The Series

SEE REVISED DATES BELOW! ("WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS IN NJ AND PHILIP ROTH: NEWARK AND BEYOND" NOW 11/7/13)

• "Performing the Real on Jersey Shore" Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 4-5 p.m., Brantl, Dickson Hall, MSU.  Presenter: Hugh Curnutt, School of Communication & Media, MSU.  This presentation will discuss how the MTV show "Jersey Shore" constructs so-called "reality" programming in which it is the costs of production that determine what is presented as "real life" (and "real" Italian-Americans) at the New Jersey shore.

• "'Life here has many attractions and advantages:' the North American Phalanx," and "Utopia, New Jersey: Travels in the Nearest Eden.", Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 5.30-6.30 p.m., Schmitt Hall, 104, MSU.  Presenters (respectively): Perdita Buchan, freelance writer, and Richard Veit, Professor of Anthropology, Monmouth University, New Jersey.  This presentation will examine nineteenth- and twentieth-century New Jersey as a state of hope, dreams, and utopian experiments for many kinds of people, including industrialists, intellectuals, artists, and reformers of all stripes.

• "George Inness and the Poetry of Place"‌ Thursday, April 4, 2013, 7-8 p.m., Montclair Art Museum, Montclair.  Presenter: Adrienne Baxter Bell, Professor of Art, Marymount Manhattan College, New York.  This presentation will grapple with the somewhat paradoxical way in which the terrain of Montclair inspired the artist and amateur philosopher George Inness to produce some of the greatest contributions to nineteenth-century American art.

• "Talk about a dream:" Bruce Springsteen's American Vision -- from New Jersey to the World, Wednesday, October 9, 2013, 4-5 p.m., Brantl, Dickson Hall.  Presenter: Louis P. Masur, Professor of American Studies, Rutgers University, New Jersey.  This presentation will discuss Bruce Springsteen's New Jersey origins and how his American vision was shaped by his Jersey roots and then carried to the world.

• "'The local is the only universal:' William Carlos Williams in New Jersey," and "Philip Roth: Newark and Beyond." Thursday, November 7, 2013, 4-5 p.m., Cohen Lounge, Dickson Hall, MSU.  Presenters (respectively): Neil Baldwin, Director, The Creative Research Center, MSU, and James D. Bloom, Professor of English and American Studies, Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania.  This presentation will discuss the way in which the Jerseyscapes of both the New Jersey poet William Carlos Williams and the novelist Philip Roth provide particularized locations for explorations -- on a grander scale -- of American identity and of the human condition in general.