Body Parts – Gensler Family Symposium on Feminism in a Global Context, April 8 to 12, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmdDFHzSWLM
Why do we associate breasts with women and muscled forearms with men? Why do we think six-pack abs are masculine and carefully manicured nails are feminine? Are we the sum of our body parts? Who decides what our body parts mean? These and other questions about our bodies guide the 2013 Gensler Family Symposium on Feminism in a Global Context to be held at Middlebury College during the week of April 8-12. Through an array of events — student panels, performances, film screening, formal presentations – this year’s symposium explores how some body parts come to stand in for our sexed and gendered identities. (see more at go/bodyparts)
Mon, April 8, Crossroads Café, 7-9 p.m. – Lips and Hips!
Student-led conversation on our bodies, our selves. Nosh on some sweet potato fries while you chime in.
Tues, April 9, BiHall 104, 7 p.m. – The Fat Body (In)Visible (directed by Margitte Kristjansson, USA, 2011, 24 mins)
In this insightful documentary, three fat activists speak candidly about growing up overweight, and the size discrimination they have faced.
Wed, April 10, Bihall 104, 7 p.m. – American Eunuchs (directed by Gian Claudio Guiducchi, Franco Scacchi, USA, 2003, 80 mins.)
This documentary investigates the underworld of modern eunuchs in America. Each year in the United States hundreds of men voluntarily choose to be castrated and reinvent their sexual identity for reasons other than sex reassignment.
Thu, April 11, RAJ, 4:30 p.m. – Michelle Voss Roberts (Wake Forest Divinity School)
“Body Parts: How a Comparative Theology Assists a Feminist View of the Human Being.”
Thu, April 11, Hillcrest 103, 6 p.m. – “Race(d) Body Parts”
Midd alums Ofelia Barrios ’93 and Morgane Richardson ’08 will talk about ”Women, Gender and HIV Prevention” and “Women of Color: Taking Media into our Own Hands.”
Ramunto’s Pizza will be served!
Friday, April 12, RAJ, 12:30-4:30 p.m.
E. Frances White (New York University), “Something Out of Kilter: Black Women’s Breasts, the Missing Link, and Black Feminist Resistance.”
Bernadette Wegenstein (Johns Hopkins University), “The Cure: The Culture and History of Breast Cancer.”
Peggy McCracken (University of Michigan), “The Wild Man’s Penis: Gendered Anatomy and Becoming Human.”
Darla Thompson (Middlebury College), “Technologies of the Body: Iron Collars, Chain Gangs, and Enslaved Black Women in Antebellum Louisiana.”
Banu Subramaniam (University of Massachusetts-Amherst), “Global Citizenship?: Genomes, Nations, and the Politics of Belonging.”
Lunch and light refreshments will be served.
Sponsored by the Gensler Family Fund, the Program in Women and Gender Studies, Chellis House, American Studies Spiegel Family Fund, the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Office of the Dean of the College, Ross Commons, Women of Color, Feminist Action at Middlebury, Queer Studies House, Middlebury Open Queer Alliance, the Institutional Diversity Committee, and the Departments of Sociology/Anthropology, Theater, and Religion.
