Literary Arts

Directed by Todd Haynes, The Velvet Underground is an acclaimed documentary (98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) about how the NYC underground film, visual art, and poetry scenes birthed rock's most radical band.

"Emerging from the primordial soup of glamour, gutter sleaze, and feverish creativity that was New York’s 1960s underground culture, the Velvet Underground redefined music with its at once raw and exalted blend of experimentation and art-damaged rock and roll. In his kaleidoscopic documentary The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes vividly evokes the band’s incandescent world: the creative origins of the twin visionaries Lou Reed and John Cale, Andy Warhol’s fabled Factory, and the explosive tension between pop and the avant-garde that propelled the group and ultimately consumed it. Never-before-seen performances, interviews, rare recordings, and mind-blowing transmissions from the era’s experimental cinema scene come together in an ecstatic swirl of sound and image that is to the traditional music documentary what the Velvets were to rock: utterly revolutionary." -The Criterion Collection

The 2026 Conarroe Lecture will feature author Charles Yu. Yu is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel Interior Chinatown, a National Book Award winner and genre-bending masterpiece that explores the confining stereotypes of Asian Americans in Hollywood and in American culture more broadly. Yu is also a television screenwriter and the author of three other books, including How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, which was a New York Times Notable Book and named one of the best books of the year by Time magazine. Charles Yu is a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, and he was nominated for two Writers Guild of America Awards for his screenwriting work on the HBO series, Westworld. In addition to writing for Westworld, Yu has been on writing staffs for shows on FX and AMC. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired, among other publications.

The United States border is not just a geographic location. The border is everywhere. It lies within every undocumented immigrant family with the threat that at any moment they can be captured, incarcerated, deported; their lives destroyed. BORDERLAND | The Line Within not only exposes the profitable business of immigration and its human cost, but weaves together the stories of immigrant heroines and heroes resisting and showing a way forward, intent on building a movement in the shadow of the border industrial complex, recognizing the human rights of all.

In addition to this screening, Yates and de Onis will also offer a masterclass presentation, in which they will discuss their human rights media organization, Skylight, and its method for creating films that act in solidarity with social justice causes on February 19 at 4:30  p.m. in Hance Auditorium.

Claire Jiménez is a Puerto Rican writer who grew up in Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York. She is the author of the short story collection Staten Island Stories (Johns Hopkins Press, 2019) and What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez (Grand Central, 2023), which was awarded the 2024 Pen/Faulkner Award for fiction. She received her M.F.A. from Vanderbilt University and her PhD in English with specializations in Ethnic Studies and Digital Humanities from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In 2019, she co-founded the Puerto Rican Literature Project, a digital archive documenting the lives and work of hundreds of Puerto Rican writers from over the last century. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina.

Directed by David Lynch, Eraserhead is a cult classic of surreal horror whose uncanny visuals and immersive soundscape demand to be experienced on a big screen.

"A dream of dark and troubling things . . .
David Lynch’s 1977 debut feature, Eraserhead, is both a lasting cult sensation and a work of extraordinary craft and beauty. With its mesmerizing black-and-white photography by Frederick Elmes and Herbert Cardwell, evocative sound design, and unforgettably enigmatic performance by Jack Nance, this visionary nocturnal odyssey continues to haunt American cinema like no other film." -The Criterion Collection

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Mean Streets is a gritty portrait of sin and redemption set in Little Italy in the 1970s, filled with electrifying action and swooning pop songs.

"Martin Scorsese emerged as a generation-defining filmmaker with this gritty portrait of 1970s New York City, one of the most influential works of American independent cinema. Set in the insular Little Italy neighborhood of Scorsese’s youth, Mean Streets follows guilt-ridden small-time ringleader Charlie (Harvey Keitel) as he deals with the debts owed by his dangerously volatile best pal, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), and pressure from his headstrong girlfriend, Teresa (Amy Robinson). As their intertwined lives spiral out of control, Scorsese showcases his precocious mastery of film style—evident in everything from his propulsive editing rhythms to the lovingly curated soundtrack—to create an electrifying vision of sin and redemption." -The Criterion Collection

Dr. Hana Waisserová, Associate Professor of Practice of Czech Studies and an Affiliate of the Harris Centre for Judaic Studies at UNL, Nebraska, will provide a public presentation about the fascinating ways women writers have used their art to defy totalitarianism in the Czech Republic and, more broadly, Central Europe pre-1989. Davidson's Dr. Scott Denham will serve as moderator. Dr. Waisserová has travelled widely in Europe, Asia, Africa and Central America, and is much invested in promoting cultural sensitivity and global citizenship. Dr. Waisserová co-authored Women's Aristic Dissent: Repelling Totalitarianism in Pre-1989 Czechoslovakia with Davidson's Dr. Brenda Flanagan.

Kelsey Day is a young adult author and queer Appalachian poet. Their writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Orion Magazine, Freeman’s and more. This is their first novel for young readers. You can find them online at KelseyDays.com or on Instagram @KelseyDays. Kelsey Day’s gripping YA debut shows that while best friends know each other the best, ex–best friends know how to hurt each other the worst.

"For fans of Holly Jackson and Jessica Goodman, The Spiral Key by debut YA author Kelsey Day is a high-stakes thriller set in a virtual-reality paradise turned hellscape. At the start of each school year, Madison Pembroke, the most popular girl at Lincoln Academy, sends out invitations to her epic birthday party in the form of custom forged spiral keys. For that one night, a few lucky teens get to enter Ametrine, a virtual paradise that hosts the party of the year—a wild, unforgettable celebration that will secure their social status in the real world. And Madison’s hated ex-BFF, Bree Benson, never receives a key. Until now. Despite warnings from her boyfriend, Bree sees the invite as an olive branch, the perfect opportunity to rekindle her once-amazing friendship with Madison. But as the party games begin to turn provocative and violent, Bree finds that Ametrine might not be the decadent wonderland she was promised. And that Madison may have let Bree enter Ametrine, but she has no intention of ever letting her leave..."

Tonya Holy Elk is an Indigenous Literature scholar and poet who serves as a selected liaison by the North Carolina Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green, for North Carolina Native American communities. Tonya Holy Elk's poetry collection Roots & Blooms was published in 2025 and explores land, kinship, memory, and resilience through an Indigenous lens. Blending ancestral wisdom with contemporary existences, the collection celebrates cultural survival while honoring the beauty of everyday life. Each poem serves as both a remembrance of roots and vision of growth, reminding readers that healing and hope can flourish even in the face of hardship.

Kelcey Ervick is a writer and artist creating visual narratives in a variety of media. She is the author of four award-winning books, including The Keeper, a graphic memoir about growing up in girls’ sports in the early years of Title IX, which won a 2023 Ohioana Book Award and was featured in the New York Times Book Review's Holiday Gift Guide. Kelcey coedited The Field Guide to Graphic Literature, and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Believer, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. She has received grants from the Indiana Arts Commission, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and IU’s New Frontiers in Arts and Humanities. She is a professor of English and creative writing at Indiana University South Bend.