Womens Studies

2006-2007 Laura C. Harris Symposium

Gendered Borders

Gayatri Reddy September 21, 2006
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Sexuality and its Discontents: Hijras and the Negotiation of Social Differences in South India
Gayatri Reddy, University of Illinois at Chicago, studies the intersections of sexuality, gender, health, and the politics of subject-formation in India, and more recently, within the immigrant South Asian queer community in the U.S. She will discuss her ethnographic work with the hijras, the so-called ‘third sex’ of India, along with questions of sexual difference, sexuality, and their intersections with religion, race, ethnicity, and class in South Asia and its diaspora.

Lila Abu-Lughod October 5, 2006
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

The Debate on Gender, Religion and Human Rights: Questions
from a Middle East Anthropologist
Dr. Abu-Lughod, Columbia University, is a distinguished and highly regarded scholar of gender and the Middle East. She will speak about gender in the Arab world and the contemporary politics of Middle Eastern feminism. Her work asks questions about the role of the media and the “cultural production of nations.” Issues of national identification, violent disruption, and memory are at the center of her current work as she focuses on the Palestinian experience of the 1948 War.

Teatro Luna October 11, 2006
8:00pm, Slayter Union, Third Floor

“S-E-X-Oh!”
Teatro Luna tackles the complicated and often hilarious relationship between gender, culture and the very thing our Abuelas made us promise we’d never do (at least not before we were married). From nine year old girls looking for the placentas to a 27 year old woman struggling with whether or not to keep the child she has conceived with her African-American boyfriend to the relationship between sex, video games and Trader Joe’s, the stories in S-E-X-Oh! Move discussion about Latina sexuality beyond the Virgin/Whore dichotomy portrayed not just in the popular media, but in our own homes as well.

Ruth Behar October 30, 2006
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

In Search of the Jews of Cuba: Stories and Images
Ruth Behar was born in Havana, Cuba and grew up in New York City. She is the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” Award, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Distinguished Alumna Award from Wesleyan University. Latina Magazine named her, in 1999, one of 50 Latinas who made history in the twentieth century. Behar has worked as an ethnographer in Spain, Mexico, and Cuba. She is the author of several books on culture and art by Cubans on the island and in the diaspora. She is also known for her essays, poetry, fiction and work as a filmmaker.

Sharon Holland November 1, 2006
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

The African Diaspora in Indian Country
Sharon Holland, Northwestern University, has garnered many awards for her scholarship and teaching. Her books, Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: The African Diaspora in Indian Country (forthcoming book, 2006), and Raising the Dead: Death and (Black) Subjectivity in Twentieth Century Literature and Culture (Duke University Press) have explored questions of identity in American culture. She will speak to the African diaspora in Indian Country in the U.S.

Compagnie Tche Tche November 6, 2006
5:00pm, Doane Dance, Upper Studio

“Dimi” – Women’s Sorrow’
Compagnie Tche Tche focuses on the role of women in contemporary African society. In “Dimi”, translated as “Women’s Sorrow”, artistic director Beatrice Kombe explores the complexities of contemporary African women. “Dimi” deals with the inner conflicts of a generation familiar with social injustice, repressive morality, and patriarchal structures. This work features four dancers accompanied by live musicians playing the Fulani flute and keyboards. Each dancer brings her own experience to the stage and provides a glimpse of the struggle each endured as women growing up in an unstable urban environment.

Naicco Native Performers November 9, 2006
7:30pm, Slayter Union, Third Floor

This group is one arm of the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio whose mission includes cultural preservation, advocacy and service. Their performance will illustrate the ritualization of American Indian dance and drumming while offering an opportunity to see intersections, and cultural influences between Native American and African cultures. This performance relates to Dr. Holland’s November 1^st discussion of African and American Indian cultural intersections.

Lina Meruane November 15, 2006
4:30pm, Higley Auditorium

Out of Bonds
Lina Meruane is a highly regarded Chilean writer, journalist and columnist for Satiago de Chile’s daily El Mercuriio. She has written three novels, a host of short stories, and been granted a Guggenheim fellowship for her work. In recent years she has been invited to read her work at the Latino American Round Table in New York, Cornell University, Washington University, Barnard College and the University of Oregon.

Christina Rivera-Garza January 29, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Writing (and Seeing) Mad Bodies in Mexican History: Views from the City and from the Asylum
Rivera-Garza won the prestigious 2002 Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize for her novel No One Will See Me Cry (Curbstone Press, 2003). The prize is named for Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a 17^th-century Mexican nun often described as the first feminist in the Americas. Author Carlos Fuentes said of Rivera-Garza’s work, “No One Will See Me Cry is one of the most beautiful and perturbing novels ever written in Mexico”.

Donna Guy February 1, 2007
4:30pm, Olin Auditorium

Myths and Realities of Latin American Sexualities
Donna Guy is the author of numerous books and articles. Her books include White Slavery and Mothers Alive and Dead: The Troubled Meeting of Sex, Gender, Public Health and Progress in Latin America (2000), From Private Acts to Public Identities: Teaching the History of Sexuality Since the Eighteenth Center (2000), El sexo peligroso, La prostitucion legal en Buenos Aires, 1875-1955 (1994), and Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nationa in Argentina (1991). Her articles have appeared in Latin American Research Review, Journal of Latin American Studies, Journal of Women’s History, Business history Review, Gender and History, and Business History Review.

Guadalupe Santa Cruz Feburary 7, 2007
4:00pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Writing on Space as a Body
Chilean writer and visual artist, she has published five novels Salir (Exit), Cita Capital (Capital Citation), El Contagio (Contagiousness), Los Conversos (Converts) and Plasma, which received the Atenea award in 2006. She has authored numerous articles and essays on the intersection of language, gender and power, and on memory and urban imaginaries, as well as texts on Chilean artistic production.

Maria JoseBarbosa February 8, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Expressive Cultures of Brazil in the Context of the African Diaspora
Associate Professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa, she specializes in Brazilian Literature and Culture, and the Portuguese language.

Isabel Alvarez Borland February 15, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Images of History: Ana Menendez and Cabrera Infante
Isabel Alvarez Borland is Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is the author of Cuban American Literature of Exile: From Person to Persona and of Discontinuidad y ruptura en Guillermo Cabrera Infante.

Maxine Hong Kingston February 20, 2007
4:30pm, Slayter Auditorium

Woman, Peacemaker Keynote Address
Kingston is recognized for her epic novels that detail the experiences of first-generation Chinese Americans. Her most recognized work is also her first published, Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts, which received the National Book Critic's Circle Award for nonfiction. As a culmination of her week-long residency, she will present the Keynote address for this year’s Laura C. Harris Gendered Borders symposium.

Alison Jagger, Virginia Held, And Fiona Robinson-Feminist Ethics Panel
February 22, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Feminist ethics has emerged as one of the most vibrant areas of value theory. This panel, featuring three distinguished scholars of feminist ethics, will discuss conceptual issues with regard to borders of the moral domain, borders of the (gendered) subject, and borders of ethical communities and groups. Virginia Held is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York, Graduate School. Alison Jagger is Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Fiona Robinson is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University.

JamesGreen March 6, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Gender Benders and Campy Queens: The Homosexual Appropriation of Brazilian Carnival”

Jamison "James" Green is an internationally respected leader within the Transgender
Movement. A dynamic speaker and compelling writer, James has appeared in ten
documentary films and received every major award given by the largest national
transgender organizations. He is an acknowledged inspiration for thousands of people,
transsexual and non-transsexual alike.

Jill Giman/thinkdance Residency March 22-31, 2007

Founded in 1998, Jill Sigman/thinkdance uses body as a medium to make people think, question, and interpret. Cinematic images, idiosyncratic movement, and attention to detail mix to create edgy dance that stimulates emotion and reflection. The company presents solos, group work, and inter-disciplinary collaborations, with an emphasis on one-woman shows. Known as a compelling solo performer, Jill Sigman transforms simple actions like standing on her head, sliding down the stairs, or eating hot pink roses into complex statements about self, society and human experience.

S. RaviShankar March 19-30, 2007

Human Breathing Yoga Residency
S. Ravi Shankar, highly regarded Yoga practitioner in Chennai India, will visit Denison for a two-week residency which provides an introduction into Indian beliefs about the mind-body connection. Mr. Shankar’s series of events will include workshops on yogic breathing and vedic chanting, a five-day program to help participants develop an on-going yogic practice, and a reading group. Mr. Shankar and his wife, Sheela, are students of T.K.V. Desikachar, one of the foremost yoga teachers in the world. Through their center in Chennia, Yoga Nidhi, they teach individuals and provide corporate healthcare solutions.

Reverend PeterGomes March 27, 2007

7:30pm, Swasey Chapel
Widely regarded as one of America’s most distinguished preachers, Professor Gomes has fulfilled preaching and lecturing engagements throughout the United States and Great Britain. He was named Clergy of the year in 1998 by Religion and American Life. His New York Times and national best-selling books, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart and Sermons, the Book of Wisdom for Daily Living, were published by William Morrow & Co., He has published in total ten volumes of sermons, as well as numerous articles and papers. As an openly gay member of the clergy, Reverend Gomes has become an advocate for wider acceptance of homosexuality in our society.

CatherineLugg April 4, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Life after Lawrence: No Longer Criminals, But Are We Citizens?
Catherina A. Lugg, Rutgers University, will discuss the impact of the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas. In a 6-3 decision the Court ruled that laws barring consensual sodomy were unconstitutional. Legal scholar David Garrow has described the ruling as more sweeping than Roe v. Wade and declared Lawrence “may be one of the two most important opinions in the last 100 years”. Lugg argues that, as in the aftermath of the Brown v Board of Education ruling, states have yet to reshape their laws to comport with Lawrence. She considers the significance of Life after Lawrence for educational policy.

Nada Shabout April 10, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Gender, Creativity and War: Iraqi Women Artists
Nada Shabout is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Texas with a background in architecture, fine arts, and the humanities. Her area of specialization and scholarship are in modern and contemporary Arab art and cross-cultural studies. Her area of current research is contemporary Iraqi art.

AdjeAl-Ali April 11, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Iraqi Women and Gender Relations Between Dictatorship, Wars, Economic Sanctions, and Occupation
An acclaimed expert and author on women and gender issues in Iraq, Dr. Ali is a Senior Lecturer at University of Exeter (UK) and the author of Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian Women’s Movement.

Nada Shabout and Nadje Al-Ali Panel Discussion April 12, 2007

Building on the themes from their individual convocations, these two experts on gender in the Middle East will present a joint discussion on Iraqi women culture in the region.

Diana Chaviano April 13, 2007
4:30pm, Higley Auditorium

Exile, National Identity, and Gender
Daina Chaviano’s work is characterized by the exploration of mythical and psychological themes. The trinity of magic-science-religion is a vital pillar of her literature. With it, she explores situations and phenomena that are obviously conflicting in nature, but whose external manifestations can be confused (e.g. clairvoyance and telepathy, reincarnation and genetic memory, alien creatures and mythological beings). Chaviano’s peculiar way of exploiting this bond between fantasy and science fiction creates a very personal style that allows her to explore hidden zones of the human conscience, history and society

Uma Narayan April 17, 2007
4:30pm, Burton Morgan Lecture Hall

Microcredits for Third World Women: A Critical Perspective Keynote Address
As the author of Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions and Third World Feminism, Narayan disputes feminism as a solely Western notion, while challenging assumptions that East Indian feminism is based on Western models. Additionally, Narayan holds that the charges of what constitutes” Westernization” need to be radically re-examined. Narayan coedited Reconstructing Policical Theory: Feminist Perspectives with Mary L. Shanley, Having and Raising Children with Julia Bartkowiak and Decentering the Center: Postcolonial and Feminist Challenges to Philosophy with Sandra Harding. She is a professor at Vassar College on the Andrew c. Mellon Chair of Humanities.