Image: Athens, Ga. – In recognition of the 2015 national Women’s History Month theme “Weaving the Stories of Women’s Lives,” the Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia will be sponsoring numerous events this March. This year’s keynote address will be presented by longtime anti-violence and Native American activist and scholar, Dr. Andrea Smith. Dr. Smith is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California Riverside and is the author of Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances and Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. She is also the editor of The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, and co-editor of The Color of Violence, The Incite! Anthology. A nominee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Smith currently serves as the U.S. Coordinator for the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, and she recently completed a report for the United Nations on Indigenous Peoples and Boarding Schools. She is also co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, a national grassroots organization. Her lecture, titled “Indigenous Feminist Narratives,” will take place on Tuesday, March 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the Zell B. Miller Learning Center, room 148, and will be immediately followed by a reception. Both the lecture and reception are free and open to the public. The Institute for Women’s Studies will also host a panel discussion on the topic of women’s narratives as part of their month-long calendar of events. All panelists are UGA faculty whose research focuses on narratives and women’s experiences, including Valerie Boyd, director of UGA’s Master of Fine Arts degree in Narrative Writing, Valerie Babb, Professor of English and Director of the Institute for African American Studies, Danielle Dickens, lecturer in Psychology, and Vicki Michaelis, the Carmical Distinguished Professor in Sports Journalism. The panel will be moderated by Institute for Women’s Studies director, Juanita Johnson-Bailey and will take place on Wednesday, March 18 at 1:30 p.m. in the Zell B. Miller Learning Center, room 350. The panel discussion is free and open to the public. The Institute for Women’s Studies will continue their tradition of hosting a film festival during Women’s History Month featuring films highlighting the stories of women’s lives. All of the film screenings will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the Zell B. Miller Learning Center, room 214. This year’s festival includes Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights on Monday, March 2, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines on Monday, March 16, Daughter from Danang on Monday, March 23, and The Punk Singer: A Film About Kathleen Hanna on Monday, March 30. All film screenings are free and open to the public. A complete list of Women’s History Month events at the University of Georgia is available online at http://iws.uga.edu/. Women’s History Month at the University of Georgia is sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies, part of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Co-sponsors include the College of Education, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Office of Inclusion and Diversity, the Department of Geography, the Graduate School, the Institute of Higher Education, the Office of Institutional Diversity, The Institute of Native American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, the Office of International Education, the Department of Religion, the Department of Romance Languages, the School of Law, the School of Social Work, the School of Public and International Affairs, the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, and the Willson Center for Humanities and the Arts.
