Athens, Ga. – In recognition of the 2009 national Women’s History Month theme “Women: Taking the Lead to Save Our Planet,” the University of Georgia Institute for Women’s Studies will be sponsoring several events, including films and lectures, in March.
For the month’s keynote event on March 20-21, IWS will host a symposium in honor of the late Australian philosopher Val Plumwood, a leading contributor in the development of ecofeminism and radical environmental philosophy. Titled “Environmental Justice and Ecofeminism: Ethical Complexity in Action” the symposium will bring together prominent theorists, activists and community members working on issues and questions that are deeply social and ecological.
The symposium will open with an afternoon keynote address on Friday, March 20, sponsored by the Willson Centerfor Humanities and Arts, in the Coverdell Building by feminist ethicist and animal rights activist Lori Gruen, associate professor at Wesleyan University, and will continue on Saturday with sessions at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia.
Invited speakers include Teri Blanton, a fellow with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, who concentrates on the campaign to end mountaintop removal mining in eastern Kentucky and helps create a sustainable and survivable energy future; and Jamie Baker Roskie, managing attorney of the UGA Land Use Clinic, who will focus on the community of Newtown in Gainesville, Ga., where residents have been fighting exposure to toxic chemicals since the 1990s.
The conference also will feature panel discussions by faculty members from UGA. Papers from the conference will be collected in a special issue of the journal Ethics and the Environment.
Friday’s events will be held at the Coverdell Center and Saturday’s events will be at the Callaway Building in the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. There is no registration fee for the conference and all meals are included. For the full schedule and details, see www.uga.edu/iws.
Other events include the Women’s History Month film festival; an evening of spoken word and music with Aralee Strange, a local Athens artist, and Laurie Stone from New York City, at Flicker Bar & Theatre on Tuesday, March 3; a lecture on “The Sexual Politics of Meat” by Carol Adams on Wednesday, March 4; and a panel discussion “Food is a Feminist Issue: Gardens, Farms and Local Markets” on Tuesday, March 31.
For a complete list of Women’s History Month events see www.uga.edu/iws, and click on “events.” The Institute for Women’s Studies is a unit of UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences that brings together multidisciplinary perspectives on women and gender from across all schools and colleges at UGA.
