Events

Events

The current event calendar for the University Libraries can be accessed here.

2022

DATE: Saturday, September 10, 2022 from 10am to 4pm
EVENT: Culper Spy Day
LOCATION: Various
The 8th annual Culper Spy Day will be held on Saturday, September 10 (rain date:  September 11).  A collaboration of more than thirty local institutions and organizations, Culper Spy Day is an activity-filled day of community events highlighting the history behind George Washington’s intelligence gathering ring. Special Collections will have on view facsimiles (copies) of its two George Washington letters at the headquarters of the Three Village Historical Society in Setauket, New York.

While this is a FREE community wide event, there are fees associated with specific experiences. Visit the event website for more information: https://www.tvhs.org/culper-spy-day 

DATE: Saturday, October 1, 2022 from 12pm to 4pm
EVENT: CommUniversity Day
LOCATION: Academic Mall, Stony Brook University, west campus
Stony Brook University’s CommUniversity Day will be held on Saturday, October 1, 2022. Arising out of the campus Plan for Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, this event will showcase the many facets of the campus community. The day has been planned for our neighbors, regional partners, alumni, employees and other friends. CommUniversity Day will highlight the campus through hands-on, interactive activities, fun entertainment, and thought-provoking mini-talks. We encourage families to attend. CommUniversity Day will be held on the Academic Mall from noon to 4 p.m. "Neighborhoods" will be stationed throughout the mall area for visitors to explore. From music to medicine, from food to fun, we invite you to explore all that Stony Brook has to offer.

CommUniversity Day admission is free and open to the public. Visit the event website for more information: https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/communiversity

DATE: Thursday, October 6, 2022 from 1pm to 3:30pm
EVENT: Art Crawl
LOCATION: see below
Free guided tours of diverse art galleries - joinat any point on the tour! 
Link to SBU Maps & Directions

Stony Brook University hosts a variety of renowned art galleries that provide unique spaces and opportunities for cultural and artistic exchanges and collaborations. Our art crawls unite our university’s galleries through a series of free guided tours led by expert curators. This initiative directly supports the university’s commitment to celebrating diversity and promotes the university’s place in the global community. Each art crawl will offer tours of five galleries, visiting each for about 30 minutes.

1:00 | Charles B. Wang Center, Skylight Gallery, Zodiac Gallery
1:30 | Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, Staller Center for the Arts, Level 1
2:00 | Melville Library, Lawrence Alloway Memorial Gallery, Level 1
2:30 | Melville Library, Central Reading Room, Level 1
3:00 |Simons Center Gallery, Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Level 1

DATE: Thursday, November 3, 2022
EVENT: Research Methods and Sources for Native American Heritage Month
LOCATION: virtual
More details to come!

DATE: Wednesday, November 9, 2022
EVENT: Veterans Day Ceremony
More details to come!

PAST EVENTS

2019 

DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 2019
EVENT: VETERANS DAY CEREMONY
Special Collections exhibition at the ceremony reception.
Special Collections will be hosting an event for attendees of the Veterans Day Ceremony from 3pm to 4pm. Melville Library, E-2320, level 2.

DATE: Saturday, September 21, 2019
EVENT: COMMUNIVERSITY DAY
Special Collections will have on view from 12pm-1pm an original George Washington Culper Spy Ring letter authored in 1779. Melville Library, E-2320, level 2.

DATE: Saturday, September 14, 2019
EVENT: CULPER SPY DAY
Save the Date! Saturday, September 14, 2019 marks the 5th Annual Culper Spy Day.
Celebrate “Culper Spy Day: Our Revolutionary Story” with us. A collaboration of more than 25 local institutions and organizations, Culper Spy Day is an activity-filled day of community events highlighting the amazing history behind George Washington’s intelligence gathering ring. Special Collections, Melville Library, E-2320 will have on view its two George Washington letters from 10am to 12pm. Please note: A ticket is required to access all participating venues. To purchase tickets and read about the day’s activities, please visit the website of the Three Village Historical Society.

DATE: Tuesday, September 10, 2019
EVENT: FALL 2019 ART CRAWL
Join us on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 from 3 pm to 5pm for tours at:
Simons Center Gallery
North Reading Room - Melville Library
Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery - Staller Center
Skylight Gallery - Charles B. Wang Center
Reception will follow at the Charles B. Wang Center. Free and open to all - join at any point!
View the schedulehere.

DATE: February 15, 2019 to September 2, 2019
EVENT: WALT WHITMAN'S ARCADIA: LONG ISLAND THROUGH THE EYE OF A POET & PAINTERS
View two of our rare editions of "Leaves of Grass" at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook.Read more...

DATE: Saturday, June 1, 2019 from 10:30am to 12pm
EVENT: CELEBRATING THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1969

Register and join us at Alumni Relations' reunion weekend for the Class of 1969! All guests are invited to a special visit and tour of the University Archives to explore and revisit university history through a display of photographs, newspaper articles, yearbooks, and artifacts.Read more...

DATE: February 1, 2019 to May 27, 2019
EVENT: “LONG ROAD TO FREEDOM” EXHIBITION: SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AT THE LONG ISLAND MUSEUM
A rare manuscript from Special Collections documenting slavery on Long Island is currently on view through May 27 at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook. Featured in the new exhibition “Long Road to Freedon: Surviving Slavery on Long Island” is the contract for the sale of “Jack” in Southampton, Long Island, New York, dated March 21, 1798. “Jack,” aged 17 years and five months, was conveyed from Josiah Hand to William H. Helme for a period of six years and seven months, and was then to be freed. The sheet measures 23 cm x 30 cm and is signed at the bottom by Josiah Hand and William H. Helme, and witnessed by Jesse Hedges and Ithuel Hill. The document includes two small wax seals. A transcription can be read here.Read more...

DATE: JANUARY 31, 2019 to May 5, 2019
EVENT: RARE LONG ISLAND MAPS FROM SPECIAL COLLECTIONS FEATURED AT REBOLI CENTER
Rare maps from Special Collections are currently on view through May 5 in the History Gallery at the Reboli Center for Art and History in Stony Brook. The exhibition runs concurrently with On the Road, a selection of paintings by Joseph Reboli, Kelynn Z. Alder, Cynthia Crowell Doom, and Pam duLong Williams. On the Road celebrates travel and the new vistas and people seen on these ventures. Read more...

DATE: Friday, May 3, 2019 from 2pm to 6:30pm
EVENT: “STARTING FROM PAUMANOK: WHITMAN, LONG ISLAND, THE WORLD" 

“Starting from Paumanok: Whitman, Long Island, The World” is a half-day symposium at Stony Brook University that will explore Walt Whitman’s impact on literature, music, and the visual arts. Topics will include Whitman’s Poetic Legacy, Whitman’s New York, and Whitman and the Civil War. The event will culminate with a lecture and performance featuring 2018 MacArthur Fellow Matthew Aucoin, composer and writer of the operaCrossing, based on Whitman’s Civil War writings. Leading American operatic baritone Rod Gilfry will perform with Aucoin. The opera was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2017 and by the Los Angeles Opera in 2018. This lecture-performance will offer a rare opportunity for audiences in the New York area to hear this critically acclaimed work.

Sponsored and supported by a FAHSS grant award, the Run Run Shaw Fund, the University Libraries, Humanities Institute, the Departments of English and Music, and the Office of the Provost. Free and open to the public. A selection of rare poetry works from Special Collections, SBU Libraries’ will be on display at the program.

SESSION I
2:30pm to 3:00 pm
Whitman’s New York:  “Whitman’s Arcadia: Long Island through the Eyes of of a Poet and Painters” (Joshua Ruff, Chief Curator/Director of Collections and Interpretation, Long Island Museum)

3:00pm to 3:30 pm
“A Sense of Place: Evoking Whitman’s Long Island” (SBU English PhD students present research for Long Island Museum exhibition on Whitman and walking tour)

3:30pm to 3:45 pm (Break)

SESSION II
3:45pm to 4:15 pm
"Walt Whitman, Rural New Yorker" (Professor Karen Karbiener, New York University)

SESSION III
4:15pm to 4:45 pm 
Whitman and the Civil War “Whitman the Wound Dresser” (SBU English Professor Susan Scheckel) “Civil War and Whitman’s Homoeroticism” (SBU English PhD student Andrew Rimby)

4:45pm to 5:00 pm (Break; travel to Recital Hall, Staller Center for the Arts Recital Hall)

SESSION IV
5:00pm to 6:30 pm 

"Walt Whitman and the Ethics of Optimism"
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Walt Whitman, this lecture and performance feature 2018 MacArthur Fellow Matthew Aucoin, composer and writer of the critically acclaimed original opera Crossing, based on Walt Whitman’s Civil War writings. Aucoin will discuss Whitman, the creation of Crossing and the themes the opera addresses. Leading American operatic baritone Rod Gilfry, who originated the role of Whitman, will perform with Aucoin. The opera was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2017 and by the Los Angeles Opera in 2018. This event offers a rare opportunity for audiences in the New York area to hear this critically acclaimed work.
American composer, conductor, writer, and pianist Matthew Aucoin  was named a 2018 MacArthur Fellow for his achievements in “expanding the potential of vocal and orchestral music to convey emotional, dramatic, and literary meaning.” His musical works vividly communicate the nuances, ambiguities, and multiple meanings of texts in musical form. Matthew Aucoin graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College (A.B. 2012) and earned a Graduate Diploma (2014) from the Juilliard School. He is both Artist-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Opera and co-artistic director of the newly-formed American Modern Opera Company. Aucoin is currently at work on a new opera,Eurydice, which has been co-commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Opera.

DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 2019 from 1pm to 2pm
EVENT: "WALT WHITMAN'S POETIC LEGACY"

To kick off National Poetry Month in 2019, join us at Stony Brook University for a poetry reading and discussion examining Walt Whitman’s influence on the poetry and culture of the Americas. Stony Brook University professors and award-winning poets Rowan Ricardo Phillips and Cornelius Eady will address Whitman’s impact in the U.S. and Caribbean, and on their own poetry. A selection of rare poetry works from SBU Libraries’ Special Collections will be on display at the program. Sponsored and supported by a FAHSS grant award, Run Run Shaw Fund, University Libraries, Humanities Institute, and the Department of English. Free and open to the public.

DATE: Wednesday, March 27 from 2pm to 4pm 
EVENT: ART CRAWL

Free Guided Tours of Various Art Galleries on the Stony Brook University Campus! Join in at any point on the tour!  

2 pm to 2:20 pm: SIMONS CENTER FOR GEOMETRY AND PHYSICS, Simons Center Gallery
FRANK MELVILLE JR. MEMORIAL LIBRARY
2:30 pm to 2:40 pm: Special Collections, Level 2, Room E-2320 - Extraordinary Book Arts of Walter Hamady and the Perishable Press Ltd.
2:45pm to 2:55pm: North Reading Room, Level 2 -  Student Art Exhibition
3:00 pm to 3:25 pm: CHARLES B. WANG CENTER,  Skylight Gallery, Zodiac Gallery
The Studio: Through a Surrealistic Lens
3:30 pm to 4:00 pm:  STALLER CENTER FOR THE ARTS,  Zuccaire Gallery
MFA Thesis Exhibition (on view March 25-April 18)
4:00 pm: RECEPTION, ZUCCAIRE GALLERY
Light refreshments will be served. 
Map and Directions to Stony Brook University.

Event Archive

2017 and 2018 coming soon

2016

Special Collections Event: “Confucius: His Thoughts About Food”
Join us on Wednesday, May 4 at 1pm for “Confucius: His Thoughts About Food,” a lecture by Dr. Jacqueline M.…Read more › 

History of Costumes and the Arabian Nights Discussed at Writers Series
On Tuesday March 22, an engaged audience of students, faculty, staff, and community members attended the second event of the…Read more ›

Writers Series Event on Tuesday, March 22
SBU professors Celia Marshik and Sue Bottigheimer will be the featured speakers at the University Libraries Writers Series program on…Read more › 

University Libraries Writers Series – Registration Open
The University Libraries is proud to sponsor a series of free lectures and conversations with Stony Brook faculty and visiting authors.…Read more ›

August to December 2015

Dalí in Wonderland
This November marks the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). Located in Special…Read more ›

Special Visit at Patriot’s Rock with Speaker Heastie and Assemblyman Englebright
Constantia Constantinou, Dean of University Libraries, and Kristen Nyitray, Head of Special Collections and University Archives, and University Archivist, were…Read more ›

Special Collections Open House on Wednesday from 12-2 p.m.
Spy Letters, Rare Books and More! Learn about Special Collections and University Archives at our open house on Wednesday, October Read more ›

Students Transcribe Rare Long Island Slavery Document
Students in professor Douglas Pfeiffer’s EGL 494 course, “English Honors Practicum: Research” recently transcribed a rare manuscript, documenting slavery on…Read more › 

Special Collections and University Archives Open House September 25, 2015
Special Collections and University Archives hosted an open house on Friday, September 25, 2015. The event began with a presentation…Read more ›

Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History
Books from the Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection, part of Special Collections of the University Libraries, are currently exhibited…Read more ›

Special Collections Researcher Spotlight: Victoria Wood
Special Collections and University Archives will be profiling researchers that have consulted collections in the department. SBU student Victoria Wood…Read more ›

June 2015

Special Collections and University Archives
Stony Brook Train Station, 1905, Robert M. Emery Long Island Rail Road Collection
Spy letters written by George Washington during the American Revolution. A history of the world published in 1493. The first map depicting Long Island as an island. Photographs of Stony Brook’s original train station. These are just a few examples of the one-of-a-kind, library collections awaiting for you to research in Special Collections and University Archives. Stony Brook University’s collections of rare books, manuscripts, and archives comprise the largest repository of archival materials on Long Island. Special Collections and University Archives stewards these distinctive primary source materials. Items are housed in this separate section of the Melville Library, due to artifactual or monetary value, physical format, and rarity.Special Collections was honored by the New York Board of Regents and New York State Archives, when it was awarded the “Annual Archives Award for Program Excellence in a Historical Records Repository.” All are welcome toschedule an appointment to access the collections. Visit the department’s website and research guide for more information.

From June 5-7, graduates of the Class of 1965 will visit campus in celebration of their 50th class reunion. Special Collections and University Archives will host an open house on Saturday, June 6 for the alums, featuring an exhibit of photographs, newspapers, yearbooks, and artifacts that document the early history of the university. An extensive photo gallery compiled from the 1961 to 1965Specula yearbooks can be viewed here. The entire run of yearbooks has also been digitized and is freely accessible online. Welcome Class of 1965!

May 2015

“Food and China’s Silk Road: Influences to and from the West,” a sold-out event co-sponsored by the University Libraries, was held Wednesday, May 6, in the Charles B. Wang Center. An engaged and enthused audience of students, faculty/staff, and community members gathered for a spirited lecture by historian Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman and a food tasting. Guests learned about the East-West cultural exchanges that occurred on the Silk Road through the medium of food, and sampled dishes prepared from recipes selected by Dr. Newman. This year marked the tenth anniversary of the annual cultural event. Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman is professor emerita, Queens College, and the founder and editor of the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune, the first and only English-language quarterly about Chinese food and dietary culture. Dr. Newman has donated more than 4,000 Chinese cookbooks, culinary magazines, and related audio-visual materials to Special Collections, Stony Brook University Libraries. It is the largest collection of its type in the world. Dr. Newman has established an endowment for collection care and event programming. For more information, please visit the guide for the collection.

Food and China's Silk Road: Influences to and from the West
by Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman 
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 1 PM
Charles B. Wang Center Theatre
Dr. Newman will discuss the East-West cultural exchanges that occurred on the Silk Road through the medium of food. Cultural exchange through food began in the city of Xian, China and continued on through the Mediterranean and beyond. A food tasting will follow Dr. Newman’s presentation, featuring recipes from the Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection, part of Stony Brook University Libraries’ Special Collections. Copies of the recipes will be provided to guests. Free Admission and Free Tasting; RSVP Required for Guaranteed Seating. Co-sponsored by Special Collections of the University Libraries, The Confucius Institute and the Charles B. Wang Center. Dr. Newman is professor emerita, Queens College and in addition to her impressive record of publication, her career as an educator, and being named the 2009 recipient of the Amelia Award, an honor bestowed for outstanding lifetime achievement in culinary history, she is the founder and editor of the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune. It is the first, and the only, American, English-language quarterly about Chinese food and Chinese dietary culture. It was in 2002 that she decided to share her passion for this area of study and collecting. She visited many libraries to see if there was interest in her collection. After much careful consideration, Dr. Newman selected our library at Stony Brook to be the home for her one of a kind collection. In the years since, she has annually donated new materials to the collection and has provided support to ensure the growth and maintenance of it. Special Collections, located in the Melville Library, manages and curates the collection. All are welcome to consult it, by appointment. For more information, please visit the website for the collection.

March 2015

From the Archives: President Stanley Gives SBU Memento
President Stanley gives Speaker Heastie an article written about him when he was an SBU student.
When Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley met with New York State Assembly Speaker and Stony Brook alum Carl Heastie in Albany on March 17, he presented Speaker Heastie with a framed copy of an archived article written about him when he was a student reporter for Stony Brook’s Blackworld newspaper. Read more here.

Student newspapers, including Blackworld, The Stony Brook Press, and The Stony Brook Statesman, along with yearbooks and other historic materials that document university and campus life, are part of the University Archives. These collections have been digitized and can be freely accessed online. Learn more about Special Collections and University Archives here.

2014

2014: Through December 28, 2014: George Washington letter (1779, facsimile) and short film about its acquisition and conservation on view at The Long Island Museum. "Long Island at War," currently on exhibition at the The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages (Stony Brook, NY), is exhibiting a facsimile (copy) of Stony Brook University's 1779 George Washington letter and a short film about its acquisition and conservation. "Long Island has been a crucial and often unsung actor in nearly every war in our nation’s history. Long Island at War will bring this fascinating past to life, exploring the region’s contributions to each major military engagement since the American Revolution. From the Battle of Long Island in 1776 to the “arsenal of democracy” created by Grumman and other Long Island-based companies in World War II to the solemn resting place provided to today’s fallen military heroes at Calverton (the largest national cemetery in the United States), this region’s role has been vital, multifaceted, and ever-present." For more information, visit the museum's website.

September 10, 2014: New Special Collections' online exhibition showcases the work of noted Long Island artist Charles Henry Miller
Special Collections' rare set of "New York and Long Island Landscapes" is now available for viewing in a new online exhibition. Comprised of 45 oversized plates, Charles Henry Miller's artwork of regional landscapes were etched by August Barry; the engraved etchings on paper were published in New York in 1889. Miller (March 20, 1842–January 21, 1922) was referred to as "The artistic discoverer of the little continent of Long Island" by poet Bayard Taylor. 

September 9, 2014: Special Collections' rare book featured in exhibition at The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University
Special Collections' rare book Krieg dem Kriege! Guerre à la guerre! War against War! Oorlog aan den Oorlog! (1924), authored by Ernst Friedrich, is currently on loan to The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. Published in four languages, in War Against War, Friedrich, an anti-war, youth anarchism leader in Germany, documented the suffering of soldiers during World War I and the political forces that influenced it, by compiling shocking photographs of injuries and the aftermath of the war. "Rose Projects 1B| 1914: Magnus Plessen is presenting recent work by Berlin-based painter Magnus Plessen (b.1967) alongside the historical materials and documents of World War I that inspired this body of work. For years, Plessen has returned repeatedly to look at Ernst Friedrich’s War Against War (1924), the seminal anti-war polemic that used censored photographs to reveal the grim realities of the war, including graphic images of the facial wounds suffered by soldiers in the trenches.  Read more...

September 5, 2014: Salvatore LaGumina Collection, a special collection, is open for research.
The Salvatore LaGumina Collection documents Dr. LaGumina's career as an educator and his research on Italian Americans, in particular those who settled on Long Island, New York, with an emphasis on Nassau County. Comprised of 68 boxes of primary and secondary source materials, totaling 44 linear ft. and dating from 1900 to 2008, the collection is now accessible for research use in Special Collections and University Archives. Salvatore J. LaGumina, the son of Italian immigrants, was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1928. Professor Emeritus of History at Nassau Community College, Dr. LaGumina completed his Bachelor’s degree at Duquesne University and earned a M.A. and Ph.D. from St. John’s University. His dissertation, Vito Marcantonio, Labor and the New Deal, 1935-1940, was revised and published in 1969.

In 1966, he was one of a small group of scholars who met at the LaGuardia Memorial House in New York City to found the American Italian Historical Association (AIHA), an organization which helped lay the groundwork for the interdisciplinary field of Italian American Studies. He has served the association in many capacities, including as president, vice-president, member of the executive council, editor of the proceedings of the annual conference, and founder of the local Long Island Regional Chapter of the AIHA. Additionally, he has worked closely with several national organizations, including the National Italian American Foundation, and the Commission for Social Justice of the Order Sons of Italy in America, for which he held the position of college liaison.

As a scholar, Dr. LaGumina has written, edited and co-edited several books and articles on the Italian American experience. Years of research and involvement with the Italian community on Long Island have contributed to his reputation as a leading authority on this field of scholarship. His has been an invited speaker at local events and at professional conferences for diverse audiences, ranging from community members to academic groups, on the topics of Italians on Long Island, the Italian American experience, as well as more general presentations on immigration. Among the books that he has authored or edited are: From Steerage to Suburb: Long Island Italians; WOP: A Documentary History of Anti-Italian Discrimination in the United States; The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia; and The Immigrants Speak: Italian Americans Tell Their Story. He has also authored numerous book reviews and “letters to the editor” in popular newspapers and the Italian American press.

Dr. LaGumina received Nassau Community College’s Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award in 1992. The Consortium of Long Island Italian American Organizations awarded him the “Man of the Year in Education” in 1989. In 2002, the Association of Italian American Educators honored him with their “Educator of the Year Award for Lifetime Achievement.” His work, The Humble and the Heroic: Wartime Italian Americans was recognized when he received the “Pietro di Donato, John Fante Literary Award” in 2007. Upon his retirement from Nassau Community College in 1994, he assumed the position of director of the college's newly created "Center for Italian American Studies."

August 26, 2014: "The William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection at Stony Brook University" by Kristen J. Nyitray and Raiford Guins.
Read the article published in Metropolitan Archivist, Volume 20, No. 2, Summer 2014, pp. 6-9.

July 2014: Dr. Daniel Thomas Moran Donates Autographed Books and Archival Materials

Special Collections received a donation of autographed books – literature and poetry – and archival materials, from Stony Brook University alumnus Dr. Daniel Thomas Moran. His series of donations over the past eight years include his own published and unpublished manuscripts, and more than 350 books, including works by Allen Ginsberg, Kurt Vonnegut, Spalding Gray, Colum McCann, and Billy Collins. In 2008, Dr. Moran donated his personal papers (manuscripts, correspondence, and journals) to Special Collections. He has also facilitated the donations of several other important Long Island artists and poets.

Dr. Moran’s works have appeared in prestigious journals, such as Confrontation, The Recorder, Nassau Review, Oxford, National Forum, Hawaii Pacific Review, Commonweal, Parnassus, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prairie Poetry, The New York Times, The Journal of The American Medical Association, Literary Matters (Oxford University Press), Medical Humanities Journal, Hektoen International, Humanist Network News, Humanist Living, Nassau Review, The Seventh Quarry, Exit 13 and The Norton Critical Anthology on Darwin. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize on eight occasions. He had a number of his essays published in The New York Times, Newsday, The Easthampton Star and The Shelter Island Reporter. From 1997 to 2005 he served as Vice President of The Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in West Hills, New York where he instituted The Long Island School of Poetry Reading Series and has been Literary Correspondent to Long Island Public Radio where he hosted Poet’s Corner and The Long Island Radio Magazine.

His seventh collection, A Shed for Wood, was published by Salmon Poetry (2013). Daniel and Karen Moran pledged a major gift to Stony Brook University in 2013.  A residuary bequest, it states the Morans will leave a portion of their estate to Special Collections. Learn more about their generous gift here.

July 2014: Dr Jacqueline M. Newman Donates Rare and Unique Research Collections

Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman recently made another significant gift of books, magazines, and audio-visual materials to Special Collections. Stony Brook University Libraries is extremely honored to have the Jacqueline  M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection, a historically significant, specialized research collection comprised of more than 4,000 books, and hundreds of more unique items that document the history of Chinese food and culture. It is the largest collection of its type in the world.

Dr. Newman is a trailblazer – she is professor emerita, Queens College - and in addition to her impressive record of publication, her career as an educator, and being named the 2009 recipient of the Amelia Award, an honor bestowed for outstanding lifetime achievement in culinary history, she is the founder and editor of the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune. It is the first, and the only, American, English-language quarterly about Chinese food and Chinese dietary culture.

It was in 2002 that she decided to share her passion for this area of study and collecting. She visited many libraries to see if there was interest in her collection. After much careful consideration, Dr. Newman selected our library at Stony Brook to be the home for her one of a kind collection. In the years since, she has annually donated new materials to the collection and has provided support to ensure the growth and maintenance of it. Special Collections, located in the Melville Library, manages and curates the collection. Students, staff, faculty, community members, and remote users are all welcome to consult it, by appointment. For more information, please visit the website for the collection.

May 9 to May 31, 2014
"Chinese Moon Cake and Wooden Molds," a collection of Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman, is currently a featured display in the Charles B. Wang Center. According to Dr. Newman, "The Chinese adore and eat moon cake delicacies. They consume them as a slice or a small wedge of one moon cake, and they enjoy them shared with family and friends during the important holiday they know as the Mid-Autumn Festival; Zhongquijie in Chinese. This event is one of their most important celebrations, second only to their New Year holiday that is also known as Spring Festival. Both of these festivals are Lunar calendar holidays." Read more...

Thursday, May 7, 2014
"The Chinese in the United States: Their Early Cookbooks and Restaurants"

Cookbooks are a treasured source of cultural information, history, social relationships, and recipes. Acclaimed and award-winning food historian, scholar, and registered dietitian Dr. Jacqueline Newman will discuss the very first Chinese sojourners to the United States and share fascinating tales of their early years on American soil. Dr. Newman will also highlight the first Chinese cookbooks published in the U.S., expound upon what and why Americans love Chinese cuisine, and advise as to where to find it locally. A food tasting will follow her presentation, featuring recipes from the Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection, part of Stony Brook University Libraries' Special Collections. Comprised of more than 4,000 rare and scarce English-language cookbooks and unique research materials, it is the world's largest collection of its type. Copies of the recipes will be available to guests.

This event is FREE and open to all, but registration is requested. Reserve tickets here. Date and Time: Wednesday, May 7: presentation at 12:45 p.m; reception to follow at 1:30 p.m. Tickets for the reception will be distributed upon arrival.
Location: Theater, Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook University
For more information, contact kristen.nyitray@stonybrook.edu or call 631.632.7119.

Fall 2013

October 2013: Premier of Documentary "Greetings from Fire Island"
Greetings from Fire Island, a documentary researched and written by Frank Turano, a research assistant professor in Stony Brook University’s Department of Ecology and Evolution, will air October 31 at 10 pm on WLIW21.  Segments of the documentary were filmed in the Melville Library. The film is part of WLIW’s program “Long Island Screening Room,” which spotlights the work of professional and student filmmakers who work or study on Long Island. Executive Producer Diane Masciale hosts the series and conducts interviews with those connected with the films about their respective journeys. “Long Island Screening Room” also shares news about the film culture on Long Island including film festivals, new university programs, special events and more. Click here to read a Huffington Post article about the film.

October 2013: Documentary "When Games Games Went Click: The Story of Tennis for Two"
Created in 1958 by American physicist William A. Higinbotham for visitors at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)  in Upton, NY, Tennis for Two is pivotal in the history of video games. The documentary “When Games Went Click: The Story of Tennis for Two” chronicles the development of the game and its re-creation, currently underway at BNL. “When Games Went Click” was made possible by the Brookhaven Science Associates and Stony Brook Collaborative Research Alliance SEED Grant Program for joint initiatives between scientists and Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Concept and grant produced by Raiford Guins, Kristen J. Nyitray and Peter Takacs. Script by Raiford Guins and Laine Nooney. Direction and production by The Vladar Company. The William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection at Stony Brook University invests in and is dedicated to: collecting and preserving the texts, ephemera, and artifacts that document the history and work of early game innovator and Brookhaven National Laboratory scientist William A. Higinbotham, who invented the first interactive analog computer game, Tennis for Two; and documenting the material culture of electronic screen-based game media. Learn more about this initiative at: http://www.stonybrook.edu/libspecial/videogames/index.html. 

Read the Stony Brook University feature article: “The World’s First Video Game?” (October 18. 2013)

SPRING 2013

Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 4 p.m.
Center for Italian Studies Conference: "The Italian Literary Canon in Nineteenth-Century England"
Organized by Giuseppe Gazzola, Stony Brook University, with presentations by Professors Anthony Oldcorn, Brown University, Giuseppe Gazzola and Robert Viscusi, CUNY/Brooklyn. The event includes a rare books exhibit from the Special Collections of the University Libraries. A Victorian high tea will follow, with commemorative "Foscolo" cupcakes. Free and open to all.
Location:
Center for Italian Studies Meeting Hall, E-4340, Melville Library
Nicolls Road 
Main Entrance
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Phone: (631) 632-7444

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 12:45 p.m.
"Chinese Food and Herbs: Available, Fresh, Healthy, Natural, and Sustainable"
A lecture by Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman, with a food tasting to follow. This talk will explore the terms Available, Fresh, Healthy, Natural, and Sustainable and compare them to the health benefits of Chinese food, Chinese dishes, and Chinese herbs. Dr. Newman founded, and for nineteen years, has edited the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune. It is the first and the only American English-language quarterly about Chinese food and Chinese dietary culture. Her devotion to research and promotion of this dietary culture is well-known world-wide and is the pursuit of a lifetime of efforts, Her collection of over 3,000 books and complementary research materials is a special collection at Stony Brook University Libraries. Free and open to all. Co-sponsored by Special Collections of the University Libraries and the Charles B. Wang Center.
Location:
Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1
Nicolls Road 
Main Entrance
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Phone: (631) 632-4400

Friday, March 1, 2013 at 11 a.m.
Presentation and Open House in Special Collections for the Faculty Emeritus Association.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at  3 p.m.
Presentation by Richard Vetere: playwright, novelist, poet; film and TV writer, producer/director, actor
Center for Italian Studies, Melville Library, E-4340
Richard Vetere will  speak about being an Italian American writer, the influences, subconscious and conscious ones, of being Italian American as well as  writing about subjects outside of being Italian American.  He will comment on how he believes those not Italian American see him; especially, in his words, "What I have learned from reviews of my work concerning the idea of critics easily identifying  me as Italian American artist or not.  I have been reviewed by the Times to Variety and the critics perceptions are very interesting." In light of the many projects and papers he donated to the University Libraries'  Special Collections, he will talk about what it means to be a writer and pursue that artistic vision as a life's pursuit.  All are invited.  Free and open to the public.

2012

September 20, 2012
Please join us at a Bicentennial Celebration for poet and playwright Robert Browning on Thursday, September 20 at 4 p.m.
Featured speakers:
Mark Samuels Lasner, Senior Research Fellow, University of Delaware Library
Edward Giuliano, President, New York Institute of Technology
Rosanna Warren, poet and scholar, University of Chicago.
Victorian High Tea to Follow. Items from the personal collection of Mark Samuels Lasner and Special Collections, SBU Libraries, will be exhibited. FREE and open to all. Poetry Center, Second Floor, Humanities Building, Stony Brook University. Sponsored by the Department of English, Special Collections of the University Libraries, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

August 24, 2012
Special Collections' guide to digital Long Island documents and books was recently lauded by The Scout Report, a division of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The mission of the Long Island Historical Documents Collection is to acquire, organize, preserve, and provide access to primary and secondary source material that document the history of Long Island from the earliest settlers through the present, with a strong emphasis on the period of the American Revolution through the War of 1812 (1764-1812). Scout is part of the National Science Foundation’s National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Project. NSDL aims to be the largest science, technology, engineering and math digital library ever created. The project’s acclaimed reports and resource archive provide educators, students, researchers, and librarians with information about the most valuable online resources. Published every Friday since 1994, it is read by more than 250,000 readers every week. Read the post about the Long Island Collection here.

August 2, 2012
The university’s James Jay letter (1808) is featured in the August 2, 2012 edition of The Village Times Herald. James Jay (1732 -1815), American physician and politician, and elder brother of John Jay, supplied medicines to George Washington during the American Revolutionary War and developed an invisible ink used by Washington, Thomas Jefferson, his younger brother, John Jay, and members of the Culper Spy Ring. Historian and author Beverly C. Tyler writes, “With the acquisition of an 1808 letter…Special Collections and University Archives at Stony Brook University has again acquired a valuable Revolutionary-War era document.” Please click here to access the entire article (page A9) and visit the website of Special Collections and University Archives for more information about this letter.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012  at 1 p.m.
CHINESE CUISINE: HISTORY, ART, AESTHETICS & CULINARY APPEAL with Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman
Charles B. Wang Center,  Room 201, Stony Brook University
followed by food tasting
Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman founded, and for nineteen years, has edited the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune. It is the first and the only American English-language quarterly about Chinese food and Chinese dietary culture. Her devotion to research and promotion of this dietary culture is well-known world-wide and is the pursuit of a lifetime of efforts, Her collection of over 3,000 books and complementary research materials is a  special collection at Stony Brook University Libraries. Free and open to all! View the event flyer here. Sponsored by Wang Center's Asian and Asian American Programs, University Libraries and the Confucius Institute.

February 1, 2012
The William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection is the recipient of the 2012 "Douglas A. Noverr Grant for Collection Enhancement for Institutions to Build Popular Culture and American Culture Research Collections." The $5,000 award is sponsored by the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association. The grant was prepared by Kristen Nyitray, Head, Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist; Laine Nooney, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Cultural Analysis and Theory; and Raiford Guins, Associate Professor of Digital Cultural Studies, Department of Cultural Analysis and Theory. 

Funding will support the archive of Tennis for Two, the world’s first interactive, screen-based computer game developed by William A. Higinbotham in 1958, and expand the William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection (WHGSC), a larger collection development initiative at Stony Brook University that focuses on the history of video games.

2011

October 19, 2011
Special Collections to co-sponsor "Rebels, Resistors, and Rioters," a public program of lectures on the American Revolution and the Civil War on Saturday, November 12.
Special Collections and the Three Village Historical Society collaborated on a private grant sponsored by the New York Council for the Humanities. The project was awarded full funding ($3,000) and will support "Rebels, Resistors, and Rioters," a public program of lectures on the American Revolution and the Civil War. 
Confirmed presenters are Natalie S. Bober, an award-winning author of nine biographies, including Thomas Jefferson: Draftsman of a Nation (2007); Countdown to Independence: A Revolution of Ideas in England and Her American Colonies, 1760-1776 (2001); and Abigail Adams: Witness to A Revolution (1995); independent historian Barnet Schecter, author of George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps (2011); The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (2005); and The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (2002); Charles Backfish, Editor of the Long Island History Journal; and Kristen Nyitray, Head of Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist. The event will take place on Saturday, November 12 in the Charles B. Wang Asian American Center at Stony Brook University. Registration information will soon be posted on the website of the Three Village Historical Society.

September 15, 2011
"The Beginnings of Video Games": Special Event at the Museum of the Moving Image to be held on October 1, 2011.

June 17, 2011
Professor Raiford Guins of the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (SBU), Kristen J. Nyitray, Head of Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist (SBU), and Peter Takacs of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have been awarded a $9,000 joint seed grant from SBU and BNL to produce a documentary film on the history of the world's first interactive computer game "Tennis for Two" and the current efforts to reconstruct the game. William A. Higinbotham designed "Tennis for Two" in 1958 at BNL. 

Funding from the grant will also support:

• the acquisition of the analog and electronic components required to rebuild "Tennis for Two";

• publishing in digital format the documentary on the WHGSC website for public access;

• the distribution of archival quality copies of the documentary to: SBU’s Library; BNL’s archive; the Lemelson Center for Invention

• and Innovation at the Smithsonian Museum of American History; The Library of Congress; the Computer History Museum; The Strong National Museum of Play; and to public libraries in the vicinity of BNL;

• a series of public screenings of the documentary coupled with lectures at SBU and BNL.

June 2011

Kristen J. Nyitray's (Head of Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist) article “William Alfred Higinbotham: Scientist, Activist, and Computer Game Pioneer,” was published recently in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 96-101, Apr.-June 2011.May 2011

Librarians Kristen Nyitray and Hélène Volat and Professor Raiford Guins of the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (CLCS) have been awarded a $6,000 FAHSS Interdisciplinary Initiatives Grant.

FAHSS is a research and interdisciplinary initiatives fund supported by the Offices of the Provost, Vice President for Research, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University. The initiative encourages interdisciplinary dialogue, research, and teaching in the Fine Arts, Humanities, and lettered Social Sciences. Funding from the grant will support a workshop and a public program that focus on documenting and preserving videogame history and culture. The events will be held at the Museum of the Moving Image later this year.

In Fall 2011, after two years of teamwork between the University Libraries and CLCS, the William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection (WHGSC) will be launched. The collection will invest in and be dedicated to the scholarly study and material preservation of electronic screen-based game media, related texts, ephemera, and artifacts. SBU’s prominent location near NYC makes the collection a desirable research location for academic, journalistic, amateur and independent scholars nationwide. Specific project outcomes include the development of:  a research center for the history and work of early game innovator and Brookhaven National Laboratory scientist William A. Higinbotham, who invented the analog computer game, Tennis for Two in 1958, as well as for the material culture of games, including consoles, handhelds, peripherals, cartridges and box art, magazines, popular press and scholarly books, etc. SBU will be active in the larger community of preservation and will make a considerable contribution to the general study of game history via its documentation of Higinbotham’s invention.

2010

November 1-3, 2010
Exhibition: "Raising the Bar(code): 100 Years of Innovation and Inspiration"
Location: AIM Expo, Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Rosemont, IL
Sponsored by the AIDC 100 Archives at Special Collections, 
Stony Brook University Libraries

Monday, October 4th from 8:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.  (registration closed)
"The American Revolution on Long Island and in New York"
Student Activities Center, Room 305
Sponsored by the Three Village Historical Society in cooperation with Special Collections of the University Libraries and the Center for Global and Local History.
Guest speakers: 
Edward G. Lengel, Professor of History, University of Virginia and Editor-in-Chief of The George Washington Papers Project, will present George Washington: Unconventional Soldier. Edwin G. Burrows, Professor of History, Brooklyn College, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, will present The Prisoners of War of Occupied New York City, 1776-1783.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 from 12:30 to 2 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: An Afternoon of Poetry featuring Alexandra van de Kamp, Julie Sheehan, and
Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Javits Room, Melville Library (level 2)
Free and open to all. Refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by the University Libraries.

FALL 2009

Special Collections at Stony Brook University is the recipient of the 2009 New York Board of Regents and New York State Archives "Annual Archives Award for Program Excellence in a Historical Records Repository." Read the news announcement here.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11 at 12:45 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men featuring Michael Kimmel, Professor of Sociology. 
Program: To a growing list of books about the myths and mysteries of American boys and young males, Michael Kimmel, Professor of Sociology, adds this deft exploration grounded in research. Published by HarperCollins, Guyland is based on more than 400 interviews over a four-year span with young men, ages 16–26. "Michael Kimmel's Guyland could save the humanity of many young men—and the sanity of their friends and parents—by explaining the forces behind a newly extended adolescence. With accuracy and empathy, he names the problem and offers compassionate bridges to adulthood."- Gloria Steinem
Location: Javits Room (2nd floor of the Melville Library) 
Sponsor: University Libraries.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28 at 12:45 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: Art Work: Women Artists and Democracy in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York featuring April F. Masten, Associate Professor of History. 
Program: Mary Hallock made what seems like an audacious move for a nineteenth-century young woman. She became an artist. 
She was not alone. Forced to become self-supporting by financial panics and civil war, thousands of young women moved to New York City between 1850 and 1880 to pursue careers as professional artists. In her latest book Art Work: Women Artists and Democracy in 
Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York, April F. Masten, Associate Professor of History, recaptures the unfamiliar cultural landscape in which spirited young women, daring social reformers, and radical artisans succeeded in reuniting art and industry.
Location: Javits Room (2nd floor of the Melville Library) 
Sponsor: University Libraries.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 at 12:45 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg featuring Robert P. Crease, Professor of Philosophy. 
Program: Robert Crease tells the stories behind ten of the greatest equations in human history in The Great Equations. Was Nobel laureate Richard Feynman really joking when he called Maxwell's electromagneticequations the most significant event of the nineteenth century? How did Newton's law of gravitation influence young revolutionaries? Why has Euler's formula been called "God's equation," and why did a mysterious ecoterrorist make it his calling card? What role do betrayal, insanity, and suicide play in the second law of thermodynamics? Crease explains the significance of each of these formulas for science and, in brief "interludes" between chapters, explores the "journeys" these scientists took "from ignorance to knowledge," and the "social lives" of their theories-their impact on the larger culture.
Location: Javits Room (2nd floor of the Melville Library) 
Sponsor: University Libraries.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 at 12:45 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: Hotter than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture featuring Krin Gabbard, Professor of Comparative Literature and English.
Program: Hotter Than That, the latest book by Krin Gabbard, Professor of Comparative Literature and English, is a cultural history of the trumpet from its origins in ancient Egypt to its role in royal courts and on battlefields, and ultimately to its stunning appropriation by great jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Wynton Marsalis. "This is the smartest book about a single musical instrument that I've ever read. Like Miles Davis, who attended Juilliard and apprenticed with Charlie Parker, 
Krin Gabbard turns his immense learning into lines that are quick, witty, and irresistibly alluring." - Robert G. O'Meally, founder of The Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University
Location: Javits Room (2nd floor of the Melville Library) 
Sponsor: University Libraries.

SPRING 2009

MONDAY, APRIL 13 - FRIDAY, MAY 29 at the Charles B. Wang Center, Lower Level Lobby
SPECIAL ENCORE EXHIBITION 
"A Wok Through Chinese Culinary History: View Selections from the World's Largest English-Language Chinese Cookbook Collection"
Savor and digest the history of Chinese cuisine at a dramatic exhibition of the Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection. Stony Brook University's collection includes more than 3,000 cookbooks - from the oldest to the smallest to the longest, and everything in between - as well as many other fascinating culinary items. 
Sponsored by the Office of the President and the University Libraries.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13 at 4 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: Passport to Illness: Voyages In and Out of Medicine featuring Dr. Shetal Shah, M.D., Assistant Professor of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, Stony Brook University Medical Center. 
Program: In fourteen distinct narratives, Dr. Shetal Shah outlines in Passport to Illness: Voyages In and Out of Medicine not just the medical cases that make one a physician, but the personal stories, anecdotes, and relationships that each doctor brings to the bedside. From inner-city New York to the streets of Cuba to rural towns in Kenya, he guides you through his unique world, where the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and the bedside of a fragile, premature infant in New York are not far apart.
Location: Javits Room (2nd floor of the Melville Library) - Free and Open to All. 
Sponsor: University Libraries.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2009 FROM 12:30 - 2 p.m. at the Charles B. Wang Center, Room 301 
"Cooking from China’s Fujian Province" special lecture featuring food historian and scholar Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman. Reception follows with Fujianese food tasting. 
Fujian, a province in southeastern China, boasts a distinct culinary tradition that enjoys a thousand year old recorded history but is barely known in the Western world. Dr. Newman's latest book includes fascinating cultural and historical notes and features a collection of 200 easy to follow, authentic recipes that provide the perfect introduction to this unique cuisine. “Through her insightful writing and well-researched recipes, Ms. Newman is casting much-deserved light on the wonderful Fujian cooking and culture. Her scholarly approach and keen eye for detail make this book a joy to read and a real keeper for any library and kitchen.” -- Martin Yan, cookbook author and chef of TV cookery programs
FREE and Open to All. Sponsored by the University Libraries.

MONDAY, APRIL 20 at 4 p.m. at the Charles B. Wang Center, Lower Lobby 
Program, Readings, and Reception for the Herstory Writers Workshop Archive 
Erika Duncan, founder of Herstory Writers Workshop, is an acclaimed novelist and essayist whose work many Long Islanders know from her monthly front-page features in the New York Times (Long Island Weekly) during the 1990s, has selected Special Collections at Stony Brook University Libraries as the official repository for the Herstory Writers Workshop Archive and for her personal papers. Ms. Duncan will discuss the mission and work of Herstory Writers Workshop, a community memoir-writing project that provides women from all walks of life with a unique set of tools to help them turn their memories into literary works of art. More than 2000 women on Long Island have participated in the Herstory project, including women from Long Island's Latina community and women incarcerated in Suffolk County's prisons. A manual, Paper Stranger: Shaping Stories in Community, was recently published and brings this empathy-based approach to national and international audiences. The archive includes a sizable collection of papers from the Woman's Salon, a New York City-based network that met for ten years in Erika Duncan's Westbeth apartment, founded to give audience support and serious critical attention to works of writers who were not well known. Emerging works of now-known feminist writers such as Susan Griffin, Dorothy Dinnerstein, Blanche Wiesen Cook, and Olga Broumas were participants.
Please join us at this reception that will include readings from participants in the Herstory Writers Workshop and celebrate the archive at Stony Brook University. 
Sponsored by the West Campus Chapter of United University Professions, the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center, Center for Working Class Life, the Women's Studies Program, the Wang Center, the School of Social Welfare, and Special Collections. Free and open to all.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18 at 12:45 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: The Modern Russian Theater: A Literary and Cultural History featuring Nicholas Rzhevsky, Professor and Chair, Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.
Program: This comprehensive and original survey of Russian theater in the 20 th and 21 st centuries encompasses the major productions of directors that drew from Russian and world literature. It is the result of more than two decades of research and the author's professional experience working with the Russian director Yuri Liubimov. The book traces the transformation of literary works into the brilliant stagecraft that characterizes Russian theater.
Location: Javits Room (2nd floor of the Melville Library) 
Sponsor: University Libraries.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1 - MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2009 
In celebration of Chinese New Year, a selection of Chinese cookbooks from the Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection will be on display at the Ward Melville Heritage Organization's Educational and Cultural Center in Stony Brook Village.

SPRING 2008

SPECIAL EXHIBITION and RECEPTION
"A Wok Through Chinese Culinary History: View Selections from the World's Largest English-Language Chinese Cookbook Collection"
Savor and digest the history of Chinese cuisine at a dramatic new exhibition of the Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection. Stony Brook University's collection includes more than 3,000 cookbooks - from the oldest to the smallest to the longest, and everything in between - as well as many other fascinating culinary items. Don't miss this one-of-a-kind visual banquet for everyone interested in one of the world's greatest civilizations.

Special Reception
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 5 p.m.
FREE and Open to the Public
To R.S.V.P., please call (631) 632-6320

Exhibit runs Monday, April 28 - Friday, May 30
Charles B. Wang Center, Main Lobby
Stony Brook University 

Sponsored by the Office of the President and the University Libraries.
For a disability-related accommodation, call (631) 632-6270.

THURSDAY, April 17 at 4 p.m.
Melville Library Author Series: Italy Today: Facing the Challenges of the New Millennium featuring author and Stony Brook Distinguished Service Professor, Mario B. Mignone.
Program: Italy Today is a concise narrative of the nation's stunning transformation from the ashes of World War II to the leading economic and cultural power it is today. This book provides insights into the dynamics of Italy's progression from the Second World War, through the anthropologically revolutionary 1970s and '80s, and into the complexities of a postindustrial nation, negotiating the challenges created by industrial, economic, and cultural globalization. Encompassing the cultural, political, and economic spectrums, topics include: communism; socialism; foreign relations; terrorism; industrial and social transformations; education; emigration and immigration; family tradition; feminism; the transformation of class and gender roles; political favoritism and corruption; popular culture; culture and civil society; the broader problems of the development of civil society and the rule of law in southern Italy; and the role of politics in shaping contemporary Italy. The book devotes particular attention to the controversial issues of the role of the family in Italian society and economy, the insidious presence of the Mafia, the lasting influence of Catholicism, the impact of television, and the country's often unstable politics, framing all these as the result of a complex and unique relationship between the individual and the state, with the family acting as intermediary.
Location: Center for Italian Studies (4th floor of the Melville Library) 
Sponsors: The Center for Italian Studies and the University Libraries.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5 at 4 p.m. - CANCELED 
Melville Library Author Series
African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition: Black Women Writers from Wheatley to Morrison 
Program featuring faculty author Tracey L. Walters, Associate Professor of Africana Studies
Location: Javits Room, Melville Library, 2nd floor 
Program:  In her book African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition, professor Tracey L. Walters' comparative analysis of classical revisions by 18th and 19th century Black women writers Phillis Wheatley and Pauline Hopkins and 20th century writers Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, and Rita Dove reveals that Black women writers revise specific classical myths for artistic and political agency. Her study demonstrates that women rework myth to represent mythical stories from the Black female perspective and to counteract denigrating contemporary cultural and social myths that disempower and devalue Black womanhood. Through their adaptations of classical myths about motherhood, Wheatley, Ray, Brooks, Morrison, and Dove uncover the shared experiences of mythic mothers and their contemporary African American counterparts thus offering a unique Black feminist perspective to classicism. The women also use myth as a liberating space where they can 'speak the unspeakable' and empower their subjects as well as themselves.

“Not many scholars have the opportunity to trail blaze and publish a seminal work; Walters has a just that, and will make a major impact on scholarship in Classics, Black Studies, and Comparative Literature. Walters’ work fosters discussion on how black women have used the classics – as empowering, complicated, subtle; how black women signify off of one another; and generally how a handful of extremely important writers from a local or specific context found universal appeal. Walters moves from Phillis Wheatley to Rita Dove, while also discussing authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison. This is a wonderful array of significant authors.”--Patrice Rankine, Purdue University 
Sponsors: University Libraries and the Africana Studies Department

 FALL/WINTER 2007

New Exhibit Chronicles the History of Stony Brook University
Special Collections and University Archives has created a new exhibit that chronicles 50 years of Stony Brook University. The display features photographs, posters, and brochures from the archives that highlight defining moments in the University's history. The exhibit is located on the second floor of the Melville Library, between Special Collections and the Javits Room.

THURSDAY, November 8 at 4 p.m. in the Center for Italian Studies (4th floor of the Melville Library) 
Dedication of the Pietro di Donato Collection
Stony Brook University's Center for Italian Studies and the University Libraries will hold a dedication celebration on Thursday, 
November 8. Speakers at the event include scholars Fred Gardaphe and Louise Napolitano, filmmaker Joseph di Pasquale, and di Donato's sons, Pietro and Richard. The archive of Pietro di Donato includes manuscripts, notebooks, newspaper clippings, books, publications, personal effects, and photographs.

Di Donato was born in 1911 in West Hoboken, N.J. Although he had a limited formal education, he reached widespread popularity with his first novelChrist in Concrete (1939). The novel was inspired by the tragic death of di Donato’s father in a construction accident on Good Friday when di Donato was 12 years old. The novel was originally published as a short story by Esquire magazine but was soon after expanded into a full novel. It was later chosen for the Book of the Month Club, edging out John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, which was published the same year.  For more information about this event, contact Kristen Nyitray at 631-632-7119 or kristen.nyitray@stonybrook.edu.

FRIDAY, October 5 from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. in the Charles B. Wang Center 
From Captivity to Freedom: Long Island During the American Revolution
Conference featuring Edwin Burrows, Natalie Naylor, Alan Singer, John Staudt, and Gerard Sztabnik.
This conference is free but advance registration is required. 

WEDNESDAY, May 2 at 12:45 p.m. - Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1 
Chinese Food Can Be Good for Your Health!
Lecture featuring Dr. Jacqueline Newman
Chinese food is a favorite cuisine; but is it healthy? Recent reports have questioned the nutritional content of some appetizers and entrees served at Chinese restaurants. However, when prepared in an authentic way, this cuisine is one of the world’s most nutritious; it is ideal for your health and well being. Food historian, scholar, and registered dietitian Jacqueline M. Newman will discuss the use of herbs and other fresh ingredients in the Chinese diet. She will explain how to order and prepare Chinese food that is healthful and why the Chinese see no differences between food and medicine. The food tasting that follows her talk will illustrate these concepts and feature recipes from the Jacqueline M. Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection, a part of the University Libraries' Special Collections at Stony Brook. Free to all. 
Sponsors: University Libraries and Charles B. Wang Asian American Center

FEBRUARY - MAY 
Exhibit: Stony Brook University: From Forests and Fields to Bricks and Mortar
Location: Frank Melville, Jr. Memorial (Main) Library, North Reading Room
From Forests and Fields to Bricks and Mortar is an exhibition that illustrates the growth of Stony Brook University through the use of images from the vast photographic collection maintained by Special Collections and University Archives. It is presented in celebration of Stony Brook University's 50th Anniversary. The exhibit features as its centerpiece the original architectural model used by former University President John S. Toll in the 1960s and early 1970s to plan the campus.  Accompanying the 1971 model are 14 aerial photographs and maps that illustrate the rapid growth of the campus and the forecasted impact the University would have on the region.
Sponsor: Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries

THURSDAY, April 26 at 4:30 p.m. (Canceled; will be re-scheduled)
Melville Library Author Series
Times of Triumph, Times of Doubt: Science and the Battle for Public Trust 
Program featuring faculty author Elof Carlson, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus, Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Location: Javits Room, Melville Library, second floor. 
Program: The intent and uses of science are a continuing preoccupation, especially in public debates on issues such as new pharmaceuticals, cloning, stem cells, genetically modified foods, and assisted reproduction. Times of Triumph, Times of Doubt, written by the eminent geneticist and historian Elof Carlson, explores the moral foundations of science and their role in these hot button issues. Reception to follow. 
Sponsor: University Libraries

WEDNESDAY, April 11 at 7 p.m. 
Melville Library Author Series
A Feeling of Belonging: Asian American Women's Popular Culture, 1930-1960 
Program featuring faculty author Shirley Lim, Department of History
Location: Javits Room, Melville Library, second floor. 
Program: In A Feeling of Belonging, Shirley Lim highlights the cultural activities of young, predominantly unmarried Asian American women from 1930 to 1960. This period marks a crucial generation—the first in which American-born Asians formed a critical mass and began to make their presence felt in the United States. Dr. Lim traces the diverse ways in which these young women sought claim to cultural citizenship, exploring such topics as the nation's first Asian American sorority, Chi Alpha Delta; the cultural work of Chinese American actress Anna May Wong; Asian American youth culture and beauty pageants; and the achievement of fame of three foreign-born Asian women in the late 1950s. By wearing poodle skirts, going to the beach, and producing magazines, she argues, they asserted not just their American-ness, but their humanity: a feeling of belonging. Reception to follow. 
Sponsor: University Libraries

TUESDAY, April 17 at 4:30 p.m. 
Melville Library Author Series
Drawing on Experience in Adult and Continuing Education
Program featuring faculty author Paul Edelson, Dean, School of Professional Development
Location: Javits Room, Melville Library, second floor. 
Program: Based upon his experiences and scholarship, Dr. Paul Edelson will present an overview of present-day continuing higher education from the perspective of a senior level administrator who is also a prolific author, lecturer, critic, and observer of this dynamic field. His book examines continuing education as it is practiced in an urban community college, at a major national museum, and at a premier research university. Topics to be discussed include program development and administration, leadership, creativity and innovation, e-learning, staffing, budgeting, and the culture of higher education. Reception to follow. 
Sponsor: University Libraries

WEDNESDAY, March 28 at 4 p.m. 
Melville Library Author Series 
Operation Solomon: The Daring Rescue of Ethiopian Jews 
Program featuring faculty author Stephen Spector, Professor and Chairperson, Department of English 
Location: Javits Room, Melville Library, second floor. 
Program: "Operation Solomon" was one of the most remarkable rescue efforts in modern history, in which more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in little more than a day. Now, in this riveting volume, Stephen Spector offers the definitive account of this incredible story, based on over 200 interviews and exclusive access to confidential documents. Spector recounts how 20,000 Jews were willingly lured from their ancestral villages to Addis Ababa, expecting to be taken quickly from there to the Holy Land. Instead, they became pawns in a struggle between the Israeli government and Ethiopia's repressive dictator, who tried to coerce Israel into selling him weapons he needed in a losing war against rebel armies. In the resulting stalemate, the Jewish community was forced to live for nearly a year in squalid conditions. Spector describes the tense negotiations among Israelis, Ethiopians, and Americans, which became increasingly urgent as time ran low and the danger mounted. And he highlights the secret deals and sudden setbacks that nearly aborted the mission at the eleventh hour, even as Israeli jets sat on the runway in Ethiopia, waiting to take the Jews to the land for which they had yearned for generations. Recounting the full story for the first time, Operation Solomon is a stirring account of a heroic rescue achieved in the face of daunting odds. Reception to follow. 
Sponsor: University Libraries

Fall 2006 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7 at 4 p.m. 
Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America
Program featuring faculty author Peniel Joseph.
Location: Javits Room, Melville Library, second floor. 
Program: With the rallying cry of Black Power! in 1966, a group of black activists, including Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton, turned their backs on Martin Luther Kings pacifism and, building on Malcolm X's legacy, pioneered a radical new approach to the fight for equality. Waiting Til the Midnight Hour is a history of the Black Power movement, that storied group of men and women who would become American icons of the struggle for racial equality. Peniel E. Joseph traces the history of the men and women of the movementmany of them famous or infamous, others forgotten. Waiting Til the Midnight Hour begins in Harlem in the 1950s, where, despite the Cold Wars hostile climate, black writers, artists, and activists built a new urban militancy that was the movements earliest incarnation. In a series of character-driven chapters, we witness the rise of Black Power groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers, and with them, on both coasts of the country, a fundamental change in the way Americans understood the unfinished business of racial equality and integration. Drawing on original archival research and more than sixty original oral histories, this narrative history vividly invokes the way in which Black Power redefined black identity and culture and in the process redrew the landscape of American race relations. 

Peniel Joseph is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (Henry Holt, 2006) and Editor of The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era(Routledge, 2006).
Sponsors: University Libraries and The Department of Africana Studies

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 at 7:30 p.m. 
From Wiseguys to Wise Men: Masculinities and the Italian American Gangster
Program featuring faculty author Fred Gardaphe.
Location: The Center for Italian Studies, Melville Library, E-4340. 
Program: As the real American gangsters of yesterday recede into history, their iconic figures loom larger than ever. From Wiseguys to Wise Menstudies the cultural figure of the gangster and explores his social function in the construction and projection of masculinity in the United States. In the hands of Italian-American writers, the gangster becomes a telling figure in the tale of American race, gender, and ethnicity - a figure reflecting the experience of an immigrant group and the fantasy of a native population.

While this figure has been part of American literature since before Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it has only been with the revolution in cinema and the work of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese that the image of the gangster has been humanized and more broadly disseminated. The author investigates the role of the gangster in film, as well in the literature of such great Italian-American writers as Mario Puzo and Gay Talese.

Fred Gardaphe directs Stony Brook University's Italian/American Studies Program. His books include Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative, Dagoes Read: Tradition and the Italian/American Writer, Moustache Pete is Dead!, and Leaving Little Italy.
Sponsors: University Libraries and The Center for Italian Studies

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5 from 8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
"Truth in Technologies 2006: Efficiency, Safety and Privacy"
3rd Annual AIDC 100 Forum
Location: Wang Center
Program: The AIDC 100 "Truth in Technologies 2006: Efficiency, Safety and Privacy" Forum will be held on October 5 at Stony Brook University. This year's forum will focus on vertical industry applications and global supply chain Efficiency, Safety and Privacy. Designed to provide a platform for debate and open discussions, the forum will address the global perspectives on the issues facing the applications of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), bar coding, biometrics and other automatic identification technologies. The core content of the 2006 forum will focus on:

Efficiency - how can the application of identification technologies improve productivity and visibility throughout the global supply chain? Which technologies should you select?

Safety - how are identification technologies being applied to enhance safety to assure consumers that the food products, pharmaceutical products and healthcare services being used are safe and secure? What is the status of these technologies and how ready are they for widespread adoption and implementation?

Privacy - how can identification technologies be used to properly balance security and the consumer’s right to privacy? What are the roles of regulatory bodies and the public policy considerations that should be weighed and considered? 

Registration: SBU students, faculty, and staff please RSVP by Sept. 15 to 2-8380. Space is limited.
For more information: Call 631-632-7119.
Sponsors: AIDC 100, the University Libraries and CEAS.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11 at 12:40 p.m. (Campus Lifetime) 
George Washington Letter Celebration - First Public Viewing 
Location: Wang Center 
Program: Stony Brook University has acquired a secret wartime letter from General George Washington to his chief spy written from “Head Quarters Westpoint” on Sept. 24, 1779. A reading and the first public viewing of the three-page letter will be held on Wednesday, October 11 during campus lifetime (starting at 12:40 p.m.) in the Wang Center.

The letter to General Benjamin Tallmadge, the Revolutionary Army’s spymaster, focuses on the activities of Robert Townsend, another secret agent from Oyster Bay. Signed as "Commander in Chief" by Washington, it refers to Townsend by his code name, Culper Jr., and mentions techniques used in spying, including invisible ink.

The University plans to create a series of exhibits and programs to explore and celebrate Long Island’s contributions to our war of independence. The letter also provides the opportunity to build a major repository of historical records documenting the early history of Long Island and to collaborate with Long Island’s historical societies and libraries.
Sponsors: University Libraries and The Office of the President

Spring 2006

The Chinese Philosophy of Feasting 
Date: Wednesday, April 5 at 12:40 p.m.
Location: Charles B. Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1
Program: Customs and beliefs of what to eat and how to eat are as vital to the Chinese as are notions of food, health, and satiation. Chinese food historian Jacqueline M. Newman will tease out the tastes, cultural significance, social meaning, and types of food prepared for lavish banquets, festivals, and even simple eating encounters. Tantalizing selections from the recipes in the University Libraries' Chinese Cookbook Collection, donated by Dr. Newman, will be served during a reception following the lecture. Free to all. 
Sponsors: Charles B. Wang Center and the University Libraries

Book Launch and Poetry Reading in Celebration of "The Light of City and Sea: An Anthology of Suffolk County Poetry, 2006," edited by Daniel Thomas Moran, Suffolk County Poet Laureate. 
Date: Wednesday, April 5 at 4 p.m.
Location: Charles B. Wang Center, room 401.
Program: Please join us at a reception in celebration of the anthology The Light of City and Sea: An Anthology of Suffolk County Poetry, 2006,edited by Daniel Thomas Moran, Suffolk County Poet Laureate. Poets reading their selections will include Louis Simpson, Allen Planz, Ron Overton, Fran Castan, Millie Swaningson Eckhoff, Lenny Greco, Lila Zemborain, Harvey Shapiro, Charles Fishman, Claire Nicolas White, Mindy Kronenberg, Grace Schulman, Virginia Walker, and Stanley Moss. Copies of the anthology will be available for purchase at the event. Open to the public and free to all.
Sponsors: University Libraries, Office of the President, and the Department of English

Lecture and Reception in Celebration of the Richard Vetere Collection 
Date: Tuesday, May 2 at 1 p.m.
Location: Center for Italian Studies, Melville Library, fourth floor.
Program: The Center for Italian Studies and the University Libraries at Stony Brook will be hosting a program and reception in the Center for Italian Studies to recognize the donation of archival material by author and noted playwright Richard Vetere. Open to the public. Free to all.
Sponsors: Center for Italian Studies and the University Libraries

Exhibition: "Faces of Liberty" 
Date: February 1 - February 24, 2006
Location: North Reading Room, First Floor, Main Library

"Faces of Liberty" is a traveling photo-journal exhibition focusing on the Bill of Rights, civil liberties, and New Yorkers. An educational project of the New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation and its Nassau Chapter, the exhibit documents with black and white photographs the stories of twenty-two people who have stood up for their beliefs often in the face of great adversity with the assistance of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Sponsors: University Libraries and the New York Civil Liberties Union

Fall 2005 

Exhibition: "From Migrant Alley to Home: Farmwork on Long Island's North Fork" 
Date: October 10 - November 21, 2005
Location: Central Reading Room, First Floor, Main Library

Suffolk County continues to be New York’s most productive agricultural county, with vineyards, sod farms, nurseries, greenhouses, and potato farms—most of which are located on the North Fork and are heavily dependent upon migrant work. The North Fork of Long Island was once nicknamed “Migrant Row” and most laborers in the 1940s and 50s were African Americans and Puerto Ricans, the largest numbers of recent workers come from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico.

From Migrant Alley to Home: Farmwork on Long Island's North Fork includes reprints of photographs and documents from various Long Island archival collections, including an early 1960s Suffolk County map that details the many migrant work camps that existed, at that time, as far west as Huntington. There are also three-dimensional artifacts such as work tools from several working farms on the East End that still employ migrant labor.

The exhibition is fully bilingual in English and Spanish and features artifacts rarely seen in museum exhibitions, including tools such as broccoli knives, blueberry rakes, a potato grader, and a bicycle that was used by migrant workers at a North Fork farm. Clothing and objects such as a tortilla press and a christening dress help to bring the meaning of home to migrant workers into sharper focus. The exhibition also uses many historic photographs, including those of a migrant workers camp in Cutchogue, Long Island, from the 1950s, and poignant recent photographs of workers in the fields by photographer Drew Harty.

From Migrant Alley to Home was organized by The Long Island Museum, Stony Brook, New York. Research and development of the exhibition's content was completed by Riverhill, a museum consulting firm. Generous support for the travel of this exhibition was provided by the Long Island Community Foundation. Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.

Reading with Carol Muske Dukes
Date: Wednesday, November 16 at 4 p.m. 
Speaker: Author Carol Muske Dukes
Location: The Poetry Center - Humanities Building, second level
Program: Carol Muske (Carol Muske Dukes in fiction) is author of seven books of poetry, most recently Sparrow, Random House, 2003 and An Octave Above Thunder, New & Selected Poems, Penguin, 1997. Her two novels are Dear Digby, Viking (1989) and Saving St. Germ, Penguin, 1993.Dear Digby has been re-issued by Figueroa Press, in 2003.

In Spring of 2001, Random House published her third novel, Life After Death as well as a collection of essays entitled Married to the Icepick Killer, A Poet in Hollywood published in August of 2002. She is a regular critic for the New York Times Book Review and the LA Times Book Review and her collection of reviews and critical essays, Women and Poetry: Truth, Autobiography and the Shape of the Self was published in the "Poets on Poetry" series of the University of Michigan Press, 1997. Her work appears everywhere from the New Yorker to L.A. Magazine and she is anthologized widely, including in Best American Poems, 100 Great Poems by Women and many others. She is professor of English and Creative Writing and Director of the new PhD Program in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. She has received many awards and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, an Ingram-Merrill, the Witter Bynner award from the Library of Congress, the Castagnola award from the Poetry Society of America and several Pushcart Prizes.

Married to the Icepick Killer: a Poet in Hollywood (a collection of essays reprinted from the NY Times and LA Times book reviews and Op Ed pages as well as unpublished work) was published in 2002 by Random House and selected as a Best Book of the year by the SF Chronicle. Sparrow, a collection of elegies for David, was published in 2003 by Random House and chosen as a National Book Award finalist in Poetry. The book also won the Yale Review's Smart Award, plus the Chapin award from Columbia University. 
Sponsor: English Department and the University Libraries

Second Annual Friends of the Library Lecture 
Date: Monday, November 14 at 6:30 p.m. 
Speaker: Louisa Thomas Hargrave, author of In The Vineyard: The Pleasures and Perils of Creating an American Winery
Location: Charles B. Wang Center
Program: In The Vineyard: The Pleasures and Perils of Creating an American Winery (Viking, 2003), Louisa Thomas Hargrave shares with us her extraordinary journey from naive dreamer to esteemed vintner. The lecture—which is free and open to the general public—will be followed by a question-and-answer session, a book-signing, and reception.
Sponsor: University Libraries and the Center for Wine, Food, and Culture
R.S.V.P.: Seating is limited. Please R.S.V.P. by November 7 at 631-632-7100 or e-mail maryanne.vigneaux@stonybrook.edu.

Truth in Technologies 2005: Supply Chain RFID
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2005, 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Location: Student Activities Center, Ballrooms A & B, at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY

The AIDC 100, Stony Brook University Libraries and the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology will host the 2nd annual "Truth in Technologies" conference on October 27, 2005 (8:30 am - 5:30 pm) in the Student Activities Center (SAC) to provide a clear vision of the issues arising among the technologies of RFID (radio frequency identification) and Supply Chain systems. This international event will include speakers from the "user" community who will clarify the issues dictating the implementation of RFID. The forum will provide understanding about the broad-scale use of RFID in the supply chain. Topics to be addressed will include: where RFID fits; the challenges of making RFID work; and what it takes to use RFID. Attendees will include companies that define, design, develop and deploy RFID-based systems. 

Registration: Free to Stony Brook students and faculty (excludes lunch). Space is limited.
Deadline: September 30, 2005
Student and faculty registration contact: Jason Torre via email at: FJason.Torre@stonybrook.edu or 632-7119.

Spring 2005 

Date: Wednesday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Doug Swesty, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, will lecture on "The Collapse Mechanism of Supernovae." This program is intended for a general audience.
Sponsor: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Tuesday, April 19 at 12:30 p.m. 
Location: Charles B. Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1
Program: "Cookbooks: A Cultural Banquet." Cookbooks are a treasure trove of cultural information, history and social relationships, as well as delicious and useful recipes. Chinese cuisine scholar Jacqueline Newman will expound on the socio-cultural wealth of Chinese cookbooks, while Bonnie Slotnik, owner of a Greenwich Village shop specializing in out-of-print cookbooks, will give a broad overview of American baking as seen through these books. Katheryn Twiss of Stony Brook University’s Department of Anthropology will place the phenomenon of cookbooks in socio-historical context. You will also sample creations from the recipes of the Jackie Newman Chinese Cookbook Collection. Free to all. 
Sponsors: Charles B. Wang Center and the Department of Special Collections, University Libraries.

Date: Wednesday, April 20 at 4 p.m. 
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: The Treasure of Jorge Carrera Andrade at Stony Brook: A Poetry Reading with Critical Commentary in Celebration of the Jorge Carrera Andrade Collection

~ Featuring ~ 
STEVEN FORD BROWN 
Translator/Editor of Jorge Carrera Andrade’s Century of the Death of the Rose: Selected Poems (NewSouth Books, 2002). “A testament to Andrade’s status as one of the most original and enduring voices in twentieth-century poetry”—Harvard Review, Spring 2003 

JONATHAN COHEN 
Author/Editor of A Pan-American Life: Selected Poetry and Prose of Muna Lee (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004) 

J. ENRIQUE OJEDA 
Professor of Hispanic Studies, Boston College, Editor of Jorge Carrera Andrade’s Poemas desconocidos (Paradiso, 2002) and El volcán y el colibrí: autobiografía (Nacional, 1989); Author of Jorge Carrera Andrade: introducción al estudio de su vida y de su obra (Torres, 1971).

GABRIELA POLIT-DUEÑAS 
Assistant Professor of Hispanic Languages and Literature, Stony Brook University
Please click here for more information.
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Department of Special Collections

CANCELED
Date: Monday, April 25 at 3 p.m.- CANCELED
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Donald Kuspit, Professor of Art and Philosophy, will discuss his latest book, The End of Art. Kuspit argues that art is over because it has lost its aesthetic import. Art has been replaced by ‘postart,’ a term invented by Alan Kaprow, as a new visual category that elevates the banal over the enigmatic, the scatological over the sacred, cleverness over creativity. Tracing the demise of aesthetic experience to the works and theory of Marcel Duchamp and Barnett Newman, Kuspit argues that devaluation is inseparable from the entropic character of modern art, and that anti-aesthetic postmodern art is its final state. The End of Art points the way to the future for the visual arts.
Sponsor: Friends of the Library

Date: Wednesday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Paul Forestall of Southampton College will lecture on "The Wild Dolphins of Costa Rica." This program is intended for a general audience.
Sponsor: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

*Please Note*: This program has replaced the "Design, Yes - Intelligent, No: Critique of Intelligent Design" lecture.
Date: Wednesday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Charles Janson, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, will lecture on "The World of Primates." This program is intended for a general audience.
Sponsor: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Thursday, March 31 at 4 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Joel Rosenthal, Distinguished Professor of History, will lead a discussion about his latest book, From the Ground Up: A History of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. An excerpt from chapter 1 of From the Ground Up: “This book is meant to accomplish a variety of goals. One is to offer loose and quixotic narrative of the relatively short history of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The second is to offer a sort of running explanation or exposition of what a university is and how it works – with Stony Brook furnishing the data, or serving as the case study. The third is a sort of personal memoir; my own take on the more personal aspects of the first and second goals.” 
Sponsor: Friends of the Library

Date: Wednesday, March 16 at 4 p.m. 
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Krin Gabbard, Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, reveals in his latest book Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture, that we duly recognize the cultural heritage of African Americans in literature, music, and art, but there is a disturbing pattern in the roles that blacks are asked to play-particularly in the movies. Many recent films, including The Matrix, Fargo, The Green Mile, Ghost, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Pleasantville, The Bridges of Madison County, and Crumb, reveal a fascination with black music and sexuality even as they preserve the old racial hierarchies. In the final chapters of Black Magic, Gabbard looks at films by Robert Altman and Spike Lee that attempt to reverse many of these widespread trends.
Sponsor: Friends of the Library

Date: Tuesday, February 22 at 5 p.m. 
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Jacqueline Reich, Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, will discuss her latest book, Beyond the Latin Lover: Marcello Mastroianni, Masculinity, and Italian Cinema. Marcello Mastroianni is considered by many to be the epitome of the Latin lover, the consummate symbol of Italian masculinity. In Beyond the Latin Lover, Jacqueline Reich unmasks the reality behind the myth. In her investigation of many of Mastroianni's most famous characters in Italian cinema, she reveals that beneath the image of hyper-masculinity lies the figure of the inetto, the Italian schlemiel at odds with and out of place in a rapidly changing world. Reich's work demonstrates that Mastroianni's inetto is a reflection of the unstable political, social, and sexual climate of post-war Italy and its constantly shifting gender roles.
Sponsor: Friends of the Library

Date: Wednesday, February 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. John Fleagle, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences, will discuss "Rediscovering Human Evolution (A Tribute to Darwin)." Dr. Fleagle's research involves many aspects of evolutionary biology of higher primates, including laboratory studies of the comparative and functional anatomy of extant primates; field studies of the behavior and ecology of primates in Asia, South American, and Madagascar; and paleontological field research in Africa and South America. Current research projects are concerned with three areas: (1) the evolution of monkeys, apes and humans in Africa, (2) the evolutionary history of New World monkeys, and (3) ecological comparison of primate communities. 
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Tuesday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Peter Gergen of the Department of Biochemistry will present a lecture on stem cell research. Dr. Gergen is Director of the Center for Developmental Genetics in the Centers for Molecular Medicine. He also is a Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Dr. Gergen’s principle research interest focus on the mechanisms used to regulate gene expression in the Drosophila (fruit fly) embryo and he has taken an active role in integrating studies in this powerful genetic system with experiments in other embryological systems. His post-doctoral training in Molecular Biology and Developmental Genetics took place at Princeton and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in England.
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Tuesday, January 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Jeffrey Pessin of the Department of Pharmocology will present a lecture on diabetes. Dr. Pessin is Chair of the Pharmacological Sciences Department in the School of Medicine. His research efforts utilize state-of-the-art cell biological approaches including microinjection and living single cell confocal fluorescent microscopy. More recently, he has developed mouse models of insulin resistance to provide important information for an understanding of the molecular events causing altered metabolism and the basis for more effective treatments of diabetes. He is a past winner of the Eli Lilly Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Diabetes Association. 
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Fall 2004 

Date: Tuesday, November 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Michael Hayman of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology will present a lecture on "Oncoproteins and Cancer." 
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Tuesday, December 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Fred Walter of the Department of Physics and Astronomy will present a lecture on "Is There Life in the Universe?" 
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Wednesday, November 17 at 4 p.m. 
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: “Don’t Bet the Farm!” Strategies for the Preservation of Long Island’s Family Farms
Featured Speaker: Dr. Frank Turano, Research Associate Professor, Stony Brook University. Today, with competition from agribusiness, escalating property taxes, and the temptation to sell out to developers for huge profits, the family farm, a Long Island tradition dating back to the 1600’s, is in real danger of becoming extinct. Professor Turano has identified innovative strategies that can help revive the family farm and keep this important part of our American heritage economically and culturally viable well into the 21st century.
Sponsors: Stony Brook University and the Friends of the Library. 
Limited seating - please call Pat Cruso at 632-4309 or e-mail patricia.cruso@stonybrook.edu to rsvp. Refreshments will be served.

Date: Tuesday, November 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. James Lattimer of the Department of Physics and Astronomy will present a lecture on "The Detection of Gravity Waves."
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Tuesday, October 26 at 6:30 p.m. for Friends of the Library, 7:00 p.m. for the general public
Speaker: Best-selling author C. David Heymann
Location: Charles B. Wang Center
Program: C. David Heymann is the best-selling author of The Georgetown Ladies’ Social Club: Power, Passion, and Politics in the Nation’s Capital, RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy, Liz: An Intimate Biography of Elizabeth Taylor and A Woman Named Jackie: An Intimate Biography of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Three of his biographies have been made into award-winning NBC-miniseries and he has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. The lecture—which is free and open to the general public—will be followed by a question-and-answer session and a reception. Georgetown Ladies’ Social Club—Heymann’s most recent work—was described by Publishers Weekly as a “captivating chronicle of the female power behind American politics in the latter half of the 20th Century.” 
Sponsor: University Libraries

Date: Tuesday, October 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Michael Bell from Stony Brook University will lecture on "Bridging the Gap between Genetics and
Paleontology." 
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Wednesday, October 20 
Location: Charles B. Wang Center 
Program: "Truth in Technologies: Barcodes and RFID." This forum will provide users, suppliers, and technology vendors in the Automatic ID industry with a clear vision of the contentious issues arising between RFID and Bar Coding. The program's focus is to clarify and improve the relations between users and suppliers so that the implementation process becomes smoother, quicker, and mutually beneficial. 
Sponsors: AIDC 100 and the Special Collections Department of the University Libraries

Date: Tuesday, October 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Herbert Leupold from General Technical Services will discuss "The Magnetics Revolution."
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Tuesday, September 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Stephen Schwartz from Brookhaven National Laboratory will lecture on "Global Warming - the Greenhouse Effect and Your Family's Contribution."
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island

Date: Tuesday, September 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Javits Room, Second Floor, Melville Library
Program: Dr. Linda Van Aelst from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory will discuss "Aberrant Ras Signaling in Cancer and Neurological Disorders."
Sponsors: Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island 

Summer 2004

Science Lecture Series

The following events are sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Science Club of Long Island. The programs will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Javits Room, located on the second floor of the Melville Library. 

Tuesday, June 1
Dr. John Shea from the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University will present “Neandertals, Competition, and the Origins of Modern Human Behavior in the Levant.”

Tuesday, June 15
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci from Stony Brook University will present a lecture on “The Theory of Evolution.” 

Tuesday, July 13
Dr. Daniel Bogenhagen from the Department of Pharmacology at Stony Brook University will present “Mitochondria: From the Origins of Life to Human Disease and Aging.” 

Tuesday, July 27
Dr. Frank Mandriotta from the Science Club of Long Island will discuss “The Learning Behavior in Electric Fish.” 

Tuesday, August 10 
Dr. Arthur Grollman from Stony Brook University´s Medical School will lecture on the “History of Medical Treatment, Herbal Supplements and the Placebo Effect.” 

Tuesday, August 24
Dr. Maureen O´Leary from the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University will lecture on the “Evolution of the Vertebrates from Fish to Mammals.” 

For more information about the Friends of the Library, please contact Kristen Nyitray, Head, Special Collections and Archives/Friends of the Library at 631-632-7119. For more information about the Science Club of Long Island, please contact Oleg Dei (Science Director) or Joy M. Dei (Programming) at 631-421-1523.

Spring 2004  

 Date: Thursday, April 29 at 4 p.m. • Senator Jacob K. Javits Room, 2nd Floor, Melville Library
Program: An Afternoon of Poetry with Henri Cole
Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1956 and raised in Virginia. He received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary in 1978, his M.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee in 1980, and his M.F.A. from Columbia University in 1982. His volumes of poetry include: Middle Earth (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), The Visible Man (1998), The Look of Things (1995), The Zoo Wheel of Knowledge (1989), and The Marble Queen (1986). Cole's awards and honors include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin, the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. From 1982 until 1988 he was executive director of The Academy of American Poets. Since then he has held many teaching positions and been the artist-in-residence at various institutions, including Brandeis, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Universities, and Reed College. Cole is currently poet-in-residence at Smith College.
Sponsors: The Poetry Center, the Friends of the Library and the University Bookstore

Date: Wednesday, March 3 at 4 p.m. • Senator Jacob K. Javits Room, 2nd Floor, Melville Library
Program: An Afternoon of Poetry with Frank Bidart
Frank Bidart’s collections of poetry include Desire, which received the 1998 Bobbitt Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress and the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize; Music Like Dirt; In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965-90; and The Sacrifice. Among his many honors are the Lila Acheson Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund Writer’s Award, the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Shelley Award of the Poetry Society of America, and the Lannan Literary Award. He teaches at Wellesley College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
Sponsors: The Poetry Center, the Friends of the Library and the University Bookstore

Date: Thursday, February 26 at 4:30 p.m. • Senator Jacob K. Javits Room, 2nd Floor, Melville Library
Program: "Black Studies in the 21st Century"
Dr. V.P. Franklin will speak on the topic of "Black Studies in the 21st Century." Dr. Franklin is the editor of The Journal of African American History, Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and the Rosa and Charles Keller Professor of Arts and Humanities at Xavier University of Louisiana. A discussion will follow. 
Sponsors: The Africana Studies Department, The Turner Fellowship, and the Friends of the Library