With the fall semester quickly approaching, the art history and dance departments at Elon University are ready to show off what they have been preparing for all summer. Evan Gatti, a professor in the art history department, cites the department’s fall speaker as the major event for art history. Started in 2003 by fellow professor Kristin Ringelberg, the speaker series strives to bring contemporary art historians to campus to see what the best scholars in the field are doing.

When choosing speakers for the series, Gatti and her associates examine what is going on in the art history community around the country and who would be able to connect with professors and their current students.

“There’s always some way [the students] can connect to the material,” Gatti said.

This year, Dr. Asa Mittman, an associate professor at California State University in Chico, will be speaking to the Elon community Oct. 10 in a lecture entitled “Are the Monstrous Races ‘Races.’” Mittman will examine texts and imagine surrounding “monstrous races,” such as Cyclops or werewolves, to see if they are actually monstrous or if that label should be rejected.

The dance department also has a number of programs this fall open for the Elon community to enjoy, according to dance professor Lauren Kearns.

“Last year, we initiated a new Young Alumni Guest Artist series in which some of our recent BFA Dance Performance and alumni have returned to teach master classes,” Kearns said. “We are developing that further this year by having Michelle Micca, a dance and choreography major who graduated in 2010, come back and set a new duet on our dance majors for the Fall Dance Concert, ‘Dancing in the Black Box.’”

A major part of the dance year will be the senior dance concert. While the concert is not until the spring semester, the senior dancers will be working hard throughout the fall.

“The senior dance majors will produce their thesis concert in May and will begin their creative research early in the fall semester,” Kearns said. “The seniors will hold their own audition sometime in early fall. Because their thesis concert is in May, their focus will be primarily on creating and producing that concert.”

The full calendar of dance performances can be found on the Elon Dance Company’s website.