This weekend, Chapman University – in partnership with several local organizations – presents the Big Orange Book Festival, a chance for the community to honor the profound impact of language on the liberal arts.  Among the speakers, four Dodge College faculty members have been asked to share their thoughts on the connections between art, film, and the written word.

The Big Orange Book Festival at Chapman University: A festival for wordies, film buffs and artists in the heart of Orange County.

The Big Orange Book Festival (BOB) is an exciting literary event featuring stellar authors and storytellers. Programs, panels, and special activities will attract thousands of visitors from all across Southern California.

In its inaugural year, the Big Orange Book Festival will welcome over 50 speakers from the local and national academic community.  Headliners include Sapphire (author of PUSH, bestselling author who inspired the film Precious), Mark Levin (contemporary cultural author and critic noted at the top of the New York Times bestseller list), and Mary Badham (actress and Oscar nominee for her role in To Kill a Mockingbird), among many others across diverse disciplines.

Dodge College will have a notable presence at the event — not surprisingly, given our faculty’s reputation as some of the hardest working industry veterans-cum-professors in the business.  Students can get excited to see their professors in a different light, as academic heavyweights in their own right, including:

  • Emily Carman, scholar and co-head of our Film Studies program, and author of several scholarly texts and journal articles studying the role of women on film.  Emily will be moderating the first panel of the weekend, at 4:00 PM on Friday.
  • Ross Brown, television comedy writer for such classics as The Cosby Show, The Facts of Life, Who’s the Boss, and Step by Step.  Ross has recently published the book Byte-Sized Television, a guide for budding TV authors.
  • Barbara Doyle is the Chair of the Film Division, who consults on production for a variety of film projects, and recently published a manual on the current state of the film industry titled Make Your Movie: What You Need to Know About the Business and Politics of Filmmaking.
  • Paul Seydor is an award winning editor who literally wrote the book on the works of Sam Peckinpah, with his book Peckinpah: The Western Films, and who currently teaches full-time in the editing program.
  • Johnny Jensen, a recent Dodge College faculty hire, is a renowned cinematographer with numerous classic films in his cannon, including Grumpy Old Men, and Lost in Yonkers, as well as his work in television, notably The Ditchdigger’s Daughters.

The entire schedule of events can be found here.  Read even more about the event from a bird’s eye perspective on the Chapman University Happenings Blog.

This is an entirely free event, and completely open to the public.  We welcome students, parents, visiting seniors, Orange residents, and all your friends and neighbors to join us across the two day festival.

Neither reservation nor RSVP is required, but as with most lectures, space is limited – so come grab your spot, the sooner the better!