Felician University Puts Paterson in the Spotlight

Felician University’s new Interdisciplinary Humanities Program Prism Paterson is now in full swing.

The unique course focuses on the Paterson of poets and painters, novelists, and musicians, who have contributed to the rich cultural tapestry of the Silk City, instead of on rising crime, homelessness, opioid addiction, or any other problems currently plaguing Paterson.

Felician English Professor and Paterson resident, Dr. Sherida Yoder, got the idea for the unique place-based course after realizing that many writers, past and present, from novelists John Updike and Junot Diaz, to poets Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams, are associated in some way or other with Paterson. 

“I thought I could pull these together and make a nice course on the literature of Paterson,” says Dr. Yoder, “but when I heard about the possibility of the NIH grant, I realized we could do more.”

And with a $100,000 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) – Humanities Initiatives at Hispanic Serving Institutions Grant, which funds this innovative program, the first of its kind at Felician, they are indeed doing more. The Literature of Paterson is just the beginning, because Prism Paterson offers six place-based classes in the School of Arts & Sciences minor, and certificate programs on Paterson.