The Conference on Literature and Urban Experience (CLUE), Rutgers University Newark

The Conference on Literature and the Urban Experience (hereafter referred to as "CLUE"), took place on April 17, 18, and 19, 1980, in the Robeson Center, Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. It featured more than 50 distinguished writers and academics discussing a wide range of topics—"literature, theater, film, education, and the visual arts"—focusing on the theme of urban experience. Additional public events were sponsored at the Newark Public Library, the Newark Museum, the Paul Robeson Art Gallery in Newark, the City Without Walls Gallery on Shipman Street in Newark, and the Institute of Jazz Studies, at Rutgers, Newark. The proceedings of the conference were broadcast live on local cable television, and on National Public Radio. Tapes of these broadcasts were later edited into video and audio recordings which were then marketed to the larger academic and public broadcasting community. Papers presented at CLUE were selected and published in a collection by Rutgers University Press (RUP), and a high-school-level textbook was later compiled, focusing on literature and the city. Details of the conference, its organization, broadcasts, taping, and subsequent publications are outlined below.

CLUE was a major event in the life of Rutgers University, Newark. It is estimated that CLUE attracted more than 6,000 visitors over the three days. There was an estimated daily audience of some 600 persons in the Robeson Hall, with a considerable, additional crowd watching live video feed in the "over-flow" rooms in Robeson Center. The National Endowment for the Arts' publication, Humanities, reported simply "a standing-room-only crowd." (1)

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