Fitchburg State will welcome back former student John Antonelli for a screening and discussion of his award-winning documentary “Kerouac” on Monday, Oct. 22, at 3:30 p.m. in Ellis White Lecture Hall in the Hammond Hall campus center. The screening is free and open to the public.

“Kerouac” tells the story of Lowell-born novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, a pioneer of the Beat Generation best known for the book “On the Road.” In the film, Kerouac’s legacy and influence are explained via interviews with Kerouac’s friends and contemporaries such as William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, and Edie Parker. Narrator Peter Coyote reads sections of Kerouac’s (mostly autobiographical) books as an actor recreates scenes from Kerouac’s life.

Antonelli is himself a storied figure in Fitchburg State History. In 1969, Antonelli – then-editor of the student newspaper, The Cycle – was the lead plaintiff in a federal free speech lawsuit filed against the college administration and then-President James Hammond Jr. The case of Antonelli v. Hammond ended in victory for the upstart student journalists. Antonelli and several of his classmates returned to campus in 2011 for a panel discussion on the case and the turbulent era in which it took place.

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