• Mike Richison, Electo Electro 2024

    Monmouth University’s Prof. Mike Richison (Graphic Design) will perform his Electo Electro 2024, updated for the 2024 election cycle. This interactive installation combines audience participation, music, news footage, and politics. The project allows participants to remix videos from political rallies, debates, and news in a structured sixteen beat loop. The touchscreen design is a parody of the system employed by the Accuvote, a voting system that is difficult to audit and susceptible to hacking. The parody continues into the format of the installation itself which will resemble a polling station.

    Richison will introduce his project, perform, and then open up his event for discussion. If you cannot make it to Richison’s live performance, stop by the Ice House Gallery to see his project on display for the semester. For more on the project, see Richison’s discussion of it in the Journal of Network Music and Arts.

    For more information, contact the co-chairs of ArtNOW, Prof. Amanda Stojanov at astojano@monmouth.edu or Prof. Dickie Cox at rcox@monmouth.edu

  • Michael Anthony Donato: Angels & Devils

    Michael Anthony Donato, a School of Visual Arts graduate, is an award-winning children’s book illustrator. His work on Squanto and the First Thanksgiving aired on Showtime and earned honors from the American Library Association. His illustrations for Tales Alive, a collection of global folktales, received a Parents’ Choice Award. Donato also collaborated with Simon & Schuster and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Voyage Up the Nile. He currently teaches drawing and advanced painting at Monmouth University.

    Artist Reception: October 18, 5-7 PM

  • Adult Education Series: Christmas Time Is Hear Again

    Class Schedule: Thursday, December 19 | 7:30 – 9:00 PM

    From 1963 to 1969, the Beatles sent Christmas messages on flexidiscs to their US and UK fan clubs. In 1970, a compilation of these messages was sent out, and they were re-released as a collector’s set in 2017. Join SCOTT FREIMAN and KEN WOMACK for a one-session virtual course to explore this unique aspect of the Beatles’ history.

    Zoom Link will be provided upon registration.

  • A Tribute to Jean Valentine – Panel Discussion featuring Alice Ostriker, Joan Larkin, Carey Salerno, and Anne Marie Macari

    Jean Valentine was born in Chicago, earned her B.A. from Radcliffe College, and lived most of her life in New York City. She won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker and Other Poems, in 1965. Valentine authored over a dozen collections of poetry including,The River at Wolf (1992); Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003 (2007); Break the Glass (2010); and Shirt in Heaven (2015). All of her full-length works, including an unpublished manuscript, have been compiled in the posthumous collection, Light Me Down: The New & Collected Poems of Jean Valentine (2024).

    This event is being held in conjunction with Poetry Readings with Q&A Featuring Alicia Ostriker & Joan Larkin on October 29 at 4:30 in the Julian Abele Room.

    PRESENTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE VISITING WRITERS SERIES

  • Poetry Readings with Q&A Featuring Alicia Ostriker & Joan Larkin

    ALICIA OSTRIKER has published 19 collections of poetry, been twice nominated for the National Book Award, and has twice received the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, among other honors. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Yale Review, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry , The Atlantic , Prairie Schooner, and other journals, and has been translated into numerous languages including Hebrew and Arabic. Her most recent collections of poems are Waiting for the Light and The Volcano and After:Selected and New Poems 2002 – 2019 . She was New York State Poet Laureate for 2018 – 2021 and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2015 – 2020.

    JOAN LARKIN is the author of five previous collections of poetry, including Blue Hanuman (2014); My Body: New and Selected Poems (2007), which received the Audre Lorde Award from the Publishing Triangle; Lambda Literary Award winner Cold River (1997); and Housework (1975). With Jaime Manrique, Larkin translated Sor Juana’ s Love Poems, a bilingual edition of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz’ s poetry (1997). Her prose works include I f You Want What We Have: Sponsorship Meditations (1998) and Glad Day: Daily Meditations for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People (1998). Her plays include The AIDS Passion, The Living, and Wiretap.

    This event is being held in conjunction with A Tribute to Jean Valentine – Panel Discussion on October 29 at 2:50 in the Julian Abele Room.

    Hosted By Department of English (Brother Austen Poets-in-the-Classroom Series) in partnership with the Visiting Writers Series. Also cosponsored by PGIS (Program in Gender and Intersectionality Studies) 

  • Bring in Da Funk, Part II

    Class Schedule: Thursdays – December 5 & 12 | 7:30 – 9:00 PM

    Parliament/Funkadelic’s George Clinton declared “we want the funk,” and by the mid-70s the genre was in full swing. On the R&B and pop charts as well as on the dance floor, funk had officially taken over. This two-session virtual course taught by Kit O’Toole covers the peak of the genre, its eventual decline in popularity, and its continuing influence. Artists examined include the Ohio Players, Stevie Wonder, Average White Band, Kool and the Gang, Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Commodores, Cameo, Slave, Zapp and Roger, and many more. In addition, subgenres including go go, punk funk (coined by Rick James), funk rock, and Bay Area funk will be covered. The course includes multimedia presentations and class discussions.

    Zoom Link will be provided upon registration.

  • Bring in Da Funk, Part II

    Class Schedule: Thursdays – December 5 & 12 | 7:30 – 9:00 PM

    Parliament/Funkadelic’s George Clinton declared “we want the funk,” and by the mid-70s the genre was in full swing. On the R&B and pop charts as well as on the dance floor, funk had officially taken over. This two-session virtual course taught by Kit O’Toole covers the peak of the genre, its eventual decline in popularity, and its continuing influence. Artists examined include the Ohio Players, Stevie Wonder, Average White Band, Kool and the Gang, Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Commodores, Cameo, Slave, Zapp and Roger, and many more. In addition, subgenres including go go, punk funk (coined by Rick James), funk rock, and Bay Area funk will be covered. The course includes multimedia presentations and class discussions.

    Zoom Link will be provided upon registration.

  • Podcasting for Beginners

    Class Schedule: Thursdays – November 7 & 14 | 7:30 – 9:00 PM

    In this two-session virtual course taught by Robert Rodriguez, students will learn how to produce a podcast from the planning stage to the final upload. The two sessions will focus on developing a concept, basic recording technology, post-production and launching onto Apple & Spotify. No previous podcasting experience is required.

    Zoom Link will be provided upon registration.

  • Podcasting for Beginners

    Class Schedule: Thursdays – November 7 & 14 | 7:30 – 9:00 PM

    In this two-session virtual course taught by Robert Rodriguez, students will learn how to produce a podcast from the planning stage to the final upload. The two sessions will focus on developing a concept, basic recording technology, post-production and launching onto Apple & Spotify. No previous podcasting experience is required.

    Zoom Link will be provided upon registration.

  • Producing the Beatles

    Based on his acclaimed podcast, Producing the Beatles, Jason Kruppa explores the music of the Fab Four from the perspective of the one person whose point of view has never been properly and thoroughly examined: their producer, George Martin. Using innovative techniques to break down their recordings, we’ll discover how the Beatles went from learning their way around the studio to becoming masters of the art of recording, with their producer working side by side with them each step of the way. And finally, with re-recordings and detailed recreations of Martin’s orchestral scores that allow us to hear individual instrument parts,, we’ll learn how his arrangements enhanced and shaped the Beatles’ music.

    Zoom Link will be provided upon registration.