Learn about English Department courses for the Spring 2013 Semester and enjoy conversation with English Department faculty and students.
GWS Majors/Minors:
This year we would like to ignite more activism, involvement, and excitement within our campus (and Lexington) feminist community. If you are interested in making a difference please join us for a meeting of the UK Feminist Alliance on Wednesday, Nov 19 in Breckenridge 104/105 at 6pm.
We hope to see you soon!
Tickets: Tickets $19. Students $10. Tickets at the Singletary Center Ticket Office (859) 257-4929. www.uky.edu/SCFA/tickets.php. Ticket office: 10 a.m – 5 p.m. M-F and 12 p.m. – 5 p.m. Sat.
This concert will be interpreted in American Sign Language for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Sponsored by: UK John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, Department of Music
Media sponsor: WUKY-FM
Nikky Finney and the Reel World String Band collaborate for a concert to benefit the New Opportunity School for Women. Arson destroyed the offices of the School in Berea on December, 11, 2011, and this concert is to help restore this vital organization’s future and to celebrate their 25th Anniversary. Writer Nikky Finney appears for a rare local reading as she tours extensively since her 2011 National Book Award for poetry for her fourth book of poetry, Head Off and Split. Reel World String Band is celebrating their 35th Anniversary of performing and activism. Come celebrate the richness of Appalachian and Affrilachian culture with these two Kentucky treasures.
THE ORGANIZATION: The New Opportunity School for Women in Berea was founded by Jane Stephenson in 1987. The program grew out of an urgent need for women in Appalachia to become better educated and employed. Women attend a three-week residential program with the goal of becoming more self-sufficient, more confident, and an inspiration to their families and communities. For 25 years, more than 600 women across Appalachia have learned they have the strength and courage to finish their education and to build the self-esteem they need to find their potential. The School has received national recognition on Oprah and in People magazine. www.nosw.org
THE ARTISTS:
Nikky Finney was born in South Carolina and she is an award-winning American poet and activist. She is the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky and co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets. As an undergraduate at Talladega College (Alabama), nurtured by Hale Woodruff’s Amistad murals, she began to understand the powerful synergy between art and history. Finney has authored four books of poetry: Head Off & Split (2011); The World Is Round (2003); Rice (1995); and On Wings Made of Gauze (1985). The breathtaking collection of poems, Head Off & Split, was awarded the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry. The poems in Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African-American life: from Civil Rights matriarch Rosa Parks, to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning, to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. www.nikkyfinney.net
The Reel World String Band from Lexington, Kentucky, just reached their 35th anniversary. Revered as a Kentucky historical treasure in Kentucky Women: Two Centuries of Indomitable Spirit and Vision, E. Potter, the five members, Sue Massek, banjo; Karen Jones, fiddle; Bev Futrell, guitar; Sharon Ruble, bass; and Elise Melrood, piano, continue to kick up the dust in their spirited performances. The band was presented the KCCJ Humanitarian Award in 2011. As Lily May Ledford exclaimed, “those girls have got fire…” Their list of accomplishments, forever diverse, includes performances at the Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Folk Festival, a tour with the Osborne Brothers, and a tour through Italy. They support many progressive causes and yearly play at the Kentucky Sierra Club’s annual meeting. Their numerous CDs ( www.reelworldstringband.com) include a compilation They’ll Never Keep Us Down: Women’s Coal Mining Songs, Rounder Records. Reel World collaborated with Hazel Dickens and Florence Reece (writer of Which Side Are You On) in this insightful look at the problems and issues of the Appalachian coalfields. Paul Jenkins in his article Getting Wise on Old-Time Music: the Reel World String Band, The Old-Time Herald, 2003, states that “the diverse talents and interest of its members have helped establish the Reel World String Band as one of the top old-time bands in an area of the country already well stocked in that commodity.”
Book launch party for GWS alumni Bernadette Barton's (Morehead State University) new book Pray the Gay Away: The Extraordinary Lives of Bible Belt Gays. The event will be held at the Winchester Galleria at 101 South Main Street in Winchester.
This event is free and open to the public.
Join Breaking the Silence, an initiative spearheaded by GWS student Joseph Mann, for a screening of ‘Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up’ on Saturday, September 22nd, at 10AM in the Kentucky Theater. Our very own Susan Bordo is also on the discussion panel for what promises to be a productive and locally significant dialogue on the issues of gender, bullying, and pressures for conformity.
At its core, this film explores the impact of stereotypes and gender policing. From girls confronting popular messages about culture and body image to boys who are sexually active just to prove they aren't gay, 'Straightlaced' explores what gender means to youth in the race to claim an identity. In this frame, it examines the tragic suicide of a local Fayette County student through interviews with friends on the cruelty he faced for being different.
This screening contributes to a larger initiative to memorialize his life with community activism and an organized response to bullying in our schools.
Sponsors:
JustFundKY
Partners for Youth
The Nest- Center for Women, Children & Families.
Presenter: Craig Cammack, Chairman of Lexington Fairness
Facilitator: Joseph Mann, Coordinator of Breaking the Silence
Discussion Panel:
Susan Bordo, Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at University of Kentucky
Alex Meadows, Student at Northern Kentucky University
Audrey Linville, Student at University of Louisville
Partners:
The Nest- Center for Women, Children, & Families
Lexington Fairness
Project Speak Out
GLSO
PFLAG Lexington
'Straightlaced' is being shown for free with the permission of Ground Spark Productions.
Professor Hélène Quanquin (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3) is a well-regarded historian of American culture with particular expertise on the history of feminism in the US, the history of American reform, and the history of masculinity in the US. Professor Quanquin will be on campus as part of the Global Connections initiative, a project which links courses at UK to courses taught at universities around the world. As part of this program, Professor Quanquin is team-teaching with Professor Kathi Kern History 405: The History of Women in the United States, 1900-present, offered this fall.
Professor Quanquin’s lecture is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the University of Kentucky History Department.
Mary Anglin, associate professor in UK's Department of Anthropology, discussed the effects of globalization on gender in reference to Appalachian women and Appalachian communities. In order to better understand the region's past and present, studies of women and gender in Appalachia should not be ignored.
At the end of May 2012, a delegation of faculty from the University of Kentucky went to Shanghai University to promote the American Studies Center, a partnership between UK and SHU. Michelle Sizemore facilitated a group discussion between UK and SHU students about cultural difference, identity, and storytelling across cultures.
