Fairfield University Sets September Schedule Of Lectures, Arts, Theater And Cultural Events

FAIRFIELD, CT — Fairfield University has scheduled a series of arts and cultural events throughout September, including lectures, theater and circus performances, film screenings, art exhibitions and bookstore events.

Programming will take place at venues across the university campus and at the Fairfield University Downtown Bookstore. Click here for more information.

Quick Center for the Arts

The Philip I. Eliasoph Open VISIONS Forum will host Deborah E. Lipstadt for “Art, Memory, History: The Holocaust and Its Lessons for Our Moment” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Lipstadt served from 2022 to 2025 as the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, with the rank of ambassador. She is a Distinguished University Professor at Emory University and previously served as the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies.

The university will screen the 1964 James Bond film “Goldfinger,” starring Sean Connery, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Quick Center’s Wien Experimental Theatre. The screening is the first in the fall “Bond and Beatles: British Film Icons of the 1960s” series, presented in partnership with the British Film Institute. Screenings will include introductory videos from BFI scholars and a question-and-answer session with Fairfield University instructor Jay Rozgonyi.

Author and art historian Kate Belli will present “From Art Historian to Art Sleuth” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23, in the Event Hall at the Dolan School of Business. Belli holds a doctorate in art history and is a gallery director and faculty member at a liberal arts college. Her latest novel is “The Gallery Assistant.”

The Academy Players, Fairfield University’s faculty and staff theater troupe, will perform Tracy Letts’ “The Minutes” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23, through Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Wien Experimental Theatre. The play follows a small-town council meeting as secrets, corruption and community myths are exposed. Each performance will be followed by a discussion led by Fairfield University faculty.

Cirque Alfonse will perform “La Noce d’Alfonse” at 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, at the Quick Center. The circus-cabaret production combines acrobatics, live music, humor and audience participation in a show built around a wedding celebration.

Environmentalists David Suzuki and Tara Cullis will appear in Why Not Theatre’s “What You Won’t Do For Love” at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28, and Wednesday, Sept. 30, at the Wien Experimental Theatre. Suzuki and Cullis discuss their 50-year partnership and activism. Actors Miriam Fernandes and Sturla Alvsvaag will join them onstage.

Arthur C. Brooks will present “Finding Meaning in an Age of Emptiness: An Evening With Arthur C. Brooks” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, at the Quick Center. Brooks is a professor at Vanderbilt University and a senior fellow at Harvard Business School. He has written 13 books, including “Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier,” with Oprah Winfrey, and “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.” His latest book, “The Meaning of Your Life,” is among Fairfield University’s Class of 2030 Common Read selections.

Fairfield University Art Museum

“Hieroglyphs to Hype: The Modern Afterlife of Ancient Egypt” will run from Sept. 18 through Dec. 12 in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries. The exhibition examines interest in ancient Egyptian art and culture through paintings, prints, photographs and decorative art dating from the early 19th century to the present.

An opening event will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, followed by a reception at 6:30 p.m. Exhibition curator Megan Paqua will speak with Michelle DiMarzo, the museum’s curator of education.

An Art in Focus program on Audrey Flack’s 2022 work “Lux Eternal” will be held at noon Thursday, Sept. 24, in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries. A virtual program will follow at 1 p.m.

The museum’s “James Welling: Cento” exhibition will run from Sept. 25 through Dec. 12 at the Walsh Gallery in the Quick Center. The exhibition features more than 60 recent works by photographer James Welling, including photographs of ancient sites in Italy and Greece and antiquities in museums that Welling altered digitally and through painterly techniques.

An opening-night lecture featuring Welling will begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 24, followed by a reception at 6:30 p.m.

The museum will also hold a meditation and mindfulness session at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries. Teacher Jackie DeLise will lead the session.

A Family Day focused on photography will be held Saturday, Sept. 26, with sessions from 12:30 to 2 p.m. and 2:30 to 4 p.m. in the Quick Center lobby. Registration is required.

Other University Programs

The Bennett Center for Judaic Studies will host Sari Siegel for a lecture titled “Jewish Prisoner-Physicians in Auschwitz-Birkenau” at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, in the Dogwood Room at the Barone Campus Center.

Siegel is a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research. Her work focuses on Nazi medicine and the history of Jewish physicians during the Holocaust.

The Waide Center for Applied Ethics will present a virtual seminar, “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,” with Sven Nyholm at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 23. Nyholm is a professor of ethics of artificial intelligence and principal investigator of AI ethics at the Munich Center for Machine Learning. He is the author of “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction.”

Downtown Bookstore Events

Children’s Storytime will be held Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., depending on attendance, at the Fairfield University Downtown Bookstore, 1499 Post Road. Fairfield University Store employee and local reading teacher Steve Gaynes leads the program. Children younger than 14 must be accompanied by an adult.

Author and Alzheimer’s advocate Kristen Cusato will appear at the bookstore from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, for a meet-and-greet and discussion of her contributions to “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Care for the Caregiver.”

Fairfield University English professor Robert Epstein will hold a meet-and-greet for his new novel, “The Parliament of Mice: A Fable,” from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15.