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An Interview with Ron Leshem

You are invited to hear an interview with Ron Leshem who is a celebrated novelist, journalist, and screenwriter for television and films. As a reporter in the West Bank and Gaza, his work appeared in Yediot Ahronot, Ma’ariv, and Le Monde. His first novel, Beaufort, won the Sapir Prize, Israel’s top literary award. The film adaptation of Beaufort, which Leshem co-wrote, earned him an Academy Award nomination in 2007 for Best Foreign Language Film.



Tikva Meroz-Aharoni is the Schusterman Visiting Professor for Israel Studies at the University of Kentucky. She teaches in the Jewish Studies Program. This fall, she is teaching courses in Hebrew language, literature, and film.

Prof. Meroz-Aharoni will interview Mr. Leshem regarding his experiences as a journalist and how those experiences influenced the writing of his novel. The process of adapting a literary text into a film and the ramifications of writing on controversial topics will also be discussed. Attendees are also invited to participate in a Q & A with Mr. Leshem.

Date:
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Location:
Patterson Office Tower B3
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Davis Bottom: Rare History, Valuable Lives

"Davis Bottom: Rare History, Valuable Lives" reveals the fascinating history of a working-class neighborhood established in Lexington after the Civil War. Davis Bottom is one of about a dozen ethnic enclaves settled primarily by African-American families who migrated to Lexington from the 1860s to the 1890s in search of jobs, security and opportunity. 

The documentary is part of the Kentucky Archaeology and Heritage Series, produced by Voyageur Media Group, Inc. for the Kentucky Archaeological Survey and the Kentucky Heritage Council. The series is distributed by Kentucky Educational Television (KET) to viewers, teachers and students throughout the state. Wednesday's advance screening, part of the first-ever Kentucky Archaeology Month activities, is free and open to the public.

Date:
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Location:
W T Young Library Auditorium

I Live I See: The Poetry of Vsevolod Nekrasov

Translators Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich will read from their book of translations of Vsevolod Nekrasov, I LIVE I SEE (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013), offering a taste of the original Russian along with a rich selection of Nekrasov’s work in English. Gerald Janecek, Professor Emeritus in the UK Department of Modern and Classical Languages and author of the book’s afterword, will also speak about his history of working with Nekrasov and other poets of his time.

Vsevolod Nekrasov (1934-2009) was part of the “non-conformist” Lianozovo group, a founder of Moscow Conceptualism, and the foremost poetic minimalist to emerge from the Soviet literary underground. Before the fall of the USSR, his work appeared only in samizdat and Western publications. With an economy of lyrical means and a wry sense of humor, Nekrasov’s early poems rupture Russian poetic traditions and stultified Soviet language, while his later work tackles the excesses of the new Russian order.

Ainsley Morse has been translating 20th- and 21st-century Russian and (former-) Yugoslav literature since 2006. A longtime student of both literatures, she is currently pursuing a PhD in Slavic literatures at Harvard University. Recent publications include

Andrei Sen-Senkov’s Anatomical Theater (translated with Peter Golub, Zephyr Press, 2013). Ongoing translation projects include prose works by Georgii Ball and Viktor Ivaniv and polemical essays by the great Yugoslav writer Miroslav Krleža.

Bela Shayevich is a writer, translator, and illustrator living in Chicago. Her translations have appeared in It’s No Good by Kirill Medvedev (UDP/n+1, 2012) and various periodicals including Little Star, St. Petersburg Review, and Calque. She was the editor of n+1 magazine’s translations of the Pussy Riot closing statements.

Date:
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Location:
Student Center 211
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