In an audacious presentation of political and protest art, the Katzen Arts Center’s Art of CONFRONTation showcases three separate exhibitions that share a confident outspokenness. Whether it’s the poignant reenactments of torture of Abu Ghraib by Fernando Botero, or the surreal depictions of the city-dominated human condition by Irving Norman in Dark Metropolis, or the multifaceted collection of some of the 1970s most important feminist art in Claiming Space, these works are united by a…

MONDAY: As part of a national book tour sponsored by Amnesty International, award-winning journalist and filmmaker Michael Otterman will be at the Penn Quarter Olsson’s to discuss his latest book, American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. 7 p.m. Local author Edward P. Jones (All Aunt Hagar’s Children and Lost in the City) will be at Politics and Prose to introduce the latest stories in the popular annual collection, New Stories…

Good morning, Washington. As you make your way into work on this fine morning, a note to fans of Canadian super group Stars: “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead”? Good song. “Set Yourself on Fire”? Good song. Setting your ex-lover on fire? Apparently not cool. Attack of the Dubyas: Washington Post Radio (WTWP) is shifting to a “personality driven talk format.” And whose personalities (I hear you cry) will be driven into us courtesy of the once-anodyne…

Shalom, readers. The Washington, D.C. area welcomes competing Jewish Literature Festivals to town: The Hyman S. and Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival at the DCJCC and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington’s 36th Annual Book Festival. Both festivals offer exciting programs. On 16th Street, the DCJCC kicks things off Monday with Nick Olcott, one of the leading lights in the local theater scene, paying special tribute to Arthur Miller and Saul Bellow. It continues…