April 14 - April 21, 2023

UNL English alum Katie Henson and Ph.D. students Kate Gaskin and Katie Marya will read from their poetry.

Christopher Newfield is Director of Research at the Independent Social Research Foundation in London. He was formerly Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Julia Schleck is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Austin McCoy is Assistant Professor of History at West Virginia University. Dr. McCoy’s research interests focus on African American history, the U.S. left, labor and political economy, and social movements and activism. His current manuscript project, tentatively titled, The Quest for Democracy: Black Power, New Left, and Progressive Politics in the Post-Industrial Midwest revises conventional explanations emphasizing the separation and decline of Black Power and the New Left in the U.S. during the 1970s and 1980s. The Quest for Democracy is organized around six case studies of activists in Detroit, Chicago, and in the state of Ohio organizing for participatory democracy in urban development, foreign policy, and the industrial economy. Ultimately, the project shows how progressives scored victories in local elections as well as anti-war and anti-police violence campaigns and their struggles against deindustrialization influenced national political discourse.

Dr. McCoy is also public scholar, utilizing history to comment on contemporary issues related to politics and culture in numerous media outlets including the Washington Post, Nursing Clio, Black Perspectives, CNN, and Truthout.

At WVU, Dr. McCoy teaches a variety of courses in U.S., African American, and labor history, and works with graduate students who focus on studying the experiences of African Americans, organized labor, race, politics, and social movements.

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“Organizing the Revolution: Workers’ Visions of Economic Democracy in the US After the 1960s”

In the last several years, many politicians and pundits have talked much about “saving democracy” with the resurgence of authoritarianism in U.S. politics. However, what does it mean to save democracy within a political system that exists to support authoritarian, corporate, and police power? My lecture will draw from research on the labor movement and the post-New Left in the 1970s to consider the ways in which organized labor has articulated, and struggled politically for, expansive visions of democracy in response to corporate power and state violence. I will also consider how these past visions of social transformation might inspire workers and the labor movement today.

“A twenty-first century variation of Turgenev’s FATHERS AND SONS, OTHER NAMES FOR LOVE explores the age-old dilemma faced by all those whose childhood is defined, and whose future is decreed, by tradition: how to carve a space for one’s innermost self, how to love without turning oneself into love’s sacrifice, how to be courageous without losing one’s tenderness. A keen-eyed observer and a sensitive storyteller, Taymour Soomro is a thrilling new addition to international literature.”
—Yiyun Li, author of WHERE REASONS END AND MUST I GO


Taymour Soomro’s OTHER NAMES FOR LOVE is a charged, hypnotic debut novel about a boy’s life-changing summer in rural Pakistan: a story of fathers, sons, and the consequences of desire. This tale of masculinity, inheritance, and desire set against the backdrop of a country’s troubled history is told with uncommon urgency and beauty.

Soomro will also discuss the anthology he co-edited: LETTERS TO A WRITER OF COLOR, a vital and fascinating new collection that examines the craft of writing through the lens of race and culture and asks us to think differently about how we read non-white, non-Western stories.

Soomro visits UNL as part of the Creative Writing Program of the English Department, and “50 Years of LGBTQ Studies at UNL.” He was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He read law at Cambridge University and Stanford Law School. He has worked as a corporate solicitor in London and Milan, a lecturer at a university in Karachi, an agricultural estate manager in rural Sindh and a publicist for a luxury fashion brand in London. His short story “Philosophy of the Foot” appeared in The New Yorker in January 2019.

Date: Apr. 15, 2023
Time: 3:00 pm; 7:30 pm
Lied Center for Performing Arts

Join Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria as they bound out of the zoo and onto the stage in this live musical spectacular. This smash hit musical features all of your favorite crack-a-lackin’ friends as they escape from their home in New York’s Central Park Zoo and find themselves on an unexpected journey to the madcap world of King Julien’s Madagascar. This brand-new musical from Dreamworks (Shrek The Musical) will leave audiences with no choice but to “Move It, Move It!”!

Performances: 4/15/2023 at 3:00 PM and 7:30 PM

Learn about the application process for law school and how to prepare to submit your best application. We will cover topics like the timeline for applying, researching law schools, the components of the application (LSAT, personal statement, etc.), and more.

Several recent papers calling for intersectionality in psychological science have highlighted the need to move away from deficit-based models and embrace more nuanced and methodologically rigorous approaches to measuring resiliency and wellbeing within minoritized groups, including women and gender-diverse folks. This symposium will elevate and highlight research on resiliency, joy, pleasure and wellbeing, going beyond questions of “how can we apply existing theories of resilience to gender diverse populations?” to “what can we learn from women and gender diverse folks about the nature of resilience, joy and wellbeing?”

Student performers lip-sync to popular songs in two acts for the end-of-the-semester drag show. A short intermission will take place between the acts.

There is no entry fee to this event, yet attendees are asked to bring a nonperishable food item or personal hygiene product to be donated to Husker Pantry. Some requested items are: shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, chips, flour, sugar, cooking oil, and beans.

Tipping performers is greatly appreciated, though not required. All tip monies benefit Spectrum’s Leadership Conference Fund and the UNL LGBTQA+ Center’s Student Support Fund.

Learn more about Spectrum UNL: https://unl.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/spectrum-unl

Join the Center for Advocacy, Response & Education in wearing denim in solidarity with sexual violence survivors.

Why denim? Per DenimDay.org, the international campaign began in 1999 after a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court where a rape conviction was overturned because the justices stated that since the victim was wearing tight jeans, she must have helped remove them, thereby implying consent. Women in the Italian Parliament came to work the next day wearing jeans in solidarity with the victim/survivor.

Stop by our booth to learn how you can get involved in violence prevention on campus, and show your support of survivors by participating in the creation of a denim art display.

Sheldon’s Great Hall will be transformed into a Great Study Hall for an afternoon. When you’re ready to take a break from your books, explore the galleries for inspiration and fuel up with free snacks.

SOME SHOWS YOU SEE. THIS SHOW YOU FEEL.

Joy, love, heartache, strength, wisdom, catharsis, LIFE—everything we’ve been waiting to see in a Broadway show— is here in the exhilarating, fearless new musical based on Alanis Morissette’s world-changing music.

Directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus (Waitress, Pippin, upcoming 1776) with a Tony-winning book by Diablo Cody (Juno) and Grammy-winning score, this electrifying production about a perfectly imperfect American family “vaults the audience to its collective feet” (The Guardian). “Redemptive, rousing and real, JAGGED LITTLE PILL stands alongside the original musicals that have sustained the best hopes of Broadway.” (The New York Times)

You live, you learn, you remember what it’s like to feel truly human… at JAGGED LITTLE PILL.

Join the African Poetry Book Fund for a special conversation dedicated to discussing and celebrating contemporary African poetry April 28, at 5:30 p.m. at the Sheldon Museum of Art. Authors Patricia Jabbeh Wesley (Liberia), Tsitsi Jaji (Zimbabwe), and Mahtem Shiferraw (Ethiopia/Eritrea) will discuss their multi-pronged and exciting poetry and scholarship, as well as their multiple roles as African poets, editors, researchers, teachers, and art organizers. Drawing on years of thinking about African poetry and their experience as poets, Wesley, Jaji, and Shiferraw will bring light to the centrality of gender as well as the intersections of the global and national in their own work, and in African literature today.

The discussion will be followed by a catered reception and a poetry reading.

WALL-E, short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class, is the last robot left on Earth. He spends his days tidying up the planet, one piece of garbage at a time. But during 700 years, WALL-E has developed a personality, and he’s more than a little lonely. Then he spots EVE (Elissa Knight), a sleek and shapely probe sent back to Earth on a scanning mission. Smitten WALL-E embarks on his greatest adventure yet when he follows EVE across the galaxy.