Brooks 2009-10 Lecture Series to Focus on ‘Women’s Worlds’

09/04/2009 

The 2009-10 Rozanne M. Brooks Lecture Series at SUNY Cortland will encompass the theme of “Women’s Worlds” with two guest speakers sponsored during the fall semester and three during the spring semester.

The lectures will all begin at 4:30 p.m. in Moffett Center, Room 2125 and are free and open to the public. A reception to welcome each speaker starts at 4 p.m. in the Rozanne M. Brooks Museum’s new location, Moffett Center, Room 2126.

The lecture series honors the late Rozanne Marie Brooks, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor and SUNY Cortland professor emerita of sociology and anthropology. A SUNY Cortland faculty member for 36 years, Brooks died in 1997.

Jennifer Fluri, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Dartmouth College, will discuss “Gendering Afghanistan: the Geopolitics of Gender, Assistance and Misunderstanding the Local” on Wednesday, Sept. 23. Fluri will provide an overview of the geopolitics of international assistance to Afghanistan and the focus on women during the various phases of war, including the Taliban era and the transnational feminist movement to assist Afghan women.

Barbara Sutton, an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at the University at Albany, will give the speech “‘It Was Torture’: Traveling Discourses and Practices of Gender Violence and State Terrorism in Argentina” on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Focusing on Argentina, she will explore the connection between discourses and practices of gender violence and state terrorism.

Caroline Kaltefleiter, an associate professor of communication studies at SUNY Cortland, will give a talk on “Revolution Girl Style Now: The Riot Grrrl Network and the Coalesce of Girls’ Studies” on Wednesday, Feb. 10.

Himika Bhattacharya, an assistant professor of women’s studies at Syracuse University, will address “Field Memories: Re-Remembering Resistance –– Victimhood, Agency and Affect in Women’s Experiences of Violence,” on Wednesday, March 10.

“I draw upon my field work in Lahaul, India to trace the connections between medical discourses on violence, women’s experiences of violence and the role of sentimentality in shaping both in India,” Bhattacharya explained. Moving away from the victim-agent model, her discussion focuses on personal and collective memories of everyday, mundane acts of defiance in which women engage to break from feministic ideals of ‘pure’ resistance and medical definitions of violence on their bodies.

The lecture by Yomee Lee, an associate professor of kinesiology at SUNY Cortland, on Wednesday, April 7, will deal with “Beyond the Physical Competition: Korean Women and the Culture of Sport.” The talk explores the intricacies of the sporting culture among Korean women that goes beyond competition to examine the traditional notion of femininity and patriarchy of Korean culture and sports.

The 2009-10 Brooks Lecture Series is sponsored by a grant from Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC). For more information, contact organizer Sharon R. Steadman, SUNY Cortland associate professor of sociology and anthropology and coordinator of the International Studies Program, at (607) 753-2308.