Join our virtual events and experience being part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Events include faculty lectures, press readings, and open discussions. Our upcoming events this month are below.
To register for an event, please contact Cynthia Cifuentes at [email protected] or text “CLAS” to 818.351.2157
Located at the Ahmanson, Woodbury University
The First Press Reading Series is part of the programming of MORIA, the national literary magazine of Woodbury University, founded by Writing Professor Linda Dove in 2017. Four times a year, the student editors invite internationally-recognized poets and writers to campus for readings, discussions, book signings, and workshops. Our second guest this year is Chloé Martinez, a scholar of South Asian religions and a poet. She is the Program Coordinator for the Center for Writing and Public Discourse at Claremont McKenna College, as well as Lecturer in CMC’s Department of Religious Studies.
She is a graduate of Boston University’s Creative Writing MA and the MFA for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she was a Holden Scholar. The author of the collection Ten Thousand Selves (The Word Works, 2021) and chapbook Corner Shrine (Backbone Press, 2020), her poems and translations have appeared in Ploughshares, POETRY, The Common, Waxwing, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere, and have been six times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, as well as for Best New Poets and Best of the Net. She is a poetry book reviewer for RHINO and one of the organizers of a reading series, The Sprawwl.
Located at the Ahmanson, Woodbury University
The initiative called the Black Intellectual Groundworks (or B.I.G.) is the brainchild of Philosophy Professor Rossen Ventzislavov and aims to build resources and programs that celebrate Pan-African culture and scholarship. Our featured guest for this program is Marcus Terrell Smith, who has degrees in linguistics, musical theatre, and acting. He was part of the national tour of Broadway’s The Book Of Mormon among other productions, and starred as Coalhouse in Serenbe Playhouse’s production of Ragtime.
He has also been an actor in Hollywood TV/Film (NCIS: Los Angeles, Marlon, Brooklyn 99, Grey’s Anatomy, and Netflix’s Little Evil, among others). He currently writes narrative lore for League of Legends (Riot Games) and Magic: The Gathering; has written the five-part fantasy novel series, Cry the Fables and several TV pilots. His latest venture, Pup! A Chew Story (PACS), is a musical comedy that he wrote, directs, and stars in, which explores the nuances of friendship. It was written not only to give audiences an escape from the looming reality we live in, but to be a metaphor for how humans should champion positive connections. This project is now Broadway-bound. He will be joined by our own Woodbury Marketing expert, Professor Wendy Bendoni, who will provide context towards understanding how our passion projects can enter the marketplace without losing the creative spark we first envisioned for them.