March 31 - April 7, 2023

Robert E. Knoll Lecture: Jaime Lynn Harker

Date: Mar. 31, 2023
Time: 3:00 pm–4:30 pm
Andrews Hall, Bailey Library

“Queer Contact Zones and the Creation of Queer Rural Space”

Jaime Harker is professor of English and the director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi, where she teaches American literature, LGBTQ literature, and gender studies. She has published essays on Japanese translation, popular women writers of the interwar period, Oprah’s book club, William Faulkner, Cold War gay literature, and women’s liberation and gay liberation literature. She is the author of America the Middlebrow: Women’s Novels, Progressivism, and Middlebrow Authorship Between the Wars and Middlebrow Queer: Christopher Isherwood in America, and the co-editor of The Oprah Affect: Critical Essays on Oprah’s Book Club, 1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage, This Book Is an Action: Feminist Print Culture and Activist Aesthetics, and Faulkner and Print Culture. Her third monograph, The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon, was released in the fall of 2018 by the University of North Carolina Press.

Poetry Reading with Jamaica Baldwin, Jessica Poli, and Kimberly Reyes

Date: Apr. 8, 2023
Time: 3:00 pm–5:00 pm
Larksong Writers Place
1600 N Cotner Blvd
Lincoln NE 68505

https://www.unl.edu/english/creative-writing

Jasmin Attia, author of ‘The Oud Player of Cairo’

Date: Apr. 13, 2023
Time: 3:30 pm
Francie & Finch Bookshop
130 S. 13th St
Lincoln NE 68508

Author Jasmin Attia will be in conversation about her new novel, THE OUD PLAYER OF CAIRO, with UNL’s Joy Castro. THE OUD PLAYER OF CAIRO is the compelling story of a young Egyptian woman, Laila, who defies the restrictive traditional roles set for women in the mid-20th century. She follows the path inspired by her musician father, a much-beloved oud player, to become a singer and performer in her own right. Winner of the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature, THE OUD PLAYER OF CAIRO is vibrantly descriptive and evocative of the waning colonial world in Egypt.

Jasmin Attia is a graduate of the MFA program at Bennington College. Her writing on Arab Feminist Writers appears in AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance from the University of Florida and an MBA from the University of Rochester. Jasmin lives with her family in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and came to writing as a second career. THE OUD PLAYER OF CAIRO is her debut novel.

Poetry Reading with Kate Gaskin, Katie Henson, and Katie Marya

Date: Apr. 15, 2023
Time: 3:00 pm–5:00 pm
Larksong Writers Place
1600 N Cotner Blvd
Lincoln NE 68505

https://www.unl.edu/english/creative-writing

Just-In-Time Fair

Date: Apr. 3, 2023
Time: 2:00 pm–4:00 pm
Nebraska Union, Centennial Room

Women’s Center Poetry Café

Date: Apr. 6, 2023
Time: 5:30 pm–8:00 pm
Nebraska Union, The Crib

First Friday with Linda Rivera García

Date: Apr. 7, 2023
Time: 5:00 pm–7:00 pm
Great Plains Art Museum
1155 Q St.
Lincoln NE 68508

The Great Plains Art Museum will hold a public celebration for the opening of the exhibition “Chicanisma” by 2023 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence Linda Rivera García.

Join the artist for the opening reception during Lincoln’s First Friday Artwalk on April 7, 5-7 p.m., with food and music.

Omaha-based artist Linda Rivera García is a Mexican-American Chicana artist, teacher, and storyteller who has been sharing her culture throughout Nebraska for decades. A graduate of Omaha’s College of Saint Mary and a retired children’s librarian, she is a multifaceted artist who works in painting, sculpture, printmaking, and with traditional Mexican art forms such as papel picado (cut paper) and repujado (metal embossing), among many others. A solo exhibition of Rivera García’s artwork will be on view at the museum from March 24 to September 22, 2023.

During her residency, Rivera García 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-15 during the museum’s public hours. More information at: https://www.unl.edu/plains/gallery/artistinresidence.shtml

Also on view: “Water in a Dry Land” - January 24–July 8, 2023.

Papel Picado Workshops with Linda Rivera García

Date: Apr. 8, 2023
Time: 11:00 am–3:00 pm
Great Plains Art Museum
1155 Q St.
Lincoln NE 68508

Learn the art of papel picado (Mexican paper cutting) with artist Linda Rivera García! These in-person workshops are free and open to the public, but registration is required and limited to 20 participants per workshop.

11 a.m.–12 p.m.: Beginner’s workshop, intended for children ages 5 and up and families
2–3 p.m.: Advanced workshop, intended for ages 13 and up

To register, please fill out the form at https://www.unl.edu/plains/gallery/artistinresidence.shtml

BARRED: Why the Innocent Can’t Get Out of Prison

Date: Apr. 10, 2023
Time: 12:00 pm–1:00 pm
McCollum Hall, Room 109

Daniel Medwed, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Case Northeastern University, has spent more than twenty years in the field of criminal justice, serving as a public defender, as cofounder of a law school clinic that investigated post-conviction innocence claims, and now as a professor advocating for justice reform. He’s seen firsthand the deep-seated issues that plague the criminal process, namely how the system is complicit in putting innocent people behind bars. There are convictions that rest on dubious eyewitnesses. Possible police misconduct that goes uninvestigated. Subpar performance from overworked, even if well-meaning, defense attorneys. One would expect that wrongful convictions could be easily overturned by the courts, as long as evidence to prove a defendant’s innocence existed.

But in BARRED: Why the Innocent Can’t Get Out of Prison (Basic Books/Hachette Book Group; on-sale September 20, 2022), Medwed reveals how convoluted legal procedures—essentially technicalities—make exonerations nearly impossible. The rules surrounding litigation after conviction are extremely complex, with narrow guidelines on how much time a defendant has to submit notice of an appeal, which court to file in, and whether they will be allowed to present new evidence or to raise errors that occurred at the initial trial. Because of deferential attitudes toward lower courts, higher courts also tend to uphold convictions, even when there is compelling evidence of a miscarriage of justice.

One example in BARRED is the tragic story of Bobby Fennell, who spent sixteen years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit. When Medwed and his team at Brooklyn Law School’s Second Look Program re-investigated the case, they were fully convinced of Bobby’s innocence. The prosecution’s argument had rested on a single unreliable eyewitness who admitted to receiving a deal in exchange for his testimony. Even more shocking—another man ultimately confessed to being the sole perpetrator. Yet because of the stringent rules around the appeals process and introducing new evidence, Medwed’s team had no legal recourse for getting another trial. Bobby’s plight is unfortunately far from unique.

This program has been approved for 1.0 continuing legal education credit in Nebraska.

https://go.unl.edu/innocencebarred

Trivia Night, sponsored by the LGBTQA+ and Women's Centers

Date: Apr. 11, 2023
Time: 6:30 pm–8:00 pm
Massengale Residential Center, Multipurpose Room

Join the LGBTQA+ Center and Women’s Center for a FREE trivia night! Test your knowledge on a wide variety of topics, grab some snacks, and enjoy connecting with others in an affirming environment.