Athens, Ga. – Craig Womack, a leading voice in Native American theory and fiction, will give the keynote address at the University of Georgia’s Graduate Association of Multicultural Studies (GAMS) conference on Friday, Sept. 24, at 4:30 p.m. in room 101 of the Student Learning Center. He teaches nineteenth and early twentieth century Native American literature as well as gay and lesbian literature at Oklahoma University. Womack is the author of Red on Red, a literary history of the Muskogee Creek Nation, and Drowning in Fire, a novel about Creek country. The public is invited to this free event.
The student-organized GAMS Conference, titled “Intersectionality: Life at the Borders,” is an opportunity to address and renew commitment to research and teaching that promotes the importance of tolerance and dialogue across racial, ethnic and national groups. It brings a diverse and motivated group of scholars to UGA. Conference presenters from numerous departments at UGA are joined by their colleagues from schools with strong diversity programs, such as University of California-Berkeley, Cornell, Temple and Yale universities. Presentations, panels and round-table discussions will foster understanding and effect change in ideologies and pedagogies while promoting diversity both within UGA and the community at large.
The two-day conference takes place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 24, at the Tate Center and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 25, in the Student Learning Center. Registration closes at 9:30 a.m. on Friday; the keynote speech is open to the public, and a few tickets ($20) are still available for the banquet following the keynote.
Conference planners and their faculty advisors Timothy Powell and Barbara McCaskill acknowledge the generous support of the UGA Office of Institutional Diversity, the President’s Venture Fund, the President’s office, the Institute of African American Studies, the English Department Lecture Series, the Helen S. Lanier Lecture Series, the School of Education, the Department of Comparative Literature and UMLAUT (the graduate organization in comparative literature).