In conjunction with the 2019 national Women’s History Month theme “Visionary Women: Champions of Peace and Nonviolence,” the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia will be hosting numerous programs in March.
This year’s Women’s History Month keynote address will be presented by Layli Maparyan, executive director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College.
Maparyan is best known for her scholarship in the area of womanism and is the author of two groundbreaking texts in the field of womanist studies, The Womanist Reader (Routledge, 2006) and The Womanist Idea (Routledge, 2012). She also has published in the areas of adolescent development, social identities (including biracial/biethnic identity and the intersections of racial/ethnic, sexual, spiritual/religious and gender identities), black LGBTQ studies, hip-hop studies and history of psychology.
Maparyan’s scholar-activist work interweaves threads from the social sciences and the critical disciplines, incorporating basic and applied platforms around a common theme of integrating identities and communities in peaceable, ecologically sound and self-actualizing ways.
Her lecture, “Women, Peace and Nonviolence: Womanist Case Studies of the Contemplative Path to Social Action,” will take place March 21 at 6:30 p.m. in Room 271 of the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. A reception sponsored by the Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives for the Study of the Rights of Women in History and Law will immediately follow the lecture.
The Institute for Women’s Studies will continue its tradition of hosting a film festival during March featuring documentaries highlighting the often-untold stories of women fighting against discrimination and misrepresentation. All film screenings are open free to the public. They will be shown at 6:30 p.m. in Room 271 of the special collections libraries.
This year’s film screenings include RBG on March 4, Mankiller on March 18 and Dolores on March 25.
The Institute for Women’s Studies also will host a panel discussion focusing on craftivism, the use of art and crafts to engage with social and political issues, on March 26 at 3:30 p.m. Panelists will discuss the importance of craftivism, the ways in which it engages community and fosters peaceful protest and examine the various ways to participate in this form of activism. Open free to the public, the discussion will take place in Room 271 of the special collections libraries.
A complete list of Women’s History Month programming at the University of Georgia is at http://iws.uga.edu/.
