UB to Celebrate "Gender Matters/Gender Week"

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A keynote speech by Winona LaDuke, a former U.S. vice presidential candidate, will kick off the fourth-annual UB "Gender Matters/Gender Week," to be held Sept. 19-23 at the University at Buffalo.

Gender Week, presented by the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (IREWG), will feature more than 25 events focusing on gender-inclusive and sex-specific research and teaching.

"The UB Gender Institute's Gender Week keeps getting bigger and better," said Barbara Bono, IREWG co-director. "It was conceived of as demonstrating a campus- and communitywide interest in, and commitment to, gender studies, and this year it amply illustrates that fact, with some 25 programs sponsored by nearly 50 units and organizations."

Gender Week's many programs include discussions on women's health, a lecture on women in the field of engineering, film screenings, a dramatic performance and a poetry reading, as well as LaDuke's keynote address.

"Our keynoter, Winona LaDuke, nationally known for her advocacy of environmental and Native American practices, should have the widest possible appeal here in the territory of the Five Nations and the Great Lakes watershed," Bono said.

LaDuke, an environmental activist and Native-American author, as well as the vice-presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000, was named by Time magazine in 1994 as one of America's most promising leaders under the age of 40. Her address, "Recovering the Sacred: Women Remaking a Devastated World," will take place at 4 p.m. Sept. 19 in the Black Box Theatre in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. It will focus on gender and environmental issues, including the role of women as crucial "change agents" in restoring the planet and the role of cultural diversity and biodiversity as keys to successful environmentalism.

LaDuke also plans to meet with select students in a less-formal setting and to visit Native American Community Services in Buffalo. Organizers are working to ensure Gender Week "reaches out to the larger community," Bono said.

She added that Gender Week brings "scholars and performers from numerous other American universities and as far a field as Cuba, India and Australia" to UB.

All events will be free and open to the public.

"The week -- with its lectures, films, symposia, exhibits and performances -- supplies wonderful insights into the range of attention and knowledge productions from across the disciples at UB in matters of gender and sexuality," said Bono and Rosemary Dziak, co-director of the Gender Institute. "It's an enlightening and entertaining kickoff to the academic year."

Dziak, professor and interim chair of the Department of Oral Biology in the UB School of Dental Medicine, emphasized the wide range of academic disciplines represented in Gender Week.

"I am particularly pleased with the balance of events in both the sciences and the arts, and am looking forward to university-wide participation in the Gender Week activities," she said.

In addition to LaDuke's keynote address, highlights of Gender Week include:

• A lecture on "Sexuality in Space" by Beatriz Colomina, founding director of the Program for Media and Modernity at Princeton University. The lecture will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 20 in 301 Crosby on the UB South (Main Street) Campus.

• A screening of "Marry Me," the first film in the semester-long Margaret Mead Traveling Film Festival, at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 22 in the Screening Room of the Center for the Arts.

• A screening of shorts by the Women Directors of Film Cooperative hosted by co-op director M. M. Serra and Caroline Koebel, UB assistant professor of media study, at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20 in the CFA Screening Room.

• "Women in Engineering," a School of Engineering and Applied Sciences seminar to be conducted by Esther Takeuchi of Wilson Greatbatch Technologies and member of the National Academy of Engineering, at 3:30 p.m. Sept. 23 in the CFA Screening Room.

• "La Virgin Trist/The Sad Virgin," a Spanish-language drama performed by the Cuban theater company Teatro Galiano 108, at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 21 in the CFA Drama Theatre.

• A lecture on "Bone Density, Calcium Intake and Oral Disease: Issues of Importance to Women" by Robert Genco, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Oral Biology, to be held at noon on Sept. 19, in 215 Foster Hall, UB South Campus.

• A poetry reading by Liz Willis, professor of English at Wesleyan University whose work has been published in the National Poetry Series, from 4-5 p.m. Sept. 23 in 201 Clemens, UB North Campus.

For a complete list of Gender Week programs go to http://www.womenandgender.buffalo.edu.