Returning from Conflict: A Nonfiction Reading by the Syracuse Veterans’ Writing Group

Time: Nov. 8, 2018, 5 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Location: Goldstein Alumni and Faculty Center

5:00 p.m. Reception
6-7:30 p.m. Readings

In seeking to honor veterans for their service, Veterans Day celebrations tend to elevate veterans to the status of “heroes,” distancing them from civilian publics by placing them on stages and parade floats and emphasizing stories of super-human courage, endurance, and self-sacrifice. This hypervisible hero image effaces veterans’ full humanity and silences narratives of grief, loss, guilt, injury, outrage, healing, humor, and resistance.

This Veterans’ Day, members of the Syracuse Veterans’ Writing Group will read from their original works of creative nonfiction, representing a wide diversity of themes and complicated perspectives on the military. Collectively, these writers bear witness to over 50 years of U.S. military history. With an accompanying reception, audience members are invited to comment and ask questions before and after the reading.

Additional supporters:

• Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition
• Nonfiction Reading Series
• IVMF
• OVMA
• Hendricks Chapel
• The Program for the Advancement of Research in Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC)
• Department of English
• Contemplative Collaborative

Ivy Kleinbart, Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition