Spring 2005 Events

"The Vagina Monologues."
Student performance of Eve Ensler's play directed by Eliza Hulme and Rebecca Kanengiser. Silent auction of works by local and student artists to benefit WomenSafe.

"The Politics of Race in the Bush Era: A Roundtable Discussion."
The purpose of this event is to consider the politics of race during the presidency of George W. Bush. Following brief presentations by Professor Jim Ralph (History), Professor Hilda Llorens (Soc/Anthro), Professor Bertram Johnson (Political Science), and Professor Jason Mittell (Am Civ/Film and Media Culture), attendees may join in an open discussion of the topic. Refreshments provided. Co-sponsored by Wonnacott Commons and WAGS.

"Sister –to–Sister Gathering."
A day of fun activities and thought-provoking discussions for middle school girls organized by the "Sister-to-Sister" internship team in conjunction with the American Association of University Women. Sponsored by Chellis House, the American Association of University Women, the Dean of the College Office, and American Flatbread.

"African-American and Latino Hip Hop Resistance: Uniting Our Generation!"
Lecture by Rosa Clemente, a Black Puerto Rican grassroots organizer, journalist, and entrepreneur. Having worked with the who's who in the hip hop industry, she has seen the need for the African-American and Latino communities to come together and create social change. Sponsored by the African American Alliance.

"How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Fashioning the Virgin in RenaissanceVenice."
Lecture by Katy Smith Abbott, Department of History of Art and Architecture. Part of the Faculty Lecture Series.

"Poetry Reading by Sandra Maria Esteves."
Sandra Maria Esteves, a "Puerto Rican-Dominican-Boriqueña- Quisqueyana-Taino-African-American," was born and raised in the Bronx. One of the founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement, she has published six collections of poetry including Finding Your Way (2001); Contrapunto In The Open Field (1998); Undelivered Love Poems (1997); Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo (1990); Tropical Rain: A Bilingual Downpour (1984); and Yerba Buena (1981). Ms. Esteves was distinguished as an Art Review 2001 Honoree by the Bronx Council on the Arts, and received the 1985 NYFA Fellowship in Poetry. Sponsored by the Alianza Latinoamericana y Caribeña, the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House, the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, the Writing Program, the Office for Institutional Diversity/Palana House.

"Amnesis Time: The Films of Marjorie Keller."
Lecture by Robin Blaetz, Associate Professor and Chair of the Film Studies Program at Mount Holyoke College. Marjorie Keller was an important feminist filmmaker, teacher, and scholar who worked in the avant garde tradition. Her filmmaking career extended from 1971 until 1991 and included more than twenty works such as Misconception [1977], Daughters of Chaos [1980] and Herein [1991]. Keller's scholarship comprised publications on filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage, Jean Cocteau and Joseph Cornell. Among other places, Keller taught at Middlebury College during the winter term of 1994 shortly before her untimely death. Sponsored by the Film and Media Culture Program, the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House, and the Hirschfield Fund.

Exhibition opening: "Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory."
The exhibition Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory explores a previously undocumented trend in international folk art: In the past 35 years, textile artists, mostly women, have created tapestries to depict their experiences of warfare. Works from Afghanistan, Chile, Guatemala, Laos, Nicaragua, Palestine, South Africa, and Vietnam speak to the ravages of war, particularly on women, and to the creativity with which women have responded to the effects of prolonged armed conflict on their respective cultures.

Fraker Prize Award Reception
The Alison G. Fraker Prize is awarded annually for works on women's or gender issues produced for any Middlebury College course during the preceding calendar year.

"Feminist Methods Revisited: Understanding Identidad in the Global Age."
Brownbag lunch talk by Northeastern Consortium Fellow Ime Kerlee (WAGS Program) in the "Life of the Mind" lecture series. Coffee and desserts will be provided.

"Jean Paul Samputu in Concert."
Jean Paul Samputu's life and music changed forever when the tragedy of genocide struck Rwanda in 1994. During this terrible period when almost a million Rwandan people were killed, Samputu lost his mother and father, three brothers and a sister. Besides being a brilliant singer, songwriter, and musician, he is also a tireless worker for peace and reconciliation, an educator about HIV/AIDS, and an eloquent speaker about the Rwandan genocide. He has worked steadily since that time to help unify and heal his country and his music has been deeply affected by the national tragedy. Rwandan music and dance are unique. Rhythms such as 5/8 are used in traditional music and dance in ways that differentiate Rwanda from other African cultures. Samputu's performances are steeped in the many rich traditions of Rwandan music and dance. Samputu sings in 6 languages (Kinyarwanda, Swahili, Lingala, Luganda, French and English) and he combines the unique musical traditions from all regions of Rwanda, among them, intwatwa, umushayayo, imparamba, and ikinimba. Sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House, the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, the French Department, the Foreign Language Division, the Office for Institutional Diversity, and the Sociology/Anthropology Department.

"Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali, Bigger Thomas and Ernest Gaines: The Conundrum of the Prison in Black Men's Literature and Culture."
Lecture by Keith Clark, Professor of English, George Mason University. Professor Clark is the author of Black Manhood in James Baldwin, Ernest J. Gaines and August Wilson (2002) and editor of Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama (2001), both published by the University of Illinois Press. His critical and pedagogical essays have appeared in such publications as The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, Callaloo, African American Review, and The Faulkner Journal. His most recent publications include: a co-authored introductory essay, "Melodramas of Beset Black Manhood? Meditations on African-American Masculinity as Scholarly Topos and Social Menace," for a special edition of Callaloo (Vol. 26, 2003) on black literary masculinity; and "'From a Thousand Different Points of View': The Multiple Masculinities of Ann Petry's 'Miss Muriel'" in Ann Petry's Short Fiction: Critical Essays (2004). His teaching interests include masculinity/gender studies, the black bildungsroman, and the African American Short Story. He is currently engaged in two research projects: a study of contemporary African American southern male authors, and an examination of the novels and short fiction of Ann Petry. In addition to his academic interests, he is involved in several community service projects related to mentoring, tutoring, and providing meals for AIDS patients. Sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House, Wonnacott Commons, and the Department of American Literature and Civilization.

"Life After Middlebury: What Can I Do With A Major or Interest in Women's and Gender Studies?"
Panel discussion with Sujata Moorti, chair of the Women's and Gender Studies Program; Ime Kerlee, Northeastern Consortium Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in Women's Studies/Emory University; and Middlebury graduate Elizabeth Brookbank, campus organizer for feminist.org.

Joint reading by Dominican novelist Julia Alvarez (In the Time of Butterflies) and Chilean poet Marjorie Agosín (Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love).

Writer Julia Alvarez (at right) gives voice to the dual heritage of Hispanic-Americans. From the Dominican Republic, she was uprooted from her homeland at the age of ten, when her parents and three sisters fled the Trujillo dictatorship and settled in New York City. Alvarez's writing draws on her family's displacements of language and geography, and her own struggle to find herself as a writer. With three best selling novels – How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991), In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), and In The Name of Salomé (2000), Alvarez continues to win praise for her resonance of the complex Caribbean immigrant experience.

Marjorie Agosín (aft left) is a professor of Spanish literature at Wellesley College and her poetry is well known in English and Spanish. She has written two dozen books, including Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile, 1974-1994 (University of New Mexico Press). Her Austrian-Jewish family escaped to Chile before World War II. Ms. Agosín lived in Santiago de Chile until age sixteen; she came to the United States to escape General Pinochet's military dictatorship.

Sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House and the Vermont Folklife Center.

April 7-10, 2005

Feminist Action at Middlebury Symposium

"Art as Activism: Exploring the Intersection of Rape, Pornography and Violence."
FAM's symposium will explore the breadth and depth of the systematic ways in which women experience oppression. We will be investigating various issues concerning women today, from pornography to rape, with a focus on women who have found ways to talk about these issues through creative and dynamic media such as film, song, poetry, and theater. These women activists and artists will not only raise awareness about women's human rights issues, but will be using the medium of art to move and inspire others to be involved in change.

Thursday, April 7,4:15 p.m.,Sunderland110
"Women, Pop Music and Pornography."
Lecture by Meredith LeVande.

Meredith LeVande is a lecturer and performer who focuses on pop music and pornography. Her interactive lecture/slide show looks at representations of women pop stars in the current deregulated media environment. Entitled "Women, Pop Music and Pornography," the presentation reveals the large corporate ownership of pornography and its interests in portraying women in ways that promote pornography. It presents clips of popular music videos and images that we have seen time and time again, and pinpoints how collectively they contribute to an overall mainstreaming of pornography.

Thursday, April 7,8:00 p.m.., Gamut Room
Meredith LeVande performs original music about women's images.

Friday, April 8, 4:30 p.m., Mitchell Green Lounge
Rape Agressive Defensive (RAD) Workshop on women's self-defense.

Friday, April 8,8:00 p.m., Location TBA
"A Rose By Any Other Name"

Multi-media presentation and performance by Nancy Hulse.
Nancy Hulse is a performance artist and educator who produces live, multi-media programs dealing with violence against women. Her dynamic multimedia experiments reshape the lecture format into a different experience. A rape victim who uses art as a medium for activism, Nancy Hulse epitomizes the symposium. She has performed all across the nation at institutions such as Wesleyan and Vassar Colleges. Her multimedia performance titled "A Rose by any Other Name" uses the music and poetry of women to satirize and highlight the many uses and abuses of the female body. She tackles rape and body image issues from a new and thoughtful perspective.

Thursday, April 7, 8 p.m.
Friday, April 8, 8 p.m.
Saturday, April 9, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Wright Theatre
"Necessary Targets"
Performance of Eve Ensler's play directed by Claudio Medeiros. Necessary Targets tells the story of two American women who go to Bosnia to help female war victims confront their memories. As a consequence, both of them emerge deeply changed themselves. Necessary Targets is a groundbreaking play about women and war – about the violence of dark memories and the enduring resilience of the human spirit.

Saturday, April 9,2 p.m., Location TBA
"Alix Olson – Slam Poetry"
Alix Olson is a nationally touring folk poet and progressive queer artist-activist. One part peace vigil, one part protest rally, and one part joyful raucous concert, Alix ignites audiences everywhere. Olson's innumerable stage, broadcast, radio and print appearances include, most recently, twice headlining HBO's "Def Poetry Jam," and an inclusion in Utne Magazine's InRadio compilation. Utne's website calls Olson "...the spoken word diva everyone's talking about."

Sunday, April 10,3 p.m., Chateau Grand Salon
Faculty Lecture: Deb Ellis and Dwight Fee

Sunday, April 10,5 p.m., Chellis House
Closing Dinner for FAM symposium.

Sunday, April 10,7:30 p.m., Bi-Hall 205
Film Screening: The Real Linda Lovelace

"Help Wanted: Human Rights Abuses against Women Migrant Workers inSoutheast Asia."
Lecture by Nisha Varia, Asia Researcher for the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. Her recent work includes investigating intimidation and threats against women in Afghanistan, human rights abuses against women migrant workers in Malaysia and Indonesia, and gender-based violence against refugee women in Nepal.

Sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House, the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, the Sociology/Anthropology Department, the Political Science Department, the Geography Department, and Wonnacott Commons.

"AAUW Informational Meeting."
Come and meet representatives of the American Association of University Women and find out about their college student conference and graduate school scholarships!

"Stories of Loss and New Beginnings."
A panel discussion by Lao women who came to the US in the 1980s as refugees and have made Vermont their home. Organized by the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House and the Vermont Folklife Center in conjunction with the exhibition "Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory."

"I Think of This Everytime I Think of Mountains."
Poetry and songs on war and peace by Souphine Phathsoungneune and Phayvanh Luekhamhan. A bilingual collaboration between a 30-year old Lao American poet and a 78-year old master of the Lao folk song tradition who came to Brattleboro as refugees 25 years ago. Although neighbors, they have lived in two worlds separated by language, culture and age. In this extraordinary event, they come together for the first time to perform their own and each other's work. Organized by the Women's and Gender Studies Program/Chellis House and the Vermont Folklife Center.

End of year celebration.
Come enjoy good food and music! We will award the Feminist of the Year Prizes.

Chellis Coffee House
Come and take a study break and enjoy some good music and bubble tea!

Chellis House Film Series

In conjunction with the exhibit Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory at the Vermont Folklife Center, a Thursday night film series will take place in Sunderland Hall, Room 110 throughout the semester.

Thursday, March 10, 7 p.m., Sunderland 110
"Afghanistan Unveiled" (52 mins., Brigitte Brault & Aina Film Group, 2003)
Created as the culmination of a unique training program for Afghan women journalists, Afghanistan Unveiled explores the effects of the repressive Taliban regime and the subsequent U.S. military campaign on the lives of Afghan women and their families. As much an emotional as a geographic journey, the film contrasts the harsh lives of the rural women of Afghanistan with those of the young camerawomen who are experiencing newfound freedom and opportunity and are attempting to use their work to change the condition of women in their country. Fourteen young women, several still in their teens, were trained as camera operators and video journalists at the AINA (which means 'mirror' in Farsi) Afghan Media and Culture Center in Kabul, the first female journalists to be trained in that country for more than a decade, and the first ever to be trained in digital media. None of the trainees had ever before traveled outside Kabul, and except for one, none had been able to study or pursue careers while the Taliban controlled their country.

Thursday, March 17, 7 p.m., Sunderland 110
"Living in Exile" (60 mins., Hales & Reibold)
During the Vietnam War, the indigenous Montagnard Dega people were some of the most loyal allies of the United States, and 85 percent of their villages were destroyed. Today, the Montagnards are fighting for survival and human rights in their homeland. North Carolina happens to contain the largest population of the tribal people outside of Vietnam. Kay Reibold, director of the Vietnam Highlands Assistance Project for Triangle Lutheran Family Services, has been working for 15 years with the Montagnard tribal people of Vietnam's Central Highlands. She has traveled to Vietnam 16 times since 1988, and recently returned from the Montagnard refugee camps in Cambodia, where she has discovered that the human rights crisis facing them has deepened. Reibold has produced, with Cheyney Hales, the documentary Living in Exile, which focuses on the Montagnard resistance movement.

Thursday, March 31,7 p.m.,Sunderland110:
"Threads of Hope" (50 mins., Canamedia Productions, 1997)
This film tells the powerful story of a group of women who banded together and dared to defy the brutal dictatorship of Chile's Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The women—mothers, wives, and sisters of the tens of thousands of victims of the regime's torture and execution—armed only with scraps of cloth, sewing needles, and the overwhelming desire to find their loved ones, set to work to tell their stories by creating arpilleras, colorful handmade tapestries which chronicled the horror and injustice of Pinochet's reign of terror. The tapestries were ultimately smuggled out of the country and sold, with the proceeds returned to Chile to support the victims' families. The program, narrated by Donald Sutherland, explores the compelling stories of three of these women and how through their vibrant and beautiful art they were able to transform their trauma, grief, and their hope into commitment to help the survivors, and in their own way, to help democracy to return to Chile.

Thursday, April 7, 7:00 p.m., Sunderland 110
"Threads of Survival" (25 mins., Eagle Lion Films, 1991)
This film explores the lives of Hmong people living in the United States who are desperately trying to preserve their rich cultural and spiritual heritage through their stitchery (Pa Ndau) and woven garments. Original Hmong tonal poetry along with vibrant and colorful images of the cloth and threads are interwoven between the stories told by Hmong women about life in the United States, Thailand and Laos. Featured are scenes of a Hmong New Year celebration where both men and women dress in their finest hand-made clothing, Hmong fleeing from Laos, Hmong village life, Hmong farming and a master weaver working at her traditional bamboo loom.

Thursday, April 14, 7:00 p.m., Sunderland 110
"Voices of Ayacucho" (52 mins, Avanti Films, 1998)
Aesthetically beautiful and rich with emotion, "Voices of Ayacucho, Peru" is guaranteed to inform, entertain and unite the hearts of audiences as it provides a rare glance into the intimate life of Edwin Sulca, the people of Ayacucho, and the stories "woven" in and amongst these characters. The documentary also highlights one of Peru's most colourful festivals called Semana Santa or Holy Week, and incorporates stock footage showing the damage done in preceding years by the terrorist group "Shining Path."

Thursday, April 21,7:00 p.m.,Sunderland110
"Journey to Freedom" (South Africa, 2004)
Black South African embroiderers create giant patchwork wall-hangings about their memories of apartheid.