No matter how cold it gets outside, the lecture room on Rosenwald’s fourth floor exudes warmth. Sofas lean against wood-paneled walls, and the light is always soft and welcoming. Outside, the hallway is lit by halogen, and the bright white walls always seem strange and austere. Before his reading last Thursday, poet August Kleinzahler paced the bright hallway, while his audience—mostly students and faculty in the University of Chicago English Department, who chattered about their current work, or lack thereof—waited for him to begin. Read the rest of this entry »

Though his poems are spare and meditative, full of longing and wonder, Donald Revell is a funny guy. A self-professed buffoon, he prefaced his poem, “Elegy a Little,” at his University of Chicago reading last Thursday by explaining that, as a child, he donned rubber pants and sat on eggs to play chicken. The next day, Revell delivered a talk entitled “White Leaves In Heaven’s Tree,” in which he casually mentioned seeing an angel float like an oversize pillowcase in his backyard. His delivery was so lighthearted, almost nonchalant, that one could be forgiven for thinking it was meant as a joke. Read the rest of this entry »

Walter Kirn

“This is my advice,” says Walter Kirn. “Take it, because I don’t use it.” The students in his class, “The Art of Nonfiction,” lift their pencils or open new Word documents. “Inhibition and self-consciousness are the enemies of good writing.” The students know he’s kidding. He definitely uses this advice.

Since 2000, Atlantic editor and University of Chicago alumnus Robert Vare has underwritten the Vare Writer-in-Residence program at the UofC. The program brings professional nonfiction writers to campus, where they teach one class over the course of the year. This year, Vare handpicked one of his Atlantic writers for the job. Walter Kirn is a novelist, essayist, book reviewer, nonfiction author, and teacher, but he’ll describe himself only as “a writer.” Read the rest of this entry »

Alma Guillermoprieto

“I like Colombia because people dance for no reason. But this place, it is not supremely dance-oriented.” The words, slow and carefully pronounced, and the voice, soft but firm, come from a journalist who knows how to answer a question. Mexican-born reporter Alma Guillermoprieto has called Hyde Park her (temporary) home for only a few weeks, but she has already observed certain attributes of the University of Chicago, from its intensely academic community to its rumored lack of enthusiasm for fun. The light dances off amber square earrings framing serious yet kind features as Guillermoprieto declares how at the UofC there is a “pride in grunge: the grunge of the city, the grunge of hard work.” Read the rest of this entry »

Not many sixty-five-year-old women have tattoos that read “Thug Life,” but Nikki Giovanni is an exception. The radical ’60s poet-turned-children’s author, who stopped at the University of Chicago’s International House during her book tour on October 18th, inked herself some years ago in a tribute to famed rapper Tupac Shakur. This was just one of many colorful topics that Giovanni chose to share with her audience, who, by the end of Giovanni’s talk, weren’t sure if they had come to hear a lecture promoting children’s books, a mangled retelling of American history, or a stump speech for Barack Obama. Read the rest of this entry »

There are few quicker ways to inflame a conversation than by broaching the topic of religion. Monolithic megachurch pastors wield enormous influence over vast swaths of the pious population, while nonbelievers like Christopher Hitchens energize the opposing side in the same fashion. And with a presidential election constantly dredging up religious associations as artillery fodder (Jeremiah Wright on the one hand, Sarah Palin’s Amida-Buddhist-like zeal for invoking God as the solution to all life’s problems on the other), it’s readily obvious that faith can sting as often as it can salve.

Radical rhetoric aside, however, much of the debate concerning religion often boils down to the true nature of God, the path to salvation, and, for the skeptical, whether or not She even exists. So imagine the surprise when, in 2002, an ancient limestone ossuary emerged, inscribed with the words “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” It was a find that could have profoundly affect religious beliefs worldwide—at least, it would have, if it had turned out to be real. Read the rest of this entry »

“If life was a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die.” So reads the proverb on the back of John H. Sibley, Jr.’s novel “Bodyslick,” set in a dystopian futuristic Chicago where the main character makes a good living selling organs on the black market. Malcolm “Bodyslick” Steel grew up in a public housing project, his father killed in the Iraq War and his mother addicted to crack. In 2031, he lives in a Hyde Park condo with a lake view; procuring healthy organs for the rich, sick, and desperate has provided him with a steady flow of cash and adventure. Read the rest of this entry »

“Chris” is 37 years old; he’s a high school English teacher, a husband, and a father. And last month, he added one more accomplishment to this already rather impressive list: zine maker. Granted, on first glimpse it might not seem like an achievement worth meriting—after all, the idea that “anyone can make a zine” is widespread, and is in fact often touted by zine makers and their fans as one of its most appealing features. But if anyone can make a zine, it nevertheless takes dedication and effort to meticulously craft the self-made booklets and shop them around to distribution centers—especially when you live in the southern pseudo-suburbs of Beverly, far from the zine haven of Quimby’s and other North Side hipster haunts, as in Chris’s case. And even that says nothing of the intellectual and emotional hand-wringing that often goes into creating such zines in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »