Community Calendar

This exhibition focuses on more than 60 recent works by photographer James Welling (American, born 1951). From the artist’s Cento and Personae series, these photographs of ancient sites in Italy and Greece, as well as antiquities in museums around the world, underwent digital and painterly alteration to achieve transformative effects. The photographs will be exhibited alongside a selection from the Museum’s extensive collection of historic plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculpture.
As Welling explains, he is interested in “reanimating” the men and women of the ancient past through these works and connecting them to our own time in a fresh way through his innovative combination of photography and painting. Visitors to the exhibition will feel their curiosity piqued by his elusive and often haunting evocations of the ancient Mediterranean world.

James Welling, Fragment of a gold leaf wreath, 2020, oil pigment, oil pastel, and wax over electrostatic print on polypropylene substrate. Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects. © James Welling

UMC Monroe is partnering with the American Red Cross for a blood drive on Thursday, October 15, 2026 from 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm. We invite you to participate in this life-saving, well-known cause.

Streamline your donation experience and save up to 15 minutes by visiting RedCrossBlood.org/RapidPass to complete your pre-donation reading and health history questions on the day of your appointment OR download the Blood App from the Apple or Google app stores.

Each pint of blood we collect can help save up to three lives and will touch the lives of so many more -- The need is constant. The gratification is instant. Give blood.

Drive Details:

Location: United Methodist Church of Monroe, Fellowship Hall, 515 Cutlers Farm Road
Date: Thursday, October 15, 2026
Time: 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Click here to make an appointment: https://tinyurl.com/mw7arfsc

The need for blood is constant and only volunteer donors can fulfill that need for patients in our community. Nationwide, someone needs a unit of blood every 2 to 3 seconds and most of us will need blood in our lifetime. Please join our lifesaving mission and schedule an appointment today!

Please consider making a donation … and feel free to spread the word. It’s not every day that we do something that has such a lifesaving impact. With your help, we can do just that!

Thank you for supporting the American Red Cross blood program!

Contact: Darlene Dobler-Palin
Church Office: 203.268.8395

Click here for an event flyer: https://umcmonroe.org/events/american-red-cross-blood-drive-at-umc-monroe-fall-2026/

Course description:

College is a crucial institution in which our society works through its expectations for young people. This course explores the purposes of college education through the first great book on the philosophy of education, Plato’s Republic. We read The Republic in conversation with other thinkers including Aristotle, Confucius, John Stuart Mill, Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. For the 325th anniversary of Yale’s founding, we also explore the changing conception of college education at Yale over the centuries and read some of the college’s and the university’s key founding documents. Themes include the development of personal character, participation in a community, preparation for citizenship, and conversation with others on intellectual matters. We also explore some of the social and economic functions of college education.

The 2026 DeVane Lecture series will be led by Pericles Lewis, Dean of Yale College and Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of Comparative Literature

The class is free and open to the public and will run on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:20 p.m., from September 2 to December 9, 2026.

Inaugurated in 1867, Street Hall—today part of the Yale University Art Gallery—housed the first collegiate school of art in the country. Its curriculum permitted students from a variety of disciplines to sketch from live models and original works of art. Take part in this centuries-old practice by joining Tuere Nicole Lawton, M.F.A. candidate in Painting/Printmaking, Yale School of Art, for an evening of guided drawing in the exhibition "Nguni: Migrant Nations of Southeast Africa." Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.

Open to all ages and levels of drawing experience. Materials are provided.

Join us for the Livestream Keynote Lecture with Katherine A. Schwab, PhD (Professor emerita, Art History & Visual Culture)!

Join us for the Keynote Lecture with Katherine A. Schwab, PhD (Professor emerita, Art History & Visual Culture)!

As part of the Fairfield Museum and History Center's commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, join us for a timely and vital conversation exploring practical ways we can build a new, collective commitment to democratic citizenship, using the landmark report “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century” as a starting point.

Panelists will include: Stephen Heintz, President and CEO of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Global Commission on Democracy; CT Secretary of State and national voting rights advocate Stephanie Thomas; David McCullough III, founder of the American Exchange Project, an innovative program that builds connections between young Americans from different backgrounds; and Fairfield University’s Aaron Weinstein, PhD, assistant professor of politics—a scholar of the intersection of secular and religious thought in American politics. Reception to follow.

The Fairfield Museum and History Center presents this event in partnership with Fairfield University’s Center for Arts & Minds.

Go Behind the Headlines

What was really happening inside Israel’s war room after October 7?

Join us for a fascinating behind-the-scenes conversation with Elliot Kaufman, Wall Street Journal editorial board member and co-author of the new book 'In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel’s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis'.

Drawing on extraordinary access to senior Israeli and U.S. officials, Elliot will take us inside the leaders, debates and decisions that have shaped Israel’s war and explore what they mean for Israel and the Middle East going forward.

The conversation will be followed by audience Q&A.

$30 per person • Includes a copy of 'In the War Room'

Cold Chocolate
Thursday, October 15, 2026, 8 PM (Doors at 7 PM)
Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door

Cold Chocolate is a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk, and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own.

Featuring Ethan Robbins on guitar and mandolin & Ariel Bernstein on percussion and banjo, this power duo from Boston is impressing audiences throughout New England and beyond. Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, and with a focus on songwriting, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows.

The band has shared bills with Leftover Salmon and David Grisman, and regularly performs at venues and music festivals across the country.

Chicago, 1927. Tensions and temperatures rise during a blistering recording session as the legendary “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey, and her ambitious trumpeter, Levee, clash over control of her music, exposing the emotional and economic exploitation Black artists faced in America. An exploration of dreams deferred, cultural identity, and the power of the blues, August Wilson’s electrifying masterpiece, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, returns in a brand-new production more than 40 years after it first raised the roof of the American theater in its world premiere at Yale Rep.