Russell House

More than 60 Graduate Liberal Studies students, their guests, and community members attended a free open class meeting of "Monk and Mingus: The Cutting Edge of Jazz," at Russell House on Nov. 30. Presented by Graduate Liberal Studies and Jazz Ensemble Coach Noah Baerman, the event included a discussion followed by a performance by Baerman of pieces composed by and associated with jazz greats Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. Baerman was accompanied by bassist Henry Lugo and Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Private Lessons Teacher Pheeroan akLaff on percussion. (Photos by Will Barr '18) (more…)

Writing at Wesleyan presents the Fall 2015 Russell House Series of Prose and Poetry. All events are free and open to the public. M. NourbeSe Philip and Professor of Anthropology Gina Athena Ulysse will speak at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 in Memorial Chapel. NourbeSe Philip is a Toronto-based poet, essayist, novelist, and playwright. Her most recent poetry collections are She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks, which has been reissued by Wesleyan University Press, and Zong!, also published by Wesleyan. Her essay collections include A Genealogy of Resistance and Showing Grit. Ulysse has performed her one-woman show "Because When God…

Wesleyan's "Music at the Russell House" series concludes with a free concert by the Connecticut-based jazz quartet Stanley Maxwell at 3 p.m. March 1 in the Russell House. The group plays music that blends tight arrangements with intricate group improvisations. The concert at Wesleyan will feature acoustic arrangements of original tunes from the past decade, including several world premieres. Stanley Maxwell features the CFA's Press and Marketing Director Andy Chatfield on drums, Mark Crino on bass, Eric DellaVecchia on alto saxophone, and Evan Green on piano. The group has built a grassroots name for themselves at colleges and festivals throughout…

This fall, join novelists, poets, editors, writers and a physician for the Russell House Series on Prose and Poetry. The series is presented by Writing at Wesleyan and sponsored by the Center for the Arts. All events are free and open to the public. The series kicked off Sept. 11 with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. Komunyakaa is author of 20 books of poetry. He received a bronze star for his service as a journalist in the Vietnam War and is a professor and senior distinguished poet in the graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. Salvatore Scibona and…

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Cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum, journalist Jane Eisner, poet Yusef Komunyakaa and novelist Amy Bloom are among the speakers featured in the Writing at Wesleyan 2011 Spring Russell House Series. Author James Kaplan ’73, the Writing Programs’ 2011 Joan Jakobson Visiting Writer, kicked-off the series Feb. 9, followed by MacArthur award winner Sarah Ruhl on Feb. 10. All events are free and open to the public. The full list of speakers is below, or online at http://www.wesleyan.edu/writing/distinguished_writers/. Wednesday, Feb. 16, Memorial Chapel 8 p.m. The Writing Programs’ 2011 Annie Sonnenblick Lecturer Michael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at…

Author James Kaplan ’73, the Writing Programs’ 2011 Joan Jakobson Visiting Writer, will speak at 8 p.m. Feb. 9 in the Russell House. Kaplan has been writing about people and ideas in business and popular culture, and also writing fiction, for over three decades. His essays and reviews, as well as more than a hundred major profiles of figures ranging from Madonna to Helen Gurley Brown, Calvin Klein to John Updike, Miles Davis to Meryl Streep, and Arthur Miller to Larry David, have appeared in many magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair and Esquire. In November 2010, Kaplan published…

In the 1970s, veterans, activists and psychiatrists were hard at work getting the disorder that came to be called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) included in the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III. During the same period, feminists were building a successful anti-rape movement that crucially insisted that rape is a form of violence. On Feb. 15, Sally Bachner, assistant professor of English, spoke on “Rape Trauma, Combat Trauma, and the Making of PTSD: Feminist Fiction in the 1970s" during the Center for the John E. Sawyer Spring Lecture Series on War. Bachner proposed that…

The Spring 2009 Distinguished Writers Series features a short story author, New York Times Magazine writer, student poets and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Amy Bloom ’75, the 2009 Jacob Julien Visiting Writer, will speak at 8 p.m. Feb. 18 in Russell House. Bloom is the author of the novel Love Invents Us, the short story collection A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, and the nonfiction work Normal. Her most recent novel, Away, was a New York Times bestseller, and she has received the National Magazine Award and been nominated for the National Book Award and…

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GLS Holds ‘Monk and Mingus’ Open Class

Poets, Novelists, Kim-Frank Visiting Writer Speak at Russell House Fall Series

Jazz Quartet Stanley Maxwell to Perform World Premieres March 1 at Russell House

Poets, Novelists Speak at Fall Russell House Series on Prose and Poetry

Louis Menand Delivers Annual Sonnenblick Lecture

Cartoonist, Author Bechdel Speaks in Russell House

Bloom Reads from Recent Work, Discusses Writing at Russell House

Critic, Novelist, Poets at Writing at Wesleyan Talks

Jakobson Visiting Writer Kaplan ’73 to Speak Feb. 9

‘War’ Topic of Ongoing Humanities’ Lecture Series

Amy Bloom ’75 Part of Distinguished Writers Series

Icing on the Campus