The party’s over, but the celebration continues

ANN ARBOR—Detroit’s birthday bash is over, but the celebration of the city’s 300 years of history continues at the University of Michigan with classes, seminars, exhibits, tours, lectures, performances and publications.

Designed to provide U-M students with an increased awareness of Detroit’s history, its present, and its future, U-M’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) has organized the “Detroit 300 Theme Semester” for the 2001 fall term.

The semester starts with more than 40 classes that include students researching, conducting interviews, and scripting a radio feature on one aspect of Detroit’s history, and others producing a docu-drama on the surrender of Detroit to the British in 1812. This work is based on original documents of the court martial of the American General William Hull, documents held in the University’s Clements Library.

Other classes range from “Detroit in the Era of Industrialization” and “Study of the American Family” to “Multi-racial Dental Health” and “Environmental Racism, Equity and Justice, and Environmental Blackmail,”” Race, Politics, and Activism in Detroit,” “A History of Art and Culture in the Motor City,” and “Urban Redevelopment & Social Justice: Can We Have Both?” among many others.

Other events planned for the semester, include a production by the Mosaic Youth Theater of Detroit, the Liz Lerman Hallelujah Project, the Detroit Poets Reading, and “Jazzistry,” a performance of narration, music and slides.

Symposia and conversations include “Motown and Detroit: Music that Moves You,” “Women Artists & Detroit,” and “Education & Detroit.”

Exhibits include “Getting Around Detroit: Three Hundred Years of Transportation,” “Dynamite Voices: The Broadside Press in Detroit,” and “Pewabic Pottery.”

A series of films about Detroit with some presentations featuring talks by the directors of the selections including “The Color of Courage,” along with documentaries such as “The Sprawling of America,” and “Come Unto Me: The Faces of Tyree Guyton.”

For a full listing of classes, events, and exhibits that are part of U-M’s Detroit 300 Theme Semester, visit http://www.lsa.umich.edu/det300/.