Panel Will Explore ‘What Can Feminism Speak To?’

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Middlebury will host a discussion between two leading feminist voices at Wilson Hall on Wednesday, September 27, at 4:30 p.m. Writer Katha Pollitt and scholar Janell Hobson will examine what feminism can—and cannot—speak to.

Some read Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 as a sign that feminism is weaker than ever when, in fact, feminism has turned out to be a powerful political force that moved millions of people around the world to participate in women’s marches last January and has pushed the Democratic Party to include feminist issues in its platform.

Janell Hobson is an associate professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2005, new edition forthcoming) and Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender (SUNY Press, 2012). She also writes and blogs for Ms. Magazine and authored several cover stories for the magazine, including “Beyonce’s Fierce Feminism” (Spring 2013).

Katha Pollitt is a leading feminist voice in the U.S. She writes the award-winning column “Subject to Debate” for The Nation magazine. Her latest book is Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights; she is also the author of two books of poetry and several collections of essays. Her book Learning to Drive (2007) is now a motion picture.

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