Grand Valley State University's Women and Gender Studies program will explore the theme Gender and Nature for its sixth annual WGS Festival, held March 17-20 with events on the Grand Rapids and Allendale campuses.
All events are open to the public, free of charge, and are geared toward both genders, said Linda Chown, coordinator of the WGS program. This year's WGS Festival is addressing gender and nature to understand ways that men and women sometimes relate and react differently to physical space, nature or the outside world, Chown said. Given this important topic, the three days of activities offer much to enjoy and learn about for men, women and children.
Cancer survivor, author and ecologist Sandra Steingraber will deliver the festival's keynote address on Tuesday, March 20, at 2:30 p.m. in the Cook-DeWitt Center, Allendale campus. Steingraber is author of the highly acclaimed book Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment, which compares data on toxic releases with incidences of cancer. She was named Ms. Magazine's Woman of the Year in 1997 and heralded as the new Rachel Carson by the Sierra Club in 1999. At the WGS Festival, Steingraber will speak on Gender, Cancer and the Environment. Her appearance is co-sponsored by GVSU's Liberal Studies program.
WGS Festival 2001 begins on Saturday, March 17, with the daylong Women's Film Festival, held 12-9 p.m. at Loosemore Auditorium in the DeVos Center, on GVSU's Pew Grand Rapids Campus. The seven featured films are listed below. Admission and refreshments are free.
The festival continues on Monday and Tuesday, March 19 and 20, with presentations and panel discussions on topics relating to gender and nature. The events are held in the Grand River Room of the Kirkhof Center, Allendale campus.
Festival 2001 will close Tuesday with the presentation of the Maxine Swanson and Barbara Jordan awards at 5 p.m. at the Cook-DeWitt Center. The Maxine Swanson Award, named for a former GVSU Board of Trustees member, is given to an individual who has provided leadership in the rights of women at Grand Valley. The Barbara Jordan Award is named for the late Texas legislator respected for her integrity and ability to inspire.
GVSU Women's Film Festival: Gender and Nature
Saturday, March
17, 2001
Loosemore Auditorium, DeVos Center
Pew Grand Rapids
Campus, 401 W. Fulton St.
12 noon: Butterfly (1997), directed by Doug Wolens
In December,
1997, Julia Hill climbed into a 1000-year-old tree to save it from
logging. This film follows her two-year stay in the tree, a stand that
galvanized an already intense dispute over the fate of Northern
California's old-growth forests.
1 p.m.: If These Walls Could Talk II (2000), directed by Jane
Anderson
Vanessa Redgrave (winner of a 2001 Golden Globe Award for
Best Actress) delivers a powerful performance as a grieving woman who
has lost her life partner and finds no compassion from relatives.
1:50 p.m.: You Don't Know Dick: Courageous Hearts of Transsexual Men
(1997), directed by C. Schermerhorn
Winner of Best Documentary
Award at the New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and Audience
Award at the L.A. Outfest. The documentary profiles the lives of six
female-to-male transsexuals, their partners, friends and family. It is
notable for its lack of voice-over, and emphasis on the subjects' own narratives.
3 p.m.: The Brandon Teena Story (1997), directed by Susan Muska and
Greta Olafsdottir
The true story behind the 1999 Academy Award
winner Boys Don't Cry. The documentary depicts Brandon's coming-of-age
struggle with identity and how his gender ambiguity induced feelings
of homophobia, confusion and hatred among the residents of an isolated
Midwestern township.
4:30 p.m.: Discussion break.
5 p.m.: Killing Us Softly III (2000), directed by Jean
Kilbourne
Reviews if and how the images of women in advertising
have changed over the last 20 years using over 160 ads and commercials
to critique advertising's image of women.
5:45 p.m.: Run Like a Girl (1999), part of Girls In America Series
presented by the Independent Television Service
The conventional
yet demanding sports of rugby, synchronized swimming and double-dutch
rope jumping provide the context for teenage girls from a
cross-section of ethnic backgrounds to probe issues of adolescence,
their search for identity, and their revolt against stereotyped expectations.
7 p.m. Feature: Angels and Insects (1996), directed by Philip
Haas
Based on the novella Morpho Eugenia by A.S. Byatt and starring
Kristin Scott Thomas. Tells the story of a naturalist who returns to
England penniless after years of research in South America. While he
studies the order of the insect world, the behavior of the upper class
society around him appears increasingly inexplicable.
Workshops and Presentations
Kirkhof Center, Allendale
Monday, March 19
10 a.m. Student Presentations: Idea of Nature
11 a.m. Last Stand
at Black Rock: A Film about Judi Bari and Ecofeminism (John Harper
Philbin, 895-3608)
Noon Music by Barbara Jordan
1 p.m.
Gender, Faith and Nature (Judy Whipps, 895-2114)
2 p.m. Gender and
Agriculture/A-girl-culture (Gayla Jewell, 336-7174)
3 p.m.
Professionalism and Gender (David Bair, 895-2085)
Tuesday, March 20
10 a.m. Herkind: Explorations of Women and Nature through Mythology
(Linda Rynbrandt, 895-2871)
11:30 a.m. Literary Sketches III,
exploring women authors
1:30-2 p.m. Nature writing
2:30 p.m.
Keynote address:Gender, Cancer and the Environment by Sandra
Steingraber, Cook-DeWitt Center
4 p.m. Women's Commission
Presentation
5 p.m. Award Ceremony
