Lecture Series

Mia Bay

Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 5:30 p.m.
The Library Pillow Room

The Ambidexter Philosopher: Thomas Jefferson in Black Thought 1776-1877

This talk focuses on African American ideas about Thomas Jefferson from the American Revolution through to the post-emancipation era.  An overview of African American commentary on Jefferson in speeches, letters, books, pamphlets and other available testimony, it explores how such works document the connections between early black struggles for freedom and civil rights and African American claims on American nationalism and citizenship.

Breaking Boundaries: Body Politics & the Dynamics of Difference

A Conference at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York (15 minutes north of Manhattan)
Friday-Saturday March 4-5, 2011
Free and Open to the Public

Keynote Speaker: Marilyn Wann Fat Activist and Author of Fat!So?

When it comes to "the body," the definition of normal is fluid and changes across cultures and time. In each context, there are those who have been exploited and oppressed because they do not fit prevailing notions of beauty.
What are the dominant narratives and perceptions about beauty and bodies? How do these perceptions affect public policy around issues of health, civil rights, education, and accessibility? How do those whose bodies do not fit into the “proper” cultural norms challenge attitudes, laws, and perceptions? How have they negotiated for and found power in unwelcoming environments, both now and in the past? How do the categories of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and disability complicate prevailing ideas about embodiment? Are there and have there been communities and cultures that have welcomed those whose bodies are currently perceived as deviant in dominant popular discourse? And what is the relationship between promoting and continuing the dominant discourse and capitalist consumer culture? This conference will explore the body politics around those with “deviant” bodies.

For more information please click here.

Francine Moccio

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.
The Library Pillow Room

Live Wire: Women and Brotherhood in the Electrical Industry

In Live Wire, Francine Moccio brings to life forty years of public policy reform and advocacy that have failed to eliminate restricted opportunities for women in highly paid, skilled blue-collar jobs. Breaking barriers into a male-only occupation and trade, women electricians have found career opportunities in nontraditional work. Yet their efforts to achieve gender equality have also collided with the prejudice and fraternal values of brotherhood and factors that have ultimately derailed women's full inclusion.

By drawing instructive comparisons of women’s entrance into the electricians’ trade and its union with those of black and other minority men, Moccio’s in-depth case study brings new insights into the ways in which divisions at work along the lines of race, gender, and economic background enhance and/or inhibit inclusion. Incorporating research based on extensive primary, secondary, and archival resources, Live Wire contributes a much-needed examination of how sex segregation is reproduced in blue-collar occupations, while also scrutinizing the complex interactions of work, unions, leisure, and family life.

Sue Sherman

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 7:00 p.m.
Wrexham Living Room

America's Child: A Woman's Journey through the Radical Sixties

From the cultural renaissance of the late 50s, through the sexual revolution, to political activism that starts with world issues and ends with struggles around sexism and homophobia, America’s Child, Susan Sherman's memoir of the years from 1959-1970,  is simultaneously cultural history, social discourse, and a deeply personal narrative. Susan Sherman will discuss her eyewitness account of what it meant to be a woman artist and activist in a period when the world was in ferment and large sections of the population were engaged in active self-examination as well as agitating for social change.