visuals and interactive elements that connect visitors of all ages to the diversity of our ecosystems and the extraordinary creatures that populate them. Kaizar’s work enables audiences to recognize and appreciate the winged species that share our world and offers strategies—big and small—to slow or reverse the threats that face them.

https://www.unl.edu/plains/great-plains-art-museum

Battle of the Bands and Food Trucks

Date: Apr. 5, 2024

Time: 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location: Willa Cather Dining Complex Room: 17th St. Green Space

Performances by Ivory Daze, Loose Change, Beyond Bananas! Bring blankets or chairs to hang out on the green space by Cather Dining and cheer the loudest for your favorite band!

Additional Public Info:
Food trucks 4:30-7:30PM (Partnered with UNL Dining. Students can use their Meal Plans)
Performances starting at 6:30PM

School of Natural Resources Spring Banquet

Date: Apr. 6, 2024

Time: 5:00 pm

Location: Nebraska East Union Room: Great Plains Room

With the help of our student clubs (including SNR GSA), we are transforming the 60-year tradition of the Wildlife Club spring banquet to a School-wide Spring Banquet! There will be fun, frivolity, and festivity in spades, and we hope this can become a School tradition. All students, staff, and faculty are invited—we will be joined by alums, friends, and donors.


April 6, 2024
Fun starts at 5pm
East Campus Union

https://snr.unl.edu/event/annualbanquet/

Solar Social

Date: Apr. 8, 2024

Time: 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Location: City and East Campuses Room: City Campus Plaza and East Campus Loop

Come celebrate the first total solar eclipse in the United States since 2017 with music, ice cream for purchase, educational booths, yoga and more. The Solar Social is a fun way for Huskers to get outside on a beautiful spring day while watching a partial eclipse roll over campus.

Special glasses for safe viewing — as well as telescopes to taking a close look— will be available at both City and East campus locations!

The eclipse will take place at 1:53PM

Sun Salutation Yoga | 12:30-1:30PM | Meier Commons
Attend this free Yoga class on the Meier Commons outside of the Nebraska Union. This class will incorporate sun salutations, a vital part to Vinyasa Yoga classes, to celebrate the Solar Eclipse. A limited number of mats will be provided. We recommend bringing a mat, blanket or towel if possible.

Register here: https://shopcrec.clubautomation.com/calendar/event-info?id=6312&selected-schedule-id=9508&style=1

Live Stream of the Full Eclipse at the Crib in the Nebraska Union

https://www.unl.edu/solar-social/

Artist in Residence Angela Two Stars

Date: Apr. 10, 2024

Time: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location: Great Plains Art Museum Room: Rubendall Education Studio and Lab

The Great Plains Art Museum’s 2024 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence is Angela Two Stars, a multidisciplinary visual artist, public artist, and curator.

During her residency, Two Stars will create an artwork that will become part of the museum’s permanent collection. Visitors are encouraged to see the artist in action in the lower-level Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Studio & Education Lab from April 9 to 13 during the museum’s public hours (Tue-Sat, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.). Two Stars will return June 11–15 for a second week of residency. To schedule a group tour, email acloet3@unl.edu.

Angela is an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and received her BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design. She is the director of All My Relations Arts, a contemporary American Indian art gallery and arts program that is a project of the Native American Community Development Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Angela’s public art graces the shores of Bde Maka Ska in Minnesota and honors the Dakota people of Mni Sota. Her sculpture, Okciyapi, was acquired by the Walker Art Center and is permanently installed in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Angela’s solo exhibition, (Re)Connected, will be on view at the museum from March 1 to July 20, 2024. Learn more about the exhibition.

Angela’s residency is titled “Okizipi (To Heal).” During her residency, Angela will invite the community to share in courageous conversations that focus on healing. Healing is a process that takes courage and commitment to undo the deep traumas Angela explores in the work featured in her exhibition (Re)Connected. While working onsite at the museum, Angela will also create an artwork that will become part of the museum’s permanent collection.

https://www.unl.edu/plains/gallery/artistinresidence.shtml

‘What Were You Wearing?’ Survivor Art Installation

Date: Apr. 10, 2024

Time: 12:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Location: Nebraska East Union Room: Garden Room

An art exhibit that asks participants to understand that it is never about the clothing when sexual violence occurs, this display will show representations of outfits worn during assaults with accompanying stories from sexual violence survivors. Inspired by the poem “What I Was Wearing” by Dr. Mary Simmerling, the project intends to shed light on the burden of self-blame brought forth by the victim-blaming question that is pervasive for most survivors, and shatter the myth that sexual violence can be attributed to a person’s choice in clothing.

Survivors are empowered to share their stories through this submission form: https://forms.office.com/r/95Zzdc8hbD

The exhibit is free and open to the public. It will be available at the following times and locations:

Tues, April 9, East Union (Garden Room), 12 to 7 p.m.
Weds, April 10, East Union, Garden Room, 12 to 7 p.m.
Thurs, April 11, East Union, Garden Room, 12 to 7 p.m.

Mon, April 15, City Campus- Willa Cather Dining Complex, Red Cloud B-C 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Tues, April 16, City Campus- Willa Cather Dining Complex, Red Cloud B-C 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Weds, April 17, City Campus- Willa Cather Dining Complex, Red Cloud B-C 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Thurs, April 18, City Campus- Willa Cather Dining Complex, Red Cloud B-C 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

37th Annual New Venture Competition

Date: Apr. 16, 2024

Time: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location: Nebraska Union Room: Various Rooms

The New Venture Competition is a showcase of entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and competition. All ventures created, run, and owned by University of Nebraska–Lincoln students* are invited to compete. During the two day event, undergraduate and graduate students pitch their business plans to a panel of judges and field questions based on feasibility, market potential, financial projections and more. Judge panels are comprised of founders and professionals in the entrepreneurship space who are dedicated to advancing entrepreneurship in Nebraska and beyond.
*Alumni who graduated within a year of the competition (May 2023 or after) are invited to compete.

The New Venture Competition uses a bracket-style (3 rounds, knockout elimination) competition. Teams advance through two preliminary rounds on Day 1. Following those two rounds, four teams will compete against one another on Day 2. One grand prize of $15,000 will be awarded, as well as cash prizes for 2nd-4th place. Prizes will be awarded immediately following the competition during the awards reception.

https://go.unl.edu/newventure

Lake Paddle

Date: Apr. 18, 2024

Time: 12:00 pm

Location: Outdoor Adventures Center

Join Outdoor Adventures for an evening jaunt to the edge of town to explore our local lakes by kayak or stand-up paddleboard. Enjoy a relaxing evening on the water, from one of the many lakes near Lincoln. See what Lincoln has to offer, meet some good people, and learn a few paddling skills along the way.

Event date: April 19, 2024
Time: 5-8 p.m.

$15 for students/members
$35 for non-members

Sign up at: https://crec.unl.edu/activities/adventure-trips

Potted Plant Painting

Date: Apr. 18, 2024

Time: 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Location: Undergraduate Students

Come Relax In Massengill multi purpose room with this crafty event. We will provide pots, paints, brushes and a succulent for all there. We will also have coloring for an alternate activity, and snacks!