The Literary Salon - Virtual 'Book Club Hour' at Fairfield U

(FAIRFIELD, Conn., September 14, 2021) The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University continues to offer enlightening conversations and seminars designed to engage community members and avid lifelong learners. The Open MINDS Institute returns for its fifth year with a fall line-up in which master teachers share their knowledge in a range of topics including art history, cuisine, ancient civilizations, and civil religion. The Literary Salon, presented in association with Meryl Moss Media of Westport, Conn., will connect readers of all genres with authors, documentarians, podcasters, and writers of all genres.

All virtual events below are open to the public and free. Registration is required at quickcenter.com.

Open MINDS Institute:

“Forgotten Figures: Examining the African Presence in the Golden Age of Venetian Art”

Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 12 p.m.

Instructor: Fiona Garland

Venice in 1500 was a dynamic, wealthy city at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East. During this century, representations of Black Africans began to appear in a range of paintings, sculptures, drawings, books, and prints. The figures are depicted in varying roles; as high-level diplomats, as exotic adornments to the elite, as gondoliers or musicians in street scenes, or as actors in the Magi story. Despite being increasingly conspicuous, they have had very little attention paid to them by art historians throughout the centuries. In this lecture we will examine these forgotten figures and learn about who they were and how they impacted the visual landscape of the Golden Age of Venetian Art.

“The Renaissance of Italian Food”

Tuesday, October 5, 2021 at 12:30 p.m.

Instructor: Sara Diaz, PhD

Perhaps more than any other modern nation, Italy is defined by and celebrated for its food. Exports such as vino, pizza, and gelato, so quintessentially Italian, are now readily available across the globe. But what does food mean to Italians, and how does it reflect, magnify, and shape their collective identity as Italians, or “italianità”? In this talk we will explore references to food and gastronomy in Italian literature, and learn about some of the historical forces that influenced Italy’s evolving culinary traditions.

“One Nation Under God? Civil Religions in Uncivil Times”

Instructor: Aaron Q. Weinstein, PhD

Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 12 p.m.

Until relatively recently, phrases like “God Bless America” or “One Nation Under God” seemed to be uncontested dimensions of what scholars call America’s civil religion (ACR). By this, they mean the assortment of beliefs (like in democracy), symbols (like the flag or Constitution), and rituals (like the Fourth of July) that connect Americans to each other and to the nation. But generations of political and religious polarization appear to have frayed the very fabric of this civil religion. The right is becoming increasingly religious and conservative, and the left is becoming increasingly secular and liberal. Simply put: we don’t all agree anymore. In such a world, can there be a single civil religion in the United States, as we once thought?

“Christian River: Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia from Rome to Islam”

Instructor: Giovanni Ruffini

Tuesday, October 26, 2021 at 12 p.m.

The ancient civilizations of the Nile Valley present a paradox to the modern world. They have left us thousands of years of accomplished art and architecture and an unbroken literate tradition dating from antiquity to the present day. And yet they remain largely unknown. Their Christian periods give us the chance to study indigenous African civilizations at the intersection of classical antiquity and the rise of Islam.

THE LITERARY SALON: The Virtual 'Book Club Hour' For Fairfield University

In Association With Meryl Moss Media, Westport

The Quick Center has invited senior media/publishing expert Meryl Moss to broaden our reading lists. With her successful agency’s fingertip gauging the pulse, she will conduct extended seminar class sessions featuring writers who are young, new, and becoming widely established. Please join us and become active community participants.

"Appreciating the diverse interests of our Open MINDS Institute class programs, we want to create special conversations with fellow book habituates and seekers of ideas," said Dr. Philip Eliasoph, program director.

Annie Murphy Paul

Author of The Extended Mind – The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain

Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 12 p.m.

Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, and The Best American Science Writing, among many other publications. Her latest book is The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, published in June of 2021 and selected as an "Editors' Choice" by The New York Times Book Review. She is also the author of Origins, named by The New York Times Book Review as a “Notable Book,” and The Cult of Personality, hailed by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker as a “fascinating new book.” Her TED talk has been viewed more than 2.6 million times. Paul is a recipient of the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship, the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship, and the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellowship at New America. A graduate of Yale University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she is currently a Learning Sciences Exchange Fellow at New America.

Allison Gill

Award-winning podcast host of The Daily Beans and Mueller, She Wrote

Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 12 p.m.

Allison Gill, also known simply as AG to her many loyal followers, is a successful comedian, entertainer, author, and a staunch advocate for the resistance. In 2017, Gill started her first podcast, Mueller, She Wrote, out of her kitchen. The podcast is a binder filled with women unraveling the mysteries of the Mueller investigation and wrapping it up into tasty bites for human consumption. When the government investigated the podcast, Trump had Gill fired, even though she had been working in the Dept. of Veterans Affairs for more than 11 years. Still needing to satisfy her thirst for equal justice for all, she became the host of The Daily Beans, a women-owned and -operated progressive news podcast where you can find your social justice and political news with just the right amount of snark. She is very dedicated to the separation of facts and theory, and works hard to make sure listeners know which is which. “The truth is the goal, and facts are the tools,” says Gill.

Robert Steven Williams

Producer/writer of Gatsby in Connecticut

Tuesday, November 16, 2021 at 12 p.m.

Selected by The New Yorker as one of the best films of 2020, Gatsby in Connecticut: The Untold Story is about the spark that propels F. Scott Fitzgerald’s interest toward writing The Great Gatsby. The documentary delves deep into what happened that summer in Westport, Conn., and how it impacted both Scott and Zelda’s art, including new evidence to support how Westport inspired Gatsby. The film also exposes why the scholarly community concluded that this period was insignificant. Featuring Sam Waterston and narrated by Keir Dullea, the film was selected by more than a dozen domestic and international film festivals and won several awards. Distributed by Vision Films, Inc., it is currently available on a variety of digital platforms in the U.S. and Canada.

Meryl Moss is founder and president of Meryl Moss Media, an international literary media relations and marketing firm. For more than 27 years, from their little black building on Saugatuck Avenue in Westport, the team at Meryl Moss Media, has been promoting and branding authors and their books through media exposure, speaking engagements, social media, influencer introductions, creative marketing initiatives, and solutions. Whether debut writers, midlist, or even occasional bestsellers, rather than focus on the household names you read about everywhere, their website BookTrib.com’s mantra is to give voice to those authors that really need to be heard — and read.

All events are free and require registration. For more information about performing arts programming at the Quick and Fairfield University, please visit quickcenter.com. Media Contact: Lori N. Jones, ljones@fairfield.edu, 203-254-4000 x2975

#

Fairfield University is a modern, Jesuit Catholic university rooted in one of the world’s

oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate

students from the U.S. and across the globe are pursuing degrees in the University’s five

schools. Fairfield embraces a liberal humanistic approach to education, encouraging critical

thinking, cultivating free and open inquiry, and fostering ethical and religious values. The

University is located on a stunning 200-acre campus on the scenic Connecticut coast just an

hour from New York City.