This is a list of events from previous semesters.

Brown Bags Lecture Series for Fall 2005 Semester

September 20 th, 2005
A Roundtable Discussion of Hurricane Katrina

Angered by global warming and its effects? Concerned by the disproportionate impact of resultant weather on the poor, elderly, and disabled? Disappointed by government or media responses to Hurricane Katrina, in particular? Do you want to provide help on a local level? Or perhaps you seek more widespread or lasting change? Will your efforts make a difference; or will conditions persist, or worsen, given our habits of consumption and the lack of attention to global climate changes? Katrina has effectively raised the nation’s consciousness about its treatment of the poor and other marginalized populations. What is to be done? What are some feminist responses to the problems at hand?

The Department of Women's Studies announces its first brownbag event of the fall 2005 semester: In conjunction with the faculty and graduate student Race and Gender Pedagogy Group, Women's Studies students, faculty, and community members will convene for roundtable discussion on issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

Samantha Briggs of the Department of Women's Studies will begin the discussion by summarizing some of the issues raised in her Social Inequalities course. We will then collectively analyze and strategize on both the local and systemic level, with an emphasis on issues of race, class, gender, age, and ability. Please join our discussion and help plan for a better future.

This roundtable discussion will take place on Tuesday, September 20th at 12:30 in Ferg Forum
All interested students, faculty, and staff welcome!

October 25 , 2005 - Dr. Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi
Assistant Professor in the Department of History

"Gender and International Migration in Southern Africa"

Dr. Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York before she went on to attain her doctorate in History in 1997 from St. Antony's College, Oxford University. While at Oxford University, she was a recipient of a research grant from the Beit Trust and was awarded the ORISHA scholarship for the year 1995-96. Her doctorial research project received financial support from the Swedish organization SIDA-SAREC. She later received a Ford Foundation Grant to the University of Zimbabwe where, in addition to teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in history, she coordinated a SIDA-SAREC research project on historical dimensions of human rights and democracy. This study went on to yield an article in the award winning book,The Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights, Vol 2, edited by renowned historian Terence Ranger.  Dr. Nhongo-Simbanegavi has also produced a monograph entitled For Better or Worse? Women and ZANLA in Zimbabwe's Liberation War (2001) and maintains a keen interest in Southern African scholarly research as a member of the British-based Journal of Southern African Studies' Overseas Advisory Board. 

Time and Location: 12:30 Manly Hall 108

Brown Bags Lecture Series for Spring 2005 Semester

February 16 th, 2005 - Dr. Elaine Martin Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science
"Black Carmen? Cinematic Transformations of a Mythic Other"

Dr. Martin's diverse research ranges from women's writings on the Nazi era to food and eating in literature, art, and film, literary adaptation, and terrorism in literature and film. She is interested in cinematic representations of the Carmen myth and is currently completing a manuscript on representations of “black Carmen.”

Dr. Martin's talk will address the persistent fascination with the Carmen myth, evidenced by more than 80 film adaptations of Carmen, two of which appeared in 2004. Why does the Carmen figure remain so compelling? In response, this lecture explores issues of sexuality, otherness, exoticism, and race in different historical representations of Carmen.

Time and Location: 12:30 241 B.B. Commer

March 9th, 2005 - Dr. Utz McKnight Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science
"Octavia Butler's Transformation: Bodies That Won't Matter."

Utz Mcknight is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science. He works on issues of language, critical race theory, and the politics of the ordinary. The writings of Octavia Butler are often thought to provide useful insight into the possible convergence of race and gender as a politics. The author explores the critical potential available in the three stages of Butler's writing, from her early work on body politics and alien visitation,to the Parable series and the popular text Kindred. Soul-stealing spirits, transforming the body, time travel, and searching for the stars may provide useful alternatives to traditional forms of social activism.

Time and Location: 12:30 Manly Hall 108

March 23rd, 2005 - Rose Wilson & Jennifer Butterworth graduate students in the Department of Women’s Studies will be presenting their political work and thesis research, respectively: Rose Wilson, "On the Campaign Trail: Attempts to Promote Equal Rights in Oregon," and Jennifer Butterworth, "Contemporary Cuban Telenovelas: The Re-Cubanization of a Genre."

Time and Location: 12:30 Manly Hall 108

April 6th, 2005 - Dr. Lisa Dorr Assistant Professor in the Department of History will be
presenting: "Fifty Percent Moonshine and Fifty Percent Moonshine: Alcohol, Dating and College Social Life in Alabama during Prohibition." This talk will examine both the rituals and the restrictions on dating relationships at Alabama's main white universities during Prohibition.

Dr. Dorr’s current research explores the extent to which changes in popular culture in the 1920s filtered down to women, both black and white, in the South. By using the lens of alcohol and prohibition to examine not only the jazz culture of the 1920s, Dr. Dorr explores women's expectations for family life (as drunkenness was grounds for divorce) and the illegal manufacture of alcohol as a way of illuminating the strategies poor families used to make a living.

Time and Location: 12:30 Manly Hall 108

April 20th, 2005 - Summer Steib & Katherine Gibbons graduate students in the Department of Women's Studies will be presenting their thesis research: Summer Steib, "Cultural Coverture: Feminism and the Surname Debate," and Katherine Gibbons, "Fighting to Survive: Women Resisters During the Holocaust."

Kate Gibbons second year graduate student in Women's Studies, looks at the messages the magazine gives its readers about what it means to be a young woman, focusing on advice columns and advertisements. Started in 1944 Seventeen is the longest running teen magazine and has a readership of over 7 million girls.

Summer Steib, also a second year graduate student in Women's Studies, will be giving a talk entitled "Cultural Coverture: Feminism and the Surname Debate." Summer’s thesis research examines how unequal power relationships in society are often based on religious beliefs about women and other minorities. Her talk will explore these relationships more specifically, attempting to understand the origins (historical, legal and cultural) of women taking the last names of their husbands when they get married and the larger implications of this on how women are viewed and treated in society.

Time and Location: 12:30 Manly Hall 108

2005 Fall Colloquium Events

November 3rd, Dr. Melissa Conroy,
"The Desiring Eve: The Case of Alice in Eyes Wide Shut"

This research explores issues of vision in Eyes Wide Shut, demonstrating how the film offers ways of seeing that acknowledge both seer and seen in male and female roles. Conroy explores how the film rewrites traditional religious beliefs about the nature of women.

This event is being co-sponsored by the department of Religious Studies.

Melissa Conroy is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, Dr. Conroy teaches about Religion and Popular Culture, Visual Arts, and Women; Psychology of Religion, Critical Theory, Feminist and Queer Theory, Buddhism, and World Religions. Her research interests include Film as Religious Ritual, Historical Uses of Religious Vision, Gender and Performative Issues in Ritual Studies, Feminist and Queer Theory, and Feminist Psychoanalytic Studies. Her recent publications include, "An Army of One: Lacan and Popular Culture," "Seeing Medea," and "The Invisible Body of God." She is currently working on a manuscript, entitled, The Eyes of God: Embodied Vision in Contemporary Cinema

Time and Location: Thursday, November 3rd from 4-5:30 in Room 30 ten Hoor

2005 Colloquium Events

March 10-12, 2005 Race and Place IV: Borderlands and Boundaries Conference event website

March 17th, 2005 Alice Walker
event website

Queer Movie Series

Dr. Jennifer Purvis of the Department of Women's Studies is hosting a Queer Movie Series this spring 2005 semester. Her class, WS 440/EN 444, "Feminism and Queer Theory," is viewing several films related to the subject matter of the course. These films are being screened in 207 Manly Hall. Interested members of the broader Women’s Studies and Queer community are welcome to attend these free screenings.

The schedule is as follows: