Inside Scoop Events
Free lunch and fantastic guests. Inside Scoop events bring University of Illinois undergraduates from any major into close conversation about humanities and arts-related topics with distinguished Illinois faculty and visiting speakers.
Enjoy lunch on us in an informal setting where scholars and artists share the great moments of discovery, creativity, and excitement that fuel their research and creative work, helping us to understand what it means to be human in a rapidly changing world.
Spring 2024
Joy Harjo
Wednesday, April 24 at Noon
Location: Levis Faculty Center, Room 210 (919 W. Illinois St., Urbana, IL 61801)
Undergraduates of any major are invited to this informal lunch talk with Joy Harjo, (23rd United States Poet Laureate; member of the Muscogee [Creek] Nation). Co-hosted by the Native American House.
About the Speaker
In 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role. Harjo’s nine books of poetry include Weaving Sundown in a Scarlett Light, An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. She is also the author of two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, which invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her “poet-warrior” road. She has edited several anthologies of Native American writing including When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through — A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and Living Nations, Living Words, the companion anthology to her signature poet laureate project. Her many writing awards include the 2022 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2019 Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is artist-in-residence for the Bob Dylan Center. A renowned musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally; her most recent album is I Pray For My Enemies. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
And be sure to make plans to attend Harjo's public reading at Illinois— April 24 at 7:30 p.m.! A book signing will follow the reading.
Past Inside Scoop Events
David Maraniss
Thursday, March 28 at Noon
Location: Levis Faculty Center, Room 210 (919 W. Illinois St., Urbana, IL 61801)
About the Speaker
David Maraniss is a New York Times bestselling author and associate editor at The Washington Post. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and won a Pulitzer for National Reporting for his 1992 coverage of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. David was also part of The Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer for their 2007 coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting. His writing has won several other notable awards, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and Frankfurt eBook Award. He currently lives in Washington D.C. and Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Linda.
Maraniss will also be giving a public keynote talk as part of the Sporting Publics Symposium.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
About the Speaker
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all sentient beings. Her work in this lifetime is to facilitate infinite, unstoppable ancestral love in practice. Her poetic work in response to the needs of her cherished communities have held space for multitudes in mourning and movement. Alexis’s co-edited volume of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016) has shifted the conversation on mothering, parenting and queer transformation. Alexis has transformed the scope of intellectual, creative and oracular writing with her triptych of experimental works published by Duke University Press (Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity in 2016, M Archive: After the End of the World in 2018 and Dub: Finding Ceremony forthcoming in 2020.) Unlike most academic texts, Alexis’s work has inspired artists across form to create dance works, installation work, paintings, processionals, divination practices, operas, quilts and more.