Oliver Stone's JFK - Rider U. Panel Discussion (2013)

This is audio from a panel discussion featuring Professor Joan Mellen and Aaron Good--and moderated by Professor James Castagnera.  This was where I first met Oliver.  He asked me for the paper I had presented.  I gave it to him and then he emailed me about it a few days later.  The panel begins with the great Joan Mellen and I come in at around 23:53.

Below is a write up on the conference from the Rider University website:

Rider Marks JFK Anniversary With Conversation and Academic Study

by Adam Grybowski

A  slate of events and classes drew students into the national  conversation surrounding the 50th anniversary of President John F.  Kennedy’s assassination. The University brought Oliver Stone to campus to discuss his film on the subject, took students to  Washington, D.C., ran a semester-long film series devoted to his work  and offered two special classes this fall.

Dr. Thomas Simonet’s course, “The JFK Assassination in  Film and Media,” analyzed representations of the event in different  forms of media, and Dr. James Ottavio Castagnera’s course, “The Kennedy  Assassination 50 Years Later: Who Dunit?” asked students to build a case  for their theory on who killed Kennedy.

Eager to teach the class, Castagnera was also skeptical it  would draw interest. Not only were most students not alive when Kennedy  was shot, some of their parents had yet to be born. “For most students,  this is ancient history,” he says.

As it turns out, the classes were packed. Extra seats had to be added for both courses.

In addition to the two classes, students and the Rider community were offered the opportunity to attend a daylong conference on Nov. 2, 2013, focused on the films of Oliver Stone, with an  appearance by the filmmaker. Stone’s movies were also shown weekly on  campus in the fall semester.

The conference, which was organized by Dr. Cynthia Lucia,  director of the film and media studies program and English professor,  gave the Rider community firsthand access to an artist who helped shape  the JFK story decades after the fatal shot was fired. Stone answered  questions from the audience, as did Lucia and Cineaste magazine’s editor-in-chief, Gary Crowdus. Reflecting on his research of  the assassination, Stone said, “This is not me making up history. This  is history.”

On Nov. 9, 2013, about 50 students traveled to the Newseum  in Washington, D.C., which has on display two new exhibits on the 35th  president, as well as an original documentary.

The focus on one subject explored in many different ways  and made available to all students remains part of Rider’s commitment to  push the educational experience beyond the classroom.

Source: https://www.rider.edu/rider-magazine/spring-2014/news/campus/marks-jfk-anniversary-conversation-and-academic-study