Home    Happenings    October 2005 Happenings

Happenings in the Keweenaw Peninsula October 5, 2005  Press Release and logo © 2005 Humanities Dept., Michigan Technological University. Reprinted with permission.

"Affirming diversity" Conference to feature distinguished speakers 

HOUGHTON -- The Department of Humanities at Michigan Technological University is hosting the fifth Biennial Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference, "Affirming Diversity," from Wednesday through Saturday, Oct. 5-8.

The three following keynote addresses are free and open to the public.

Min-Zhan Lu, award-winning author and professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, will give an address from 2:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., on Thursday, Oct. 6, at the Rozsa Center: "Class Matters: Gender, Critical Literacy and the Global Restructuring of Capitalism."

Helena Viramontes, award-winning author, community organizer and former coordinator of the Latino Writers Association, will give a reading from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 6, at the Rozsa Center. Viramontes, associate professor of English at Cornell University, is a frequent reader and lecturer in the United States and internationally. 

Author Jacqueline Jones Royster is senior vice provost and executive dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and a professor of English at Ohio State University. She will speak on "Acts of Memory: Gender, Race and Nation" from 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 8, in Fisher 135.*

More than 400 participants are expected to attend the conference, which is sponsored by the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition. 

The conference affirms diversity, especially variation in the rhetorical strategies, language use, research methods and literacy and communication practices of women from different races, classes, cultures and historical eras.

Areas of rhetorical and linguistic diversity may include history, ethics, new media, pedagogy, law, literature, cultural studies, economics, environmental studies, science, communication studies, technical communication, philosophy and engineering. Feminist approaches that challenge traditional notions of academia, knowledge,discourse, methods of application, perspectives and relationships across the disciplines will be explored by conference participants.

For more information consult the Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference Web site or contact Elizabeth Flynn, conference chair, at 487-3227 or eflynn@mtu.edu, or Lori Witting, conferences and institutes coordinator, at 487-2263 or lori@mtu.edu.

*Note: Authors Andrea Abernathy Lunsford of Stanford University and Donna Haraway of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who were also scheduled for keynote speeches, have cancelled their visits.

Visit the Keweenaw Now discussion forums to comment on this article.