Michael Basile, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, New Jersey City University
Shakespearean Fathers and Daughters
The conflict between fathers and daughters occupies center stage in many of Shakespeare’s plays, comedies, tragedies, and romances alike. Astonishingly, Shakespeare consistently favors his young women – Juliet, Hermia, Desdemona, Cordelia, and Perdita – despite the prevailing patriarchy of his society. This presentation examines the biographical, cultural, and theatrical reasons behind this predilection.
Michael Basile, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, New Jersey City University
Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Our Own
How we interpret our cultural icons reveals to us who and what we are. Making use of selections from Hamlet and the critical and performance readings the play has inspired, this discussion evaluates how Shakespeare’s tragedy has been variously interpreted throughout the last century.
Octavio De la Suaree, Ph.D.
Professor of Languages & Cultures, The William Paterson Unversity of New Jersey
Spanish Golden Age Literature
Spain was a powerful nation to be reckoned with during the Renaissance, as witnessed by several outstanding literary forms of expression, including the sentimental, the chivalric, the pastoral, the morisca, picaresca and others. This lecture surveys all of these forms of expression through Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece, Don Quixote.
Edvige Giunta
Professor of English, New Jersey City University
The Literature of Italian American Women
A lecture on the emergence of the literature of Italian American women in multiple contexts, from the history of immigration and the labor movement to the feminist movement and multiculturalism.
Edvige Giunta
Professor of English, New Jersey City University
Write your Memoir - Five Minutes at a Time
Many think, even talk about writing their life story: “One of these days I am going to write…” And yet most of these aspiring writers end up never actually getting to their writing because they consider the task daunting or they feel their life is not interesting enough or they believe they are not “good” writers yet. Some simply procrastinate, waiting for that perfect writing opportunity: undisturbed time, a lovely writing room, an uncluttered desk, or inspiration. In this workshop you will learn how to tap into your memory and create and piece together moments of your life literally “five minutes at a time.” The scope of the workshop is to give participants usable and readily available tools to get started on the exciting journey of memory work and life writing.
Jacques Harlow
NJCH Board member
The Poetry of War
This presentation on the Poetry of War makes the case that prior to the Battle of Somme, poets treated war as a noble and patriotic cause, extolling its virtues and avoiding its horrors. Changes in the voice of poetry are traced against a background description of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of the Somme, and the beaches of World War II, illustrating that post-Somme poetry, rather than distancing war from reality, describes the stark truths of trenches, battle, and death.
Jean Hollander, Ph.D.
Director, Annual Writer's Conference, College of New Jersey; lecturer, Princeton University
Flannery O’Connor: the Violent Bear It Away
Flannery O’Connor has said that a serious fiction writer must go beyond the “adequate motivation of character… and the believable imitation of a way of life” to a “sense of mystery of the struggle between good and evil.” Through an examination of her stories, we will see why and how, through violent and shocking events, “everything is ultimately saved or lost.”
Jean Hollander, Ph.D.
Director, Annual Writer's Conference, College of New Jersey; lecturer, Princeton University
Franz Kafka: The Logic of Dreams
An approach to the works of Kafka as exemplified in “the Judgment,” “The Country Doctor,” or any other of his short stories. This presentation examines Kafka’s technique of probing divine justice and the ultimate structure of human existence by making unnatural events occur in a mundane, realistic setting. Through the dilemmas facing his characters, Kafka forces us to focus on, and perhaps cope with, our contemporary sense of alienation, anxiety, doubt and guilt.
Jean Hollander, Ph.D.
Director, Annual Writer's Conference, College of New Jersey; lecturer, Princeton University
Sylvia Plath: Her Poetry and Her Life
Since Sylvia Plath put so much of her life – joy, passion, frustration, rage and despair – into her work, it becomes more interesting and illuminating to examine her poetry against the backdrop of her diaries, letters (particularly her correspondence with her mother) and autobiographical fiction. This presentation focuses on the role of Plath’s life and experiences in creating and shaping her poetry.
Robert Hollander, Ph.D.
Professor in European Literature, Department of Romance Languages, Princeton University
Dante’s Sympathetic Sinners
An introduction to a moral reading of Dante’s poem. A handout can supply some basic texts. Lecture works better for those who have read Dante at some time. The lecture considers some of Inferno’s major figures, e.g. Francesca, Ulysses and Ugolino, as well as its best known passages.
Martin Kushner
Assistant Professor of History, Mercer County Community College
The Beat Generation and Its Influence on American Life and Culture
A discussion of how Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs defined a generation, and how the Beats’ emphasis on personal freedom, sexual diversity and spirituality led to the creativity and excesses of the '60s and '70s. The lecture will use Ginsberg’s HOWL and KADDISH, and Kerouac’s On the Road, as well as excerpts from various film and video sources to illuminate the spirit of the Beats.
James P. McGlone, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Seton Hall University
Juno and the Paycock
Sean O’Casey’s most popular play illustrates the Irish love of language and reflects the lives of Dublin’s poor during the Irish Civil War. Mention will be made of O’Casey’s other two works from the Dublin trilogy, Shadow of a Gunman, and The Plough and the Stars. While the lecture features the theatricality of the playwright’s work, it also includes discussion of Irish cultural and political influences on the play.
James P. McGlone, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Seton Hall University
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
One of the most popular of all American play productions held the American stage until 1933. In his Guide to Great Plays, Joseph Shipley has written that “the stage version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, even more than Mrs. Stowe’s book, helped to solidify Northern sentiment against slavery.” The lecture identifies the theatrical techniques utilized by the play adapter George L. Aiken that established the script as the most frequently produced play in the history of American theater.
James P. McGlone, Ph.D.
Professor of Communication, Seton Hall University
Shakespeare: From Page to Stage
Starting with the premise that a play is defined as a script performed by actors on a stage before an audience, the lecture consists of readings of a major tragedy Hamlet, comedy Midsummer Night’s Dream or history Henry IV part one play. The role of the actor, set and lighting designer and audience reaction are illustrated. Audience members will be invited to read from the texts to illustrate theatrical points.
Michael Aaron Rockland, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of American Studies, Rutgers University
American Jewish Literature
Lecture focuses on major American Jewish writers, both early writers Abraham Cahan and Mary Antin and more recent writers Philip Roth, I.B. Singer, Saul Bellow, and Bernard Malamud. Lectures may consider parallels and contrasts between Jewish writers and other ethnic writers such as African-Americans, Hispanics, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, and Asian-Americans. Another area of interest will be what is somewhat distinctive about the literature of American Jews, who constitute both an ethnic group and a religion.
Michael Aaron Rockland, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of American Studies, Rutgers University
The Holocaust in the American Jewish Novel
A review of three key novels, I.B. Singer’s Enemies: A Love Story, William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, and Edward Lewis Wallant’s The Pawnbroker. The lecture examines parallels and contrasts among the three works and what they tell us not only about the Holocaust but about American values and attitudes.
Loren F. Schmidtberger, Ph.D.
Professor of English, St. Peter's College
Flannery O’Connor’s: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
Grandmother’s outdated genteel values are tested by a killer’s theological questioning. Discussion will focus on O’Connor’s own explanation of the shocking conclusion of this short story.
Loren F. Schmidtberger, Ph.D.
Professor of English, St. Peter's College
Put Up Your Flukes and Fight Like a Man! The Relevance of Moby-Dick
Is the story of Capt. Ahab’s mad pursuit of a seemingly malevolent whale relevant today? Passages from works Melville wrote within a few years of 1851, when Moby-Dick was published, reveal his acute awareness of sexual harassment, rape, homelessness, mental illness, alcoholism, child abuse and slavery. Melville’s anguish over such problems is a driving force in the creation of Moby-Dick.
Loren F. Schmidtberger, Ph.D.
Professor of English, St. Peter's College
Trash, Blacks and Ladies in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!
A discussion of the novel’s focus on the conflict between society’s classifications of people and their own natural sense of self. Although socially disfranchised, some landless whites, blacks and women develop a strong sense of identity, only to make the traumatic discovery that they are nonetheless regarded in terms of the negative stereotypes of the day.
Edie Weinthal, Ph.D.
District Humanities Supervisor, Pascak Valley Regional H.S. District
Brief Introduction to Feminist Utopian Fiction
What exactly is the genre called “feminist utopian fiction” – who are some of the authors and what types of themes and issues are common to these works? This lecture discusses some of the early utopian stories written by women and the common threads woven throughout them. The presentation will highlight works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy Bryant, Marge Piercy and Ursula K. LeGuin.
