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  • Winter Commencement

    Monmouth University will hold Winter Commencement on Friday, January 17, 2014, at 1:30 p.m. on campus in the Multipurpose Activity Center (MAC). Students who have completed their degree requirements in the Summer or Fall 2013 semesters will be recognized at this time.

    Doors to the MAC will open at 12 p.m. on Commencement Day.

    Students are asked to be at the student lineup in Boylan Gymnasium no later than 12:45 p.m. on Commencement Day. Please enter through the Fitness Center.

    Guests are requested to be seated by 1 p.m.

    Live Video will be available online beginning at 1:30 p.m.

  • 33rd Annual Black Maria Film and Video Festival

    The films that become the centerpiece of the Black Maria Film and Video Festival honor the vision of Thomas Edison, New Jersey inventor and creator of the motion picture.  It was his New Jersey studio, the world’s first, which he called the “black maria” (pronounced “mariah”) after which the festival is named.  The cutting edge, cross-genre work that makes up the festival’s touring program, has been traveling across the country every year for decades.
     
    Black Maria focuses on diverse short films – narrative, experimental, animation, and documentary – including those which address issues and struggles within contemporary society such as the environment, public health, race and class, family, sustainability, and much more. These exceptional works ranging from comedy to drama to the exploration of pure form in film and video are not sidebars to feature length films, they are the heart and soul of the festival. The program is free and all are welcome. Works which will be screened are unrated; some of the content is sophisticated and might not be suited to younger audiences.

    Films:
    A Place of Spirit – Jury’s Choice
    6.5 min. by Natalie Conn and Jay Weichun, Brooklyn, NY
    This is the story of Andrea Phillips, a Staten Island based artist, facing eviction from her home after 44 years.  Rather than center itself around the policy issues associated with Andrea’s eviction, “A Place of Spirit” focuses on Andrea’s emotional and spiritual relationship to her eccentric, unique and uncommon home.

    Something Like Whales – Jury’s Choice
    5 min. by Nora Sweeney, Val Verde, CA.
    In a dying industrial neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Queensgate Train Yard pulses with life. A local worker describes the haunting sound emanating from the yard as ‘something like whales.’  This poetical film was shot in part with a camera obscura.

    For The Birds – You Be the Judge: Peoples’ Choice Award
    14 min. by Tara Atashgah, Santa Monica, CA.
    Inspired by a true story, “For The Birds” follows a young Iranian girl as she is taken to the gallows to be hanged, having been accused of adultery. In her final moments, she imagines her fate in the hands of the surrounding townspeople.

    Close the Lid, Gently: A Home Document Scan – Jury’s Choice
    5.5 min. by Ariana Gerstein, Barton, NY.
    A video made entirely from two home desktop scanners – one a photo scanner, the other a refurbished low-end document scanner. Each has its own texture and sees the domestic environment in its own particular way, one scan at a time. This piece deals with the deliberate misuse/re-purposing of commercial image producing machines for a slow, individual, low tech, approach to the motion picture making process.

    The Apothecary – Jury’s Choice
    17 min. by Helen Hood Scheer, Palo Alto, CA.
    A moving portrait of beloved druggist, Don Colcord, in a rural Colorado outpost. Don is a man who operates the only pharmacy within 4,000 square miles.  He navigates a profound divide between his public persona and his personal life.  To the community, he is jovial and heroic.  At home, he is impotent and isolated due to his wife’s disability.  “The Apothecary” explores notions of individual duty and obligation in the face of privately held grief and ambivalence.

    Wise Choice or Lucky Guess – Directors’ Choice
    3.5 min. by Ellen Raines, Fox Point, WI.
    A recently deceased man has to make a choice between heaven and hell, while sitting on an escalator.

    Rehearsal – Directors’ Choice
    11 min. by Tom Rosenberg, Austin, TX.

  • Natalie Diaz

    Native American poet Natalie Diaz will be in residence at Monmouth University on Thursday, April 17 and Friday, April 18th, 2014.

    On Thursday, 17th, at 11:00 a.m., she will speak about the language revitalization program at Fort Mojave, her home reservation, where she works with the last Elder speakers of the Mojave language. At 3:00 p.m. she will conduct a poetry workshop with students and community members. At 4:30 p.m. she will read her poems.

    On Friday, 18th, Natalie Diaz will participate in the afternoon launch of The Monmouth Review, the student-edited literary and arts journal, outside Wilson Hall.

    Natalie Diaz grew up in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community.

    Her poems have appeared in The North American Review, The Southeast Review, Prairie Schooner, Spillway, Best New Poets 2007, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, and other literary journals and anthologies. Her book, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012.

    Her book will be available for purchase and signing at the poetry reading.

    This residency is co-sponsored by the West Branch Arts Council and the Department of English.

  • Monmouth Pride Day

  • Cinderella

    The Paper Moon Puppet Theatre presents Cinderella, a delightful version of the timeless classic created specially for the puppet theatre, featuring beautiful rod puppets, scenery and hilarious characters.

    For tickets and information, call Paper Moon Puppet Theatre at 732-775-0290

  • The Simon String Quartet Free Concert

    The Simon String Quartet will be joined by other Summer String-In faculty members – violist Kimberly Foster-Wallace and cellist Joseph Kimura – to play Dvorak’s Sextet in A Major, Op 48 and Dohnanyi’s Sextet in B♭ Major.

    Monmouth University is pleased to announce that the Simon String Quartet and colleagues will again present free classical chamber music concerts as part of its Summer String-In workshop. The Simon String Quartet (Fiona Simon and Sebu Sirinian, violins; Lisa Suslowicz, viola; David Bakamjian, cello) is a special group of four seasoned performers whose passion for chamber music infuses their collaboration with energy and dynamism.  Led by Fiona Simon, a member of the New York Philharmonic, its members each combine careers in chamber music and orchestras, and as soloists and teachers.  Although currently based in New York, where they individually perform with some of the most distinguished ensembles in the area, their performing careers have taken them all over the world. The Summer String-In, now in its tenth season, is an intensive week-long music workshop for adult amateur string players that takes place on the campus of Monmouth University.

  • The Simon String Quartet Free Concert

    The Simon Quartet will perform Haydn’s jocular Quartet in F Major, Op. 50, No 5, followed by Debussy’s richly textured Quartet, and finally, one of Mozart’s late masterpieces, the Quartet in B♭ Major, K. 589.

    Monmouth University is pleased to announce that the Simon String Quartet and colleagues will again present free classical chamber music concerts as part of its Summer String-In workshop. The Simon String Quartet (Fiona Simon and Sebu Sirinian, violins; Lisa Suslowicz, viola; David Bakamjian, cello) is a special group of four seasoned performers whose passion for chamber music infuses their collaboration with energy and dynamism.  Led by Fiona Simon, a member of the New York Philharmonic, its members each combine careers in chamber music and orchestras, and as soloists and teachers.  Although currently based in New York, where they individually perform with some of the most distinguished ensembles in the area, their performing careers have taken them all over the world. The Summer String-In, now in its tenth season, is an intensive week-long music workshop for adult amateur string players that takes place on the campus of Monmouth University.

  • Film Screening: Oro Macht Frei

    Oro Macht Frei tells the story of the Roman Jewish experience of the Nazi occupation of Rome (Sept 1943 – June 1944). Weaving testimony from Roman Jews together with historical research by renowned scholars on the subject (including Susan Zuccotti, Alexander Stille, Liliana Picciotto), OMF seeks to bring the viewer into a personal and relatable reflection of the Holocaust in Italy through the eyes of this unique and historic community. 

    There will be a panel/Q & A following screening.

    The panel includes:
    Joel Markel, Producer/Founder of Ottimo Films
    Susan Zuccotti, American historian, specializing in Holocaust studies
    Jane Denny, Director of Education CHHANGE (Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education) at Brookdale College
    Saliba Sarsar, Associate Vice President for Global Initiatives at Monmouth University
    Catherine Campbell, Producer/Editor/Writer for Ottimo Films

    Moderated by Susan Douglas, Specialist Professor of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University.

  • Fifty Years of ‘Makin’ This Guitar Talk: A Bruce Springsteen Forum

    Please Note that tickets including lunch are no longer available. You will still be able to purchase lunch separately at the Student Center during the forum or go off campus on your own.

    As a young child in the 1950s, Bruce Springsteen saw Elvis Presley perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, turned towards his mother and said, “I wanna be just…like…that.” It wasn’t until he was a teenager in 1964, however, during the first summer after the British Invasion began to transform U.S. popular culture, that Springsteen took his first serious steps towards a life in music. According to Peter Ames Carlin’s biography BRUCE, that summer he used money earned from painting his aunt’s house to purchase an $18 acoustic guitar, a copy of 100 Greatest American Folk Songs and then “committed himself to mastering the instrument.” Fifty years have passed since that fateful summer, and Bruce Springsteen is now one of popular music’s most beloved, significant and enduring artists.

    The Friends and Monmouth University will sponsor a unique Springsteen-themed forum entitled in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s first major steps towards becoming a professional musician.
    The structure of the forum will be centered around a series of moderated panel discussions on various Springsteen-related topics, allowing the audience to hear from and interact with a variety of authors and scholars. As of this writing, the confirmed panelists who will be in attendance are:

    Jim Beviglia, Author, Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs

    Kenneth Campbell, Monmouth University, Author, “Bruce Springsteen, Songs From The Rising, Introduction” to published in Western Civilization in a Global Context: The Modern – Sources and Documents.

    Jonathan D. Cohen, University of Virginia, Managing Editor, BOSS: The Bi-Annual Online Journal of Springsteen Studies

    Donna M. Dolphin, Monmouth University, Contributor, Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream and Associate Producer, Asbury Park Musical Memories Part 1

    Stan Goldstein, Co-Author, Rock & Roll Tour of the Jersey Shore and Blogger, NJ.com

    Jean Mikle, Co-Author, Rock & Roll Tour of the Jersey Shore and Contributor, Asbury Park Press

    Marianne Murawski, Stockton College, Contributor, Bruce Springsteen and the American Soul

    Christopher Phillips    , Editor/Publisher, Backstreets Magazine & Backstreets.com and Co-Editor, Talk About A Dream: The Essential Interviews of Bruce Springsteen

    Shawn Poole, Contributor, Backstreets Magazine & Backstreets.com

    Holly Cara Price, Contributor, Huffington Post and BruceSpringsteen.net

    Linda K. Randall, Author, Finding Grace in the Concert Hall: Community & Meaning Among Springsteen Fans

    Barry Schneier, Photographer, Monmouth University Exhibition – Glory Bound – Photographs by Barry Schneier

    Special Group Panel of Authors and Co-Publishers of the forthcoming anthology Trouble In The Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen – Jamez Chang, Jen Conley, Mark Krajnak, James Petersen and Chuck Regan

    William I. Wolff, Rowan University, Contributor, BOSS: The Bi-Annual Online Journal of Springsteen Studies

    Azzan Yadin-Israel, Rutgers University, Course Designer/Instructor, Bruce Springsteen’s Theology

    Panel topics, as well as more authors and scholars, will be announced as they are confirmed. Topics currently under consideration include “Bruce Springsteen’s Evolving Relationship With His Audience(s),” “Springsteen’s Best Songs,” “Springsteen & Live Performance,” “Springsteen & Media Through the Years,” etc.

    Panel topics, as well as more authors and scholars, will be announced as they are confirmed. Topics currently under consideration include “Bruce Springsteen’s Evolving Relationship With His Audience(s),” “Springsteen’s Best Songs,” “Springsteen & Live Performance,” “Springsteen & Media Through the Years,” etc.

    Among our confirmed panel moderators is broadcaster Tom Cunningham, creator and host of the long-running weekly Springsteen-themed radio program The Bruce Brunch on 105.7 The Hawk (WCHR-FM.)

    There will be time and space allotted for authors’ book sales/signings.

    The day’s agenda also will include several live performances of Springsteen’s music by students from Monmouth University and Asbury Park, NJ’s Lakehouse Music Academy.

    All ticket-sale proceeds will benefit Monmouth University and Friends of
    The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection.

     

  • An Evening With Thom Zimny

    In celebration of Bruce Springsteen’s 65th birthday, Friends of The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection and Monmouth University will host an exciting evening of films presented by Thom Zimny celebrating Bruce Springsteen.

    Thom
    Zimny has served as Bruce Springsteen’s film/video archivist and collaborator
    since 2001. During that time, Zimny has produced, directed and/or edited many
    of Springsteen’s award-winning music-videos, concert films and documentaries,
    including Bruce Springsteen & The E
    Street Band: Live in New York City    , Live
    in Barcelona    , Wings For Wheels – The
    Making of Born To Run    , Hammersmith
    Odeon London ’75    , Bruce Springsteen
    with The Sessions Band Live in Dublin    ,
    London Calling – Live in Hyde Park    ,
    The Promise – The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town    , music-videos for “Radio
    Nowhere”, “A Night With The Jersey Devil”, “The Wrestler”, “Dream Baby Dream”,
    “High Hopes” and the recently released short film Hunter of Invisible Game (co-directed with Springsteen himself.)

    For this unique celebratory evening,
    Zimny is “digging deep” into the Springsteen film/video archives for a rare
    big-screen presentation. He’ll be bringing some treats from the vault and
    showing all of his selections with high-quality visuals and sound using Pollak
    Theatre’s state-of-the-art projection system. Suffice it to say that if you are
    a Springsteen fan, you won’t want to miss this special night.

    All ticket-sale proceeds will benefit Monmouth University and Friends of The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection.