Literary Arts Series

Fall 2008 Salman Rushdie Spring 2008 Jhumpa Lahiri The Namesake SPRING 2007 Carmit Delman *Burnt Bread and Chutney* SPRING 2006 Judith Ortiz Cofer The Latin Deli Spring 2005 Joyce Carol Oates Where Are You Going Spring 2004 Elvia Alvarado Don't Be Afraid, Gringo Spring 2003 James McBride's The Color of Water Spring 2002 Sapphire's Push About Us Book Recommendations Literature Club Weblog: Discuss the readings
	Invites you to its Eighth Annual Bergen Is Reading program this academic year 2008/2009 Salman Rushdie, Nov. 7, 2008 at 11AM Rushdie is renowned for taking symbols and figures from different myth systems and religions and interweaving them with different juxtapositions: themes from Islam and Hinduism are interwoven with figures from English literature and English literary references. His work advocates that the cultural exchange brought about by Empire has enriched rather than cheapened contemporary literature "The Shelter of the World"
	SPRING 2008 Jhumpa Lahiri presents at Bergen March 20, 2008 at 11:00 AM in the Ciccone Theatre The LAS selection for 2007-2008 is Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, her debut story collection that explores issues of love and identity among immigrants and cultural transplants. With a compelling, universal fluency, Lahiri portrays the practical and emotional adversities of her diverse characters in elegant and direct prose. Whether describing hardships of a lonely Indian wife adapting to life in the United States or illuminating the secret pain of a young couple as they discuss their betrayals during a series of electrical blackouts, Lahiri's bittersweet stories avoid sentimentality without abandoning compassion. Her novel The Namesake was published in the fall of 2003 also to great acclaim. "Interpreter of Maladies" was conceived when Lahiri bumped into a friend who said he was interpreting for a doctor who had a number of Russian patients having difficulty describing their ailments in English. After hearing this comment Lahiri conceived "Interpreter of Maladies" as a collection of short stories. She knew from the beginning that this had to be the title story, because it best expresses, thematically, the predicament at the heart of the book—the dilemma, the difficulty, and often the impossibility of communicating emotional pain and affliction to others, as well as expressing it to ourselves. In some sense, Lahiri views this as the position of a writer, in so far as the writer attempts to articulate these emotions, they are a sort of interpreter as well. Jessica Datema Lou Ethel Roliston Stacey Balkan The LAS co-coordinators would like to thank The Office of Student Life, CSIU, English Department faculty, The Women’s History Month Committee, Black History Month, the Library staff and everybody else who has made this program possible for the last seven years! SPRING 2007 Carmit Delman presents at Bergen on March 22, 2007 at 11:00 AM in the Ciccone Theatre The LAS selection for 2006-2007 was Carmit Delman's Burnt Bread and Chutney. Carmit Delman’s Burnt Bread and Chutney is a coming-of-age story about America and the Indian Bene Israel community. Written in 2002, this remarkable account details her experience as a person of multicultural and overlapping cultural identity. The memoir describes her experience of Indian Jewry and multiculturalism that challenges cultural stereotypes. The book's title refers to a specific anecdote in the book about making the best with what you have: having burnt bread but eating it with chutney so it tastes good. Some excerpts we choose recount Nana-Bai’s traumatic experience with a matchmaker, thirteen-year-old Carmit’s experiments with her sexuality in America, and the event that leads Nana-bai to reject her life as a devalued, abused second wife in a polygamous marriage to her sister’s husband and immigrate with her daughter to Israel. Copies of the text are available in the library and from the English department office. Her work has also been included in a new book, Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience. Jessica Datema Lou Ethel Roliston Dorothy Altman The LAS co-coordinators would like to thank The Office of Student Life, CSIU, English Department faculty, The Women’s History Month Committee, the Library staff and everybody else who has made this program possible for the last six years! Carmit Delman's Site Discussion Questions Reading Questions Back to top SPRING 2006 Judith Ortiz Cofer presented at the college on April 6th, 2005, thanks to generous assistance from The Office of Student Life. She spent her formative years between her native Puerto Rico and Paterson, New Jersey. Widely recognized as a writer, she has received much critical praise and various awards, including the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for The Latin Deli. New York Times Book Review has recognized Cofer as "a writer of authentic gifts, with a genuine and important story to tell." Judith Ortiz Cofer presented at the college on April 6th, 2006 at 11:00, Maria Ciccone Theater. I had brains for sure and some talent in writing. These facts were a constant in my life. My skin color, my size, and my appearance were variables- things that were judged according to my current self-image, the aesthetic values of the times, the places I was in, and the people I met. My studies, later my writing, the respect of people who saw me as an individual person they cared about, these were the criteria for my sense of self-worth that I would concentrate on in my adult life. - "The Story of My Body," The Latin Deli. Co-sponsored by The Office of Student Life, CSIU, and Women�s History Month Committee. Reading materials are available at Silverman Library and The LAS co-coordinators would like to thank The Office of Student Life, CSIU, English Department faculty, The Women�s History Month Committee, the Library staff and everybody else who has made this program possible for the last five years! Chelseaforum Judith Ortiz Cofer READING QUESTIONS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS CONTRIBUTED BY PROF. MARK ALTSCHULER Back to top SPRING 2005 Joyce Carol Oates presented at the college on April 6th, 2005, thanks to generous assistance from The Office of Student Life. Joyce Carol Oates is one of the United States most prolific and versatile contemporary writers. With a writing career that spans 25 years, Oates is the author of more than 70 books including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, literary criticism and essays. Her writing has earned her much praise and many awards including the National Book Award for her novel them (1969), the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy Institute of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the O'Henry Prize for Continued Achievement in the Short Story, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Lifetime Achievement Award in Fiction, the Rea Award for the Short Story, and in 1978, membership in the American Academy Institute. She also has been nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Oates' early short story collection Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been establishes her achievement in that genre and the literary world in general. Since then she has experimented with a number of genres and styles, earning praise for her versatility and varied productions, and criticism for the violence in her work and her prolific publishing. Her fictional world is violent and tragic; her characters, disturbed and unhappy, are often victims of their social milieu and emotional weakness. Oates' selected fiction includes American Appetites (1989), Because it is Bitter, and Because it is My Heart (1990), The Rise of Life on Earth (1991), Heat: And Other Stories (1991), Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993), Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (1993 reissue), Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque (1994), We Were the Mulvaneys (1996), and Man Crazy (1998),Blonde (2000,) I Am No One You Know: Stories (2004). Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. Educational materials including biography of the author, reviews, excerpts, reading questions, and a website will be available in the fall. Commentary and Discussion/Essay Questions on "Where Are You Going, Where have You Been" CELESTIAL TIMEPIECE -- JCO's WEBSITE ONLINE CHAT WITH JCO Back to top
	SPRING 2004 Don't Be Afraid, Gringo by Elvia Alvarado Elvia Alvarado presented on March 24, 2004, 11:30-1:00, The Main Theater Spanish language flyer Don't Be Afraid, Gringo is an award winning oral history of Elvia Alvarado, a courageous campesina (peasant) activist in Honduras, the poorest country in Central America. Trained by the Catholic Church to organize women�s groups to combat malnutrition, Alvarado began to question why campesinos were malnourished to begin with. Her growing political awareness, her travels by foot over the back roads of Honduras, and her conversations with people from all over the country have given her insights into the internal workings of her society that far surpass those of the majority of campesinos who have never ventured form their villages. Alvarado has led dangerous land recovery actions in an effort to enforce the national land reform laws, and she has been jailed, and tortured at the hands of the Honduran military. Don�t Be Afraid, Gringo showcases Honduran culture as representative of many other Latin American cultures, depicting poverty, the battle for workers� rights and the fight against political oppression as well as telling the inspiring story of a woman with a second-grade education, who worked in the fields, raised a family, and rallied Honduran campesinos to organize a labor movement and force the government to reenact the dormant agrarian reform. �So much of what we know about Central America is facts, figures, abstractions, political cant. No one can read this remarkable story without a total change of Perception." � Robert McAfree-Brown �Elvia Alvarado tells the story of her life and the life of the people of Honduras. Read it and understand the struggle against tyranny of the poor. Read it and act." -- Alice Walker DISCUSSION QUESTIONS I ESSAY QUESTIONS I ESL ESSAY QUESTIONS Co-sponsored by the Women's History Month Committee. Back to top SPRING 2003 The Color of Water by James McBride James McBride presented at Bergen on February 4th, 2003, read selections from The Color of Water, answered questions and performed with his twelve piece jazz/r&b band. This event has been sponsored by The Literary Arts Series (CIRD Grant), The Office of Student Life and The Black History Month Committee. COMMENTS James McBride was a Bergen Community College Artist in Residence from 2003/2004 to 2004/2005. James McBride is an award-winning writer and composer. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, is the critically acclaimed memoir of the son of a white Jewish mother of Eastern European background and an African-American father. The book explores the themes of cultural adaptation, identity, education, racism, and family values. The Color of Water has won numerous literary awards and spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. It has sold more than 1.3 million copies in the United States alone and is now required reading at numerous colleges and high schools across the country. It has also been published in 16 languages and more than 20 countries.

	Learn more about McBride I From University of Tennessee I Reading Questions I Essay and Thematic Questions "Fascinating...superbly written:" The Boston Globe "Remarkable ...a page-turner, full of compassion, tremendous hardship and triumph. And while there is confusion and tragedy, McBride's story is ultimately a celebration delivered with humor and pride." Emerge "A wonderful story that goes beyond race ...richly detailed ...earthy, honest" The Baltimore Sun "A refreshing and cleansing story of love, values, and integrity:" Cherry Hill Courier Post (NJ) An extraordinary writer and musician, James McBride plays our notions of race, family, history, and religion like a literary saxophone, his mother Ruth's voice providing a funny, funky, in-your-face melody. Full of laughter, insight, pain, understanding, and great love, The Color of Water transcends race and touches the spirit:" Jill Nelson, author of Volunteer Slavery "In his compelling tribute to his white mother, James McBride looks into the face of Ruthie McBride Jordan to uncover his own identity-his humanity and finds that he is as much the grandchild of an itinerant Jewish rabbi as the child of the all-black Red Hook Projects and that his mother had shared this truth with him decades earlier when she explained that God's spirit is the `color of water: " Senator Bill Bradley Co-funded by Office of Student Life, CIRD grant and Black History Month Committee. Back to top


	Spring 2002 *Bergen Is Reading Push* by Sapphire MARCH 27, 2002 SAPPHIRE at BCC, 11:30 Main Theater.** Push is Sapphire's electrifying novel about a sixteen year-old Harlem girl, the victim of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse who finds hope and her own voice when a black teacher teaches her to read and record her life in a journal. It raises questions about education, parenting, racism and the importance of life. It jolts the nerves. . .and touches the heart. You won't put it down until you're finished. To read more about the author and her novel click HERE. The Literary Art Series Questions I Vintage Resources I Voices I Using Sapphire's Push "The miracle of Push is that, even at its most devastating, it is also a story about faith and possibility." Chicago Times "To read the story [is] magic... [It is] paint-peelingly profane and thoroughly real." The Washington Post "[Precious's] voice is blunt and unadorned, sorrowful as a foghorn and so wholly engulfing that despite its bro�ken words it generates single-handedly the moving power of this novel." The New York Times Book Review "Precious's story, told through her own unique style and spelling, is a major achievement. It documents a remarkable resilience of spirit." Boston Globe Co-sponsored by Faculty Development, Office of Student Life and Women's History Month Committee. Back to top About Us
	Prof. Lou Ethel Roliston	Dr. Jessica Datema	Prof. Stacey Balkan
	The LAS encourages intercultural understanding and literacy by promoting the reading of a chosen author�s work (novel, memoir, play, poetry) each year. The LAS invites the college and larger community to meet the author on campus. The LAS makes materials available to individual readers and to teachers who use the work in their classes as part of their diversity curriculum. Such materials include: biographical information, reviews, excerpts, reading questions, the LAS web site, and links to related sites. The Literary Arts Series has been inspired by the effort of a Seattle librarian, Nancy Pearl, who created an original citywide reading project "If All Seattle Read the Same Book" during the National Library Week in 1998. She made the city of Seattle get together as a reading community (Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying). Since, many other cities have followed suit, most notably Chicago, which read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The enormous success of this was in part due to the nature of the reading and the Mayor's outward support. For a listing of cities which developed similar projects, including New York, click on Seattle Times. We would like to create a college-wide community of readers who would not be likely to read and discuss their ideas together. We invite students and faculty from all Departments and Student Clubs at Bergen, local high schools and Bergen County residents. Back to top Book Recommendations I American Library Association I Oprah's Books I Back to top
	[Composition and Literature] [English Department]


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