2007-2008 Laura C. Harris Symposium

Feminism and War, Feminism and Peace

September 21-22, 2007
9 Parts of Desire
Presented by the Arab Theatrical Guild
Doane Dance Studio
Sarab Kamoo, a highly-talented equity actress, plays nine different women reflecting upon the Iraq wars in a series of dramatic monologues. The range of ages and attitudes she assumes is a stunning achievement. Body language, vocalization and intonation are singular for each character; and Kamoo moves back and forth among them and their stories with seamless efficiency. The title of the play is an allusion to the teachings of a seventh-century Iman: "God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women and one part to men."

September 24, 2007
4:30 pm Barney Davis Board Room 
Karen Alkalay-Gut
In addition to a biography of the poet Adelaide Crapsey, Alkalay-Gut has published numerous articles on modern American poetry, Victorian literature and fiction, as well as studies of Rock music and poetry. Her poetry publications include a number of books in English--most recently In My Skin (Sivan, 2000), The Love of Clothes and Nakedness (Sivan, 1999), High Maintenance (Neamh, 2001), and So Far So Good (Sivan, 2004.)

October 4, 2007
4:30 pm Slayter Auditorium
Fall Keynote Speaker
Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan first met the media spotlight in the summer of 2005, when she camped near the Crawford, Texas home of President George W. Bush in protest against the U.S. occupation of Iraq. A resident of Vacaville, California, Sheehan is the mother of Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, a war casualty who was killed outside of Baghdad in 2004, soon after being deployed in Iraq. In August of 2005, Cindy Sheehan announced that she would camp near the president's ranch until he agreed to talk to her about the U.S. policy in Iraq. Specifically, Sheehan called for the removal of U.S. troops and railed against Bush for misleading Americans into a war. To opponents of the war, Sheehan's personal tragedy gave her the moral authority to serve as the face of the anti-war movement. Supporters of the war, however, accused Sheehan of aiding and abetting the enemy and dishonoring the memory of her son. Her vigil in Texas drew both groups -- protesters and counter-protesters -- as well as national media coverage. President Bush, vacationing in Crawford, refused to meet with Sheehan, explaining that to remove troops from Iraq would be a mistake and that he needed to "go on" with his life. Sheehan then moved her protests to Washington, D.C., where she was arrested during an anti-war demonstration outside the White House in September 2005. She was arrested again in January 2006 and charged with unlawful conduct after displaying an anti-war slogan while attending President Bush's State of the Union address; the charges were dropped the next day.

October 29-31, 2007
One In Four RV tour
One in Four, Inc is an organization dedicated to prevent rape by the thoughtful application of theory and research to rape prevention programming. One in Four provides presentations, training, and technical assistance to men and women, with a focus on all-male programming targeted toward colleges, high schools, the military, and local community organizations. One in Four advocates the use of a comprehensive approach to rape prevention that includes many research-based efforts. Based on a commitment to apply theory and research to their programs, they use and advocate the use of "The Men's Program." This program is a one hour workshop titled "How to Help a Sexual Assault Survivor: What Men Can Do." Published research shows that this unique program has the dual benefit of educating men how to help women recover from a rape experience while lowering men's rape myth acceptance and their self-reported likelihood of raping.

November 8-9, 2007
4:30 pm Burton Morgan Lecture Hall
Anuradha Bhagwati
A former US Marine, Anuradha Bhagwati has recently stated "I joined the Marines in 1999 and I left in 2004 when I realized that my conscience and my values could no longer allow me to serve in uniform." She has since worked at Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy (MEND) in East Jerusalem, assisting in providing human rights training to Palestinian forces as part of a project to help the transition of the Palestinian National Authority to democratic law. As a student at the Kennedy School of Government and a member of Iraq Veterans against the War, she co-founded the Palestine Awareness Committee. She is particularly vocal about the pressures within the military that restrict dissenting voices, including peer pressure and the internal guilt of "abandoning" your fellow troops.

November 30, 2007-March 7, 2008
Dafitir Exhibition
Denison University Museum
This traveling exhibit was organized by Dr. Nada Shabout, University of North Texas assistant professor of art history, and a leading world authority on contemporary art from her native country of Iraq. Works in the exhibit are from the collection of Dia al-Azzawi, an artist living and working in London who has made a great impact on the development of book art in modern Iraq.

SPRING 2008 EVENTS

January 28, 2008
4:30 pm Burton Morgan Lecture Hall
Francine D'Amico
Having earned a PhD from Cornell University, Francine D'Amico currently teaches at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Political Science. Her forthcoming work titled Breaking Ranks: Women in Military, Police, & Fire Services Worldwide, examines the experiences of women in three gender non-traditional occupations in a variety of cultural contexts. Her areas of interest include war and peace in a nuclear age, comparative political parties and social movements, race and gender in world politics, and critical international relations.

February 4-8, 2008
4:30 pm Burton Morgan Lecture Hall
Carol Cohn
Carol Cohn is the executive director of the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights and senior research scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She also serves as a Senior Research Scholar in the Department of Political Science at Wellesley College. Her recent research has focused on mainstreaming gender into peace and security organizations, as well as feminist ethical perspectives on weapons of mass destruction, as well as gender and international security, with a specific interest in weapons of mass destruction. Her current research, supported by the Ford Foundation, examines gender mainstreaming in international security institutions, including the passage and implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325.

February 13, 2008
4:30 pm Burton Morgan Lecture Hall
Spike Peterson
Spike Peterson joined the faculty of the University of Arizona in 1990 where she is currently a Professor in the Department of Political Science, with courtesy appointments in Women's Studies, Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, and International Studies. Her most recent book, A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Reproductive, Productive and Virtual Economies (2003), introduces an alternative analytics for examining intersections of ethnicity/race, class, gender and national hierarchies in the context of today's globalizing--and polarizing--dynamics. She has published more than fifty journal articles, reviews and book chapters on the topics of feminist international relations theory, global political economy, nationalism, democratization, heterosexism, human rights, and critical postmodernist and feminist theory. 

February 27, 2008
4:30 pm Burton Morgan Lecture Hall
Spring Keynote Speaker
Cynthia Enloe
Enloe's feminist teaching and research has focused on the interplay of women's politics in the national and international arenas, with special attention to how women's labor is made cheap in globalized factories (especially sneaker factories) and how women's emotional and physical labor has been used to support governments' war-waging policies--and how many women have tried to resist both of those efforts. Racial, class, ethnic, and national identities and pressures shaping ideas about femininities and masculinities have been common threads throughout her studies. In recent years, Enloe has been invited to lecture and give special seminars on feminism, militarization, and globalization in Japan, Korea, Turkey, Canada, Britain and numerous colleges across the U.S. She has written for Ms. Magazine and Village Voice and has appeared on National Public Radio and the BBC. She serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals.

April 4, 2008
4:30 pm Burton Morgan Lecture Hall
Mervat Hatem
Mervat F. Hatem, Ph.D. is a Professor of Political Science at Howard University in Washington D.C. Her substantive research interests include gender and politics in the Middle East and feminist critiques of international relations. She has published articles in journals including Comparative Studies in Society and History, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle East Journal, Middle East Reports, Arab Studies Journal, Feminist Studies, Feminist Issues, Women's Studies International Forum, JMEWS: Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Hawwa: Journal of Women in the Middle East and Islamic Societies, and MIT EJMES. Her latest publication dealing with international issues and concerns is titled "U.S. Discourses on the War on Terrorism in the U.S. and Its Views of the Arab, Muslim, and Gendered 'Other,'" Arab Studies Journal (2004).