Join us on Tuesday, January 16th at 7:00 pm when author PETER COVIELLO reads from, discusses, and signs copies of his new book Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches From an Age of Last Things, a collection of essays considering what it means to love art, culture, and people in an age of accelerating disaster.
This event is free, but you must register on Eventbrite or in the store to attend. Click here to order a copy Is There God After Prince?
This is a book about loving things—books, songs, people—in the shadow of a felt, looming disaster. Through lyrical, funny, heart-wrenching essays, Peter Coviello considers pieces of culture across a fantastic range, setting them inside the vivid scenes of friendship, dispute, romance, talk, and loss, where they enter our lives. Alongside him, we reencounter movies like The Shining, shows like The Sopranos; videos; poems; novels by Sam Lipsyte, Sally Rooney, and Paula Fox; as well as songs by Joni Mitchell, Gladys Knight, Steely Dan, Pavement, and the much-mourned saint of Minneapolis, Prince.
Navigating an overwhelming feeling that Coviello calls “endstrickenness,” he asks what it means to love things in calamitous times, when so much seems to be shambling toward collapse. Balancing comedy and anger, exhilaration and sorrow, Coviello illuminates the strange ways the things we cherish help us to hold on to life and to its turbulent joys. Is There God after Prince? shows us what twenty-first-century criticism can be, and how it might speak to us, in a time of ruin, in an age of “Last Things.”
PETER COVIELLO is the author of six books, including Make Yourselves Gods, a finalist for the 2020 John Whitmer Historical Association Best Book Prize; Tomorrow’s Parties, a 2013 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Studies; and Long Players, a memoir selected as one of ARTFORUM’s Ten Best Books of 2018. His newest book, Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things, was selected for The Millions’ “Most Anticipated” list for 2023. He taught for many years at Bowdoin College and since 2014 has been at UIC, where he is Professor and Head of English.
THIS EVENT is free but pre-registration is requested. Registration ends at 5:00 pm on January 16th.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
