UMass Lowell Kerouac Center Events, Fall 2015 

The Jack and Stella Kerouac Center for the Public Humanities at UMass Lowell is pleased to announce the following events for October 2015.

The below events are sponsored by the Kerouac Center, the English Department, the Philosophy Department, the Department of World Languages and Cultures, the American Studies Program, the Library, Writers on Campus, and the Office of Community and Cultural Affairs, as well as the College of Fine Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences at UMass Lowell, Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! and The Gloucester Writers Center. These events will occur during the annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival in Lowell, MA. For a listing of additional Kerouac Festival events organized by the Lowell-based group “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!,” please see the full schedule here. We thank LCK! for all the work they do in Lowell.

We also thank John Sampas and the Jack Kerouac Estate for their generous support.

With this collection of internationally acclaimed authors and scholars, the Kerouac Center continues to expand its purview beyond Kerouac and the Beats, even as it remains committed to examining the Beats’ extraordinarily broad influences on our contemporary world. 

All Kerouac Center events this Fall are at Allen House, 2 Solomont Way, South Campus, UMass Lowell (with the exception of the final event below). Parking will be free in the large Faculty/Staff lot at 61 Wilder Street after 2pm on all event days. Metered parking is available ($1/hr) in the Wilder St. Visitor Parking Lot (next to the faculty/staff lot, 61 Wilder Street, Lowell, MA 01854, at the corner of Wilder St. and Bachelder St. with entrance on Bacheldor St.). Please consult the interactive university map for further directions and information (including details about accessibility).

Please direct questions to Michael Millner, Director, The Jack and Stella Kerouac Center for the Public Humanities.

Schedule of UMass Lowell Kerouac Center Events in October:

Michael McClure, A Reading

Monday. October 5
3:30 pm
Allen House, UMass Lowell South Campus, 2 Solomont Way, Lowell, MA 01854
Free and open to the public (see above for directions and parking)
Sponsors: This event is sponsored by the Kerouac Center, Writers on Campus, and the Office of Community and Cultural Affairs at UMass Lowell, as well as The Gloucester Writers Center.
Michael McClure is the character Pat McLear in Kerouac’s novel Big Sur. At the age of 22, he read at the legendary Six Gallery Reading in San Francisco where Ginsberg first performed Howl. Robert Creeley wrote “…McClure shares a place with the great William Blake, with the visionary Shelley, with the passionate D.H. Lawrence.” McClure has never slowed down — a globally recognized poet, playwright, lyricist, and lecturer. 

Exhibit Grand Opening:
Kerouac Retrieved: Items from the John Sampas Collection

Ribbon cutting ceremony with the Chancellor of UMass Lowell
Thursday, October 8
3pm
Allen House, UMass Lowell South Campus, 2 Solomont Way, Lowell, MA 01854
Free and open to the public (see above for directions and parking)
Sponsors: This event is sponsored by the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences, and the English Department at UMass Lowell
Please note: the ribbon cutting will be followed at approximately 3:30 by a panel discussion by four scholars.  Please see the next event below.
More information about the exhibit is located here.

Race, Ethnicity, and the American Hipster: A Panel Discussion

with
Jean-Christophe Cloutier, University of Pennsylvania
Tim Z. Hernandez, University of Texas at El Paso
D. Quentin Miller, Suffolk University
Panel Moderator: Keith Mitchell, UMass Lowell
Thursday. October 8
3:30 pm (after the ribbon cutting ceremony)
Allen House, UMass Lowell South Campus, 2 Solomont Way, Lowell, MA 01854
Free and open to the public (see above for directions and parking)
Sponsors: This event is sponsored in part by Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! and the UMass Lowell American Studies Program
Please note: The panelists will have read the following two essays, linked below:
Norman Mailer, “The White Negro” (1957)
James Baldwin, “The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy” (1961)
For a related event — a film about James Baldwin — please also see the final event below.

Jean-Christophe Cloutier, “Detective Work in Literary Archives: Claude McKay, Samuel Roth & Jack Kerouac”

Friday. October 9
3:30 pm
Allen House, UMass Lowell South Campus, 2 Solomont Way, Lowell, MA 01854
Free and open to the public (see above for directions and parking)
Sponsors: This event is sponsored by the Department of World Languages and Cultures, the Department of Philosophy, and the UMass Lowell Library
In 2009, the typescript of a complete yet unknown 1941 novel by the renowned Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay unexpectedly surfaced in the papers of publisher, pirate, and pornographer Samuel Roth. This talk will relate the journey that was undertaken to “authenticate” the novel and reveal its complex history. At the same time, the talk will address the challenges & thrills of doing research in literary archives in general, with a focus on the Jack Kerouac Archive and my efforts to unearth, transcribe, and reconstruct Kerouac’s French writings.

A Screening of The Price of the Ticket, a feature length documentary film about James Baldwin, followed by a Q & A with the director Karen Thorsen

Tuesday October 13
3:30pm
Comley-Lane Theater, UMass Lowell South Campus, 870 Broadway Street, Lowell, MA 01854
Free and open to the public (see above for directions and parking)
Sponsor: This event is sponsored by the English Department at UMass Lowell
In addition to the local sponsors, this film is made possible by Mass Humanities.

Also, film restoration and digital re-mastering made possible by
The Ford Foundation
The National Endowment for the Arts
Maysles Documentary Center
Stan & Joanne Marder
Greg Melville & Family
Goldcrest Post