The Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture at Hamilton College has announced the theme and programs for 2001-2002, "The Body in Question."
In some fundamental sense we are our bodies; only as we are embodied can we apprehend the world or act upon it. Our bodies are sources of pleasure as well as strength, mobility, endurance or grace. Yet through the body we experience pain, injury, sickness and disability. Certain dimensions of identity, especially race and gender, seem to be defined by bodily differences, and in countless ways we judge and classify others on the basis of bodily appearance.
Struggles over who has control over the body -- individuals, the family, or the state -- continue to shape political life in the U.S. and in the world. Almost every branch of inquiry has something to say about the body: Western philosophy struggles with the question of the relation of the body to the mind, while the biological sciences ground their investigation in the material body. The arts often work on or through the body, while the social sciences aim to lay bare what the world makes of the body. Kirkland Project programming this year will focus on many of these dynamic tensions through guest lectures, films, presentations of faculty and student work and other events.
Events will include:
Hamilton College faculty panel discussion, "What the Body Knows," with moderator Chandra Mohanty, and panelists Carole Bellini-Sharp, Katheryn Doran, Sue Ann Miller, Susan Sanchez Casal, and Thomas Wilson. Wednesday, Sept. 5, 4 p.m. in the Emerson Gallery.
Performance Artist Kate Bornstein presents "On Men, Women and the Rest of Us," Sunday, Sept. 9, 8 p.m., location to be announced. Identifying herself as neither a man nor a woman, Bornstein performs an entertaining mix of slam poetry, high theory and low comedy. Born male and raised as a boy, she went through both boyhood and adult manhood, underwent a gender change and "became a woman." A few years later she discovered that being a woman didn't work for her any better than being a man, so she stopped being a woman and settled into being neither.
Nayan Shah lecture, "Sexualized Bodies Through Law: Constructing Race and Gender in South Asian Migration in North America, 1910-1930," Sept. 28, 4:15 p.m., Red Pit, Kirner-Johnson (KJ). Shah, associate professor of history at the University of San Diego, focuses on the relationship between gender, sexuality and race in the legal discourse around masculinity and boyhood in the early twentieth century.
HT Chen & Dancers, "Dian Ban," multimedia dance, Oct. 27, 8 p.m., Wellin Hall, sponsored by the Performing Arts at Hamilton. Chen & Dancers, an innovative modern dance company which has created a brilliant Chinese-American expression by embodying the cultural heritage of bold nations. They fuse the spirited energy of American modern dance and traditional and contemporary Asian aesthetics. Dian Ban gets its name from the Chinese word for the bamboo pole used to carry heavy loads. These poles figure prominently in the dance, a work about the immigrant experience, the shifting from one culture to the next. A kaleidoscopic multimedia piece involving company dancers and community participants, the work builds to an exhilarating climax. For tickets, call the box office at Wellin Hall, 315-859-4331.
Elizabeth Siegel Watkins lecture, "Birth Control and Controlling Birth: Struggles Over Reproductive Rights in the Twentieth Century," Thursday, Nov. 15, 8 p.m., Red Pit, KJ. Watkins, visiting associate professor, department of history, Carnegie Mellon University, will present the struggle for birth control and the resistance those efforts met from legislators, judges, religious leaders, doctors and others who sought to make women's reproductive decisions for them. She is the author of On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950-1970.
Film, "The Heart of the Matter,"a documentary exploring women's sexuality through the prism of AIDS, directed by Amber Hollibaugh, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 4:15 p.m., Red Pit, KJ.
Amber Hollibaugh lecture, "My Dangerous Desires: Exploding Social Change Activism through the Lens of Sexuality," Thursday, Nov. 29, 4:15 p.m., Red Pit, KJ. Hollibaugh, political activist, essayist and award-winning filmmaker, grew up poor and of mixed race; her personal story of hurt, self-discovery and personal and political empowerment frames an American story of human rights activism. She is the author of My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home.
Events for "The Body in Question" for Spring 2002 will include:
Susan Bordo will lecture on "Beauty on the Brain," on March 8 (time and place to be announced). Bordo lectures nationally on contemporary culture and the body, featuring such topics as eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, racism and the body.
Performance artist Tim Miller presents "Glory Box," April 13, 8 p.m., Wellin Hall. Miller's creative work as a performer and writer explores the artistic, spiritual and political topography of his identity as a gay man. Through the subject of immigration rights for same sex partners, Miller opens the door to many other topics. Call the Wellin Hall box office, 315-859-4331, for tickets.
The Kirkland Project is an on-campus organization committed to intellectual inquiry and social justice, focusing on issues of gender, race, class, sexuality and other facets of human diversity. Though educational programs, research and community outreach, the Kirkland Project seeks to build a community respectful of difference.
