Gender, Sexuality, & Fem Studies

Karin Gottshall, Assistant Professor in English and American Studies and director of the Breadloaf Young Writers’ Conference, reads from her new poetry.

Of President John F. Kennedy, few stories are less known or more revealing than his friendship with America’s most celebrated poet. Yet it was Robert Frost that Kennedy made the subject of one of his most famous speeches — just weeks before his assassination. The documentary “JFK The Last Speech” (Bestor Cram, USA, 2018, 60 mins.) explores the dramatic relationship between these two seminal Americans. At its center is an extraordinary speech about poetry and power that inspires a group of Amherst College classmates to alter the course of their lives.

Please join us for this semester’s iteration of It Happens Here, and event in which community members have the opportunity to listen to and share stories of sexual assault, pain, and healing. Please be advised that this event will contain potentially triggering material.

It Happens Here is an event allowing survivors of sexual violence and intimate partner violence to share their stories with the Middlebury community. At this event, all stories will be read in an act of solidarity. This event promotes visibility and recognition of the experiences of Middlebury community members. Please come for a night of respect and healing.

What is it like to live with a disability in Russia? What happens when an ethnographer sets out to write a play based on the stories of fieldwork participants? What happens when American theater-makers with disabilities stage a play about Russia? I WAS NEVER ALONE is an ethnographic play about the experiences of people with mobility and speech impairments in contemporary Russia. Playwright-ethnographer Cassandra Hartblay reflects on the process of developing the script, bringing an anthropologist’s sensibility to examining disability studies and performance ethnography.

The Axinn Center for the Humanities presents its inaugural lecture by Emily Bernard: “Black is the Body: Writing about Race in America”

Racial identity is a construction. But just because it is a fiction does not make it untrue. In this talk, Emily Bernard  discusses the complex and central role of storytelling as a source of power, meaning, and beauty in her life as a writer, reader, and scholar of African American experience.

 

Intersections between class and gender in gay male subcultures - This talk examines the discursive construction of gendered identities in gay male communities, focusing on drag queens and bears (a subculture centered around being heavyset and hairy). Research with African American drag queens in Texas in the 1990s is reviewed, showing how language is used to index an upper-class drag queen identity associated with the speech of white middle-class women.

The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies invites you to join us for a reception to welcome new faculty. This will be a good opportunity to catch up with colleagues before the semester rush takes over. We will be serving refreshments. Please RSVP to GSFSprogram@middlebury.edu. All are welcome to attend.

The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies invites you to join us for a reception to welcome new faculty. This will be a good opportunity to catch up with colleagues before the semester rush takes over. We will be serving refreshments. Please RSVP to GSFSprogram@middlebury.edu. All are welcome to attend.