MARCH 26, 2009 ISSUE
ASU Hosts Southeastern Regional Women’s Studies Conference April 2 to 4
The Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Conference will be held Thursday to Saturday, April 2 to 4 at Appalachian State University. The conference is hosted by the ASU Women’s Studies Program.
The conference theme is “Women and Environments: The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Activities will be held at Plemmons Student Union. Keynote speakers are Elisabeth Lloyd, Chris Cuomo, Marilou Awiakta and Beverly Guy-Sheftall.
In addition, Starhawk, a global justice activist and organizer, will present the workshop “Vision and Action” Saturday, April 4, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. The workshop will include writing. Starhawk will help participants discover inner tools to free their imaginations to envision a society that serves life and honors diversity.
Starhawk is the author or coauthor of 10 books, including The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing and the award-winning Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising. Her latest book is Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature.
The presentations by Lloyd and Awiakta are free and open to the public. Admission to talks by Starhawk, Cuomo and Guy-Sheftall are limited to conference registrants.
Conference registration is $65 for students and the unemployed and $140 for all others. The registration fee includes information packets, reception, two lunches, morning snack and coffee breaks, access to all concurrent sessions, and shuttle service between the conference hotel and the university. Registration is available online only at www.womenstudies.appstate.edu/SEWSA09/registrationinfo.html.
“We are excited about our theme ‘Women and Environments’ and the many papers related to that theme being presented at the conference by students and faculty,” said professor Martha McCaughey, director of the Women’s Studies Program at ASU.
“Appalachian is recognized as a leader in both academic programs on the environment and sustainability efforts, and Women’s Studies scholarship has much to contribute in these arenas—from women’s unique relationship to farming, hunting, vegetarianism, and environmental activism to analyses of gender and nature in literature,” she said.
More than 200 people from across the southeastern region, including Mississippi, Virginia and Florida, are expected to attend the conference.
Lloyd will speak Thursday, April 4, at 8:00 p.m. Her early research interests focused around models and confirmation in evolutionary biology. She pursued her theoretical ideas about natural selection with Stephen Jay Gould and published two articles with him.
Her interests in philosophy of biology, general philosophy of science, and gender issues, are pursued in her book The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution, which received the Bonnie and Vern Bullough Award from the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.
Cuomo will present a talk Friday, April 3, at noon. She is a professor of philosophy and women’s studies, and director of the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia.
Her work is in ethics and political theory, feminist philosophy, critical race theory, environmental philosophy, science studies and performance. She is the author of The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love & Knowledge, which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and an American Philosophical Association Book Award; and Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing.
Cuomo is co-editor of The Feminist Philosophy Reader. She has been awarded grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Charles Phelps Taft Center and the Wilson Center for the Arts and Humanities. She is currently working on a project on indigenous knowledge concerning climate change in Northern Alaska.
Native American author Marilou Awiakta will present a lecture Friday, April 3, at 5:00 p.m.
Awiakta is known for her writing, which blends stories, essays and poetry. Awiakta has received numerous awards for her writing and other achievements. Her books include Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet, Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery: A Child’s Christmas in Memphis and Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother’s Wisdom.
Guy-Sheftall will present the talk “Black Women and Ecofeminism: The Politics of Place” Saturday, April 4, at 9:00 a.m.
Guy-Sheftall is the founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center and the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College. She also is an adjunct professor at Emory University’s Institute for Women’s Studies where she teaches graduate courses. She currently serves as president of the National Women’s Studies Association.
Guy-Sheftall has published several texts within African American and women’s studies that have been noted as seminal works by other scholars, including the first anthology on Black women’s literature, Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature, coedited with Roseann P. Bell and Bettye Parker Smith.
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