Presented By: Zell Visiting Writers Series
CRAFT LECTURE: Proleptic Form: Toward a Poetics of Self Defense
Zell Visiting Writers Series
Login here (no pre-registration needed): https://tinyurl.com/ZellWriters24
Seats are limited and are offered on a first come, first served basis; please arrive early to secure a spot.
Zell Visiting Writers Series craft lectures are free and open to the public, and will be offered both virtually (via Zoom) and in person (in The Robert Hayden Conference Room, Angell Hall #3222). Please contact kimjulie@umich.edu with any questions or accommodation needs.
Of her lecture, "Proleptic Form: Toward a Poetics of Self Defense," Monica says, "In rhetoric, prolepsis is the anticipation of possible counterarguments or objections in order to answer them in advance. It’s a defensive posture, one that assumes in advance that the speaker will be criticized or attacked. So it seems appropriate that proleptic form – a poetics of self defense – would be particularly the province of those groups who are accustomed to being attacked, to constantly rebutting spoken and unspoken accusations of being overemotional, hypersensitive, irrational, lazy, unnuanced, non-objective, trivial, overly political, of always playing the race card, the gender card, the sexuality card, the class card, pick a card. Proleptic form assumes an audience not of the speaker’s tribe, potentially a hostile audience, an audience assumed to be in a dominant position in society, often a White audience, a cishet audience etc. I’ll look at some well-known examples, Phillis Wheatley, Bhanu Kapil, Robin Coste Lewis, Claudia Rankine, Layli Long Soldier, and Paul Tran and try to identify certain characteristics of proleptic form."
Monica Youn is the author of four poetry collections, most recently FROM FROM, which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award. It was also named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and Best Poetry Book of 2023 and was a Time, NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Electric Literature Best Book of 2023. She has been awarded the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bytter Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a Stegner Fellowship. Her previous books have been shortlisted for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Award. A former constitutional lawyer, she is a member of the curatorial collective the Racial Imaginary Institute and is a professor of English at UC Irvine.
Tess Taylor, on NPR’s All Things Considered, declared that “Monica Youn is one of the most consistently innovative poets working today.” As John Yau has put it, “In every generation there is a handful of poets who challenge the way we think about language and how it is used. . . . It is to this distinguished company that Youn now belongs.” Claudia Rankine has called Youn’s work “disconcerting in its spectatorship and breathtaking in its beauty," and Linda Gregerson says, “Monica Youn, quite simply, is one of the two or three most brilliant poets working in America today.”
For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email kimjulie@umich.edu--we are eager to help ensure this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. Diaper changing tables are available in nearby restrooms. Gender-inclusive restrooms are available on the second floor of the Museum, accessible via the stairs, or in nearby Hatcher Graduate Library (Floors 3, 4, 5, and 6). The Hatcher Library also offers a reflection room (4th Floor South Stacks), and a lactation room (Room 13W, an anteroom to the basement women's staff restroom, or Room 108B, an anteroom of the first floor women's restroom). ASL interpreters and CART services at in-person events are available upon request; please email kimjulie@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event, whenever possible, to allow time to arrange services.
U-M employees with a U-M parking permit may use the Church Street Parking Structure (525 Church St., Ann Arbor) or the Thompson Parking Structure (500 Thompson St., Ann Arbor). There is limited metered street parking on State Street and South University Avenue. The Forest Avenue Public Parking Structure (650 South Forest Ave., Ann Arbor) is five blocks away, and the parking rate is $1.20 per hour. All of these options include parking spots for individuals with disabilities.
Seats are limited and are offered on a first come, first served basis; please arrive early to secure a spot.
Zell Visiting Writers Series craft lectures are free and open to the public, and will be offered both virtually (via Zoom) and in person (in The Robert Hayden Conference Room, Angell Hall #3222). Please contact kimjulie@umich.edu with any questions or accommodation needs.
Of her lecture, "Proleptic Form: Toward a Poetics of Self Defense," Monica says, "In rhetoric, prolepsis is the anticipation of possible counterarguments or objections in order to answer them in advance. It’s a defensive posture, one that assumes in advance that the speaker will be criticized or attacked. So it seems appropriate that proleptic form – a poetics of self defense – would be particularly the province of those groups who are accustomed to being attacked, to constantly rebutting spoken and unspoken accusations of being overemotional, hypersensitive, irrational, lazy, unnuanced, non-objective, trivial, overly political, of always playing the race card, the gender card, the sexuality card, the class card, pick a card. Proleptic form assumes an audience not of the speaker’s tribe, potentially a hostile audience, an audience assumed to be in a dominant position in society, often a White audience, a cishet audience etc. I’ll look at some well-known examples, Phillis Wheatley, Bhanu Kapil, Robin Coste Lewis, Claudia Rankine, Layli Long Soldier, and Paul Tran and try to identify certain characteristics of proleptic form."
Monica Youn is the author of four poetry collections, most recently FROM FROM, which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award. It was also named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and Best Poetry Book of 2023 and was a Time, NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Electric Literature Best Book of 2023. She has been awarded the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bytter Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a Stegner Fellowship. Her previous books have been shortlisted for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Award. A former constitutional lawyer, she is a member of the curatorial collective the Racial Imaginary Institute and is a professor of English at UC Irvine.
Tess Taylor, on NPR’s All Things Considered, declared that “Monica Youn is one of the most consistently innovative poets working today.” As John Yau has put it, “In every generation there is a handful of poets who challenge the way we think about language and how it is used. . . . It is to this distinguished company that Youn now belongs.” Claudia Rankine has called Youn’s work “disconcerting in its spectatorship and breathtaking in its beauty," and Linda Gregerson says, “Monica Youn, quite simply, is one of the two or three most brilliant poets working in America today.”
For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email kimjulie@umich.edu--we are eager to help ensure this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. Diaper changing tables are available in nearby restrooms. Gender-inclusive restrooms are available on the second floor of the Museum, accessible via the stairs, or in nearby Hatcher Graduate Library (Floors 3, 4, 5, and 6). The Hatcher Library also offers a reflection room (4th Floor South Stacks), and a lactation room (Room 13W, an anteroom to the basement women's staff restroom, or Room 108B, an anteroom of the first floor women's restroom). ASL interpreters and CART services at in-person events are available upon request; please email kimjulie@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event, whenever possible, to allow time to arrange services.
U-M employees with a U-M parking permit may use the Church Street Parking Structure (525 Church St., Ann Arbor) or the Thompson Parking Structure (500 Thompson St., Ann Arbor). There is limited metered street parking on State Street and South University Avenue. The Forest Avenue Public Parking Structure (650 South Forest Ave., Ann Arbor) is five blocks away, and the parking rate is $1.20 per hour. All of these options include parking spots for individuals with disabilities.
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