UNCA Offers a Variety of Programs
Celebrating Women's History Month

UNC Asheville will celebrate Women’s History Month throughout March with 11 diverse cultural programs. Among the highlights will be a keynote address, a brown bag lunch lecture series and the fourth annual "F-Word Film Festival," featuring six feminist films. Events are free and open to the public.

** Historian Jeffrey Merrick will give the UNCA Women’s History Month keynote address at 7 p.m., Friday, March 19, in UNCA’s Owen Conference Center. Merrick, professor and chair of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will discuss "Sexuality and Gender in the Parisian Police Archives." Based on police Paris records, Merrick’s talk will examine the conventional wisdom about sexual deviance and male dominance in early modern France. Merrick, who holds a doctorate from Yale, is the coeditor of three recently published books on gender and sexuality in 18th-century French political culture.

** The four-part Brown Bag Lunch lecture series will be a focus of UNCA’s Women’s History Month events. Guests are invited to bring a packed lunch to eat while they listen. All Brown Bag Lunch talks will be held at 12:15 p.m. in Laurel Forum, 139 Karpen Hall. These include:

-- UNCA alumnus Tim Potter will discuss "My Own No Man’s Land" on March 4. His talk will examine the conflict of men engaging in feminism. Potter, who graduated in 2003, was a women’s studies minor.

-- "Chickasaws, Tribal Laws and the Mississippi Married Women’s Property Act of 1839" will be the focus of UNCA senior history major Robert Gilmer’s talk on March 24. Drawing on primary documents, Gilmer will discuss legal decisions on women’s property rights and and the effect of Chickasaw tribal law on married women's property rights.

-- A panel of UNCA faculty and students will explore "The Political Within the Personal: Cases of Latin American Women’s Responses to Injustices in the 20th Century" on March 26. Panelists will provide a brief introduction to Latina artists and their role in the changing political climate of Latin America. The event will include performance of protest songs and readings of poetry and prose.

-- Pagan Priestess Byron Ballard (UNCA class of '79) and United Methodist Campus Minister Rev. Amy Rio-Anderson will discuss "What Does the Goddess Have to Do with Christianity?" on March 30. They will describe how the goddess and the sacred feminine were part of the first 300 years of the early Church’s development.

** The fourth annual "F-Word Film Festival: A Celebration of Images By and About Women (But for All Audiences)" will screen six different feminist documentary videos at 7 p.m. Friday, March 19, and Saturday, March 20, in the Humanities Lecture Hall. UNCA faculty and students will hold a panel discussion immediately following the screenings.

-- "Sisters in Resistance," "Woman Being" and "Heaven" will be shown on March 19.

"Sisters in the Resistance" shares the story of four sisters who fought the Nazi occupation of France and survived imprisonment at Ravensbruck concentration camp. "Woman Being" is a critical examination of changing concepts of beauty and sexuality in modern China as Western pop culture becomes more dominant. In "Heaven," filmmaker Tracey Moffatt turns the tables on traditional representations of desire to examine the power of the female gaze in the objectification of men’s bodies.

-- On March 20 "Mai’s America," "2 or 3 Things But Nothing for Sure" and "Lockin’ Up" will be screened.

"Mai’s America" follows a Vietnamese teenager on her trip to the American South, where her long-held ideas about America, freedom, identity and home are challenged. "2 or 3 Things But Nothing for Sure" profiles the life of acclaimed author Dorothy Allison, best known for her book "Bastard Out of Carolina." "Lockin’ Up" examines dreadlocks and how this hair style forces African American women to challenge personal and contemporary notions of beauty.

** Author and producer Beti Ellerson will hold two talks at 6 p.m. Monday, March 15, and Tuesday, March 16, in Rhodes Hall room 125. Ellerson teaches at Howard University’s Art History and Visual Culture Program. She was the producer/host of "Reels of Color," a 27-episode program about filmmaking by people of color. She has conducted research on the cultural politics of African women in the visual media, which culminated in the book "Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film, Video and Television."

** The performance art piece "Iteration" will be performed by UNCA senior Linzey Walker at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 17, and Thursday, March 18, in UNCA’s Humanities Lecture Hall. The performance combines feminism, mathematics and post-modern theory through dance, mime and multimedia installations. This event is for mature audiences only.

** At 2 p.m. Thursday, March 18, UNCA faculty member panelists will explore "Stereotypes in Feminism." Professors will share their experiences with feminist stereotyping and will lead a discussion on ways to eliminate prejudices against feminism.

** Acoustic guitarist Melissa Ferrick will perform at 8:30 p.m. Monday, March 22, in UNCA's Humanities Lecture Hall. In 2000, Ferrick launched her own record lablel, Right On Records, and is receiving critical acclaim from a wide and diverse audience. The concert is free but donations will be accepted to benefit local women's charities.

** The documentary "Senorita Extraviada" ("Missing Young Women") will be screened at 7 p.m. Friday, April 9 (moved from March 26), in UNCA’s Humanities Lecture Hall. Directed by Lourdes Portillo, this film documents the investigations around the kidnaping, rape and murder of more than 200 young women working in factories in Juarez, which is located on the U.S.-Mexican border.

For more information about the film festival, call Lori Horvitz, UNCA literature and language assistant professor, at 828/251-6590.

For more information about UNCA’s Women’s History Month events, call the Women’s Studies Office at 828/251-6122.

Media Contacts:

• Dr. Tracey Rizzo, UNCA Women’s Studies Program Director, 828/251-6315
• Jill Yarnall, UNCA Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526