theb -side U The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com I Thursday, January 27, 2011 L)E' 231K3 X f weekend essentials Jan. 27 to 30 ON STAGE Want to enjoy Lon- don's exciting theater scene without buying an airplane ticket? This Sunday at 2 p.m., UMS will continue its series of National Theatre Live performances with an HD broadcast of the Grammy- and Tony- nominated musical "FELA!" at the Michi- gan Theater. "FELA!" portrays the life of Fela Kuti, a Nigerian activist and composer. Tickets from $12. ., ° --- ,. How one professor is helping students dig deeper into the art of nonfiction TELEVISION The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be broadcast Sun- day night on TBS. The nominations could be guessed by anyone who's seen an awards show, but that doesn't make them any less compelling. The SAG - aWards us crpro= vide sound pre-Oscar predictions, but most importantly, SAG hon- ors ensembles, which aren't acknowledged in any other awards show. By Jennifer Xu, Senior Arts Editor blue walls of Prof. John fiction gets neatly subdivided into its au's office are covered with faces. own genres of mystery, romance, hor- -laid on every spare space of the ror, classics. pirouetting from the ceilings IntheHopwoodRoom,asmallwood- stic pinwheels, they'rethe smil- paneled space in Angell Hall where as of students fromlong pastand literary awards totaling $120,000 are :-day - students in graduation doled out every year, the lonely little i party clothes, sitting, standing stack of "Nonfiction" submissions is ith stories to tell of their time as towered over by each of the "Fiction: ergraduate in Rubadeau's class. Short Story" and "Poetry" piles. Since ase him - it reminds me of one the Hopwood Awards' inception in se crime dramas, except in a 1931, submissions to the "Nonfiction" way, of course," said LSA senior category have consistently taken last Hllebasko, who took Rubadeau's place - their number reaching a mere popular class, Advanced Essay average of 40 per semester. At times, g, last semester. the category receives so few submis- ideau, a tall, Santa Claus-beard- sions that the judges can fail to award n in jeans and glasses, strides a recipient for that year altogether, s office and takes a seat. He pulls according to Hopwood Assistant upperware container to reveal a Director Andrea Beauchamp. >f celery and yogurt. Surround- Why do people shy away from for- 11 the glossy photographs of his mally revealing their interior lives to sdents, he looks as if he belongs. the public sphere? Though we live in a natedly gesticulating to each of culture where the reality show is king ndreds of pictures on his walls, and confessional Tweets and Facebook au connects the stories writ- statuses get updated at the punch of :he individuals behind the smil- a button, the popularity of the per- ages - the worries and doubts sonal memoir has somehow fallen by reast reduction patient, a gay the wayside for University students so :'s first sexual experience in used to informal methods of communi- a boy's complicated relation- cation and soul-sharing. ith his brother, a student's sim- But nonfiction possesses an element ection about co-ed dorms at the that fiction only provides a pale imita- sity. tion of: authenticity. Rubadeau said ubadeau's class, each of these that a personal essay gives the writing able personal stories has been more authority. i second life, indelibly crystal- "Oftentimes, reality is so much more n the page. Each story, when interesting, so much more captivating, lone, forms an isolated tale, like so much more edifying than fictional iquely individual features on stories are," he said. ce. When gathered together like But the fear of writing such a piece angling from the ceilings and perhaps derives from a hesitance to ed on the walls, the students look at an individual life through the eir stories make up something lens ofa bystander. communicating themes of love, "The biggest problem people have is I loss to the world beyond. that they realize, 'Oh my god, I'm writ- is the power of a personal ing about real people - they might read And this is the story of a class this,' " said Prof. Eileen Pollack, direc- kes it all happen. cor of the MFA in Creative Writing Pro- gram. "There's a certain shyness about LITE, THEREFORE I AM what you're revealing or not revealing about yourself. People are very, very age when students take refuge squeamish about writing about other fantasy lives of shiny vampires people." edish girls with dragon tattoos, A personal memoir is as much a f - or the ego, as Freud would release and an adventure for the author an start to feel a little neglected. as it is for the person reading it, and clearly manifested in the places the self that takes center stage in such frequent: In some libraries, the a work is a self that is often laid barer ion section is relegated to the and more candidly than it ever has the dusty tomes, an amalgam of been before. To get to this point, it gues, biographies and memoirs takes confidence. It takes honesty. haphazardly together, while See ESSAY, Page 4B I want them to fall in love with the language and the etymology of words, make them aware that the things I'm trying to teach can't be put to memory. -Prof. John Rubadeau " FILM Those recently admit- ted to Michigan under- stand the academic stress that high school- ers face. This Saturday at 2 p.m., the Michigan Theater is hosting a free screening of the Korean comedy "Our School ET.," which follows a physical education teacher at a private school in Seoul who reinvents his class in the face of pres- sure to scrap gym for more English courses. CONCERT Do you like listening to rap, but sans all those distracting beats and silly synthesizers? Well, you're in luck, because this Sunday at the Blind Pig, local artists will combine to form Folk the Police, During this special performance, each of the artists will perform two hip-hop songs in a folk style (think Ben Folds's "Bitches Ain't Shit"). Doors open at 8 p.m., and tick- ets start from $10. PHOTOS BY SALAM RIDA DESIGN BY JOEY STEINBERGER AND HELEN LIEBLICH