Join your colleagues for the second session of the WCU Culture in Conversation Series titled,<\/p>\n
Many Shades of Gender Violence and its intersections with Race, Class, and Sexuality: What Is to be Done?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tuesday, October 20, 2020 – 12pm – 1pm<\/p>\n In the aftermath of the racist and bigoted videos, we continue to encourage a much needed conversation around racial justice. However, the videos also demonstrated how racist violence is deeply intertwined with gender. In this session, panelists will bring attention to various shades of gender-based violence that lie at the intersections of race, class, sexuality, and identity. Even as such violent incidents make us pause, this session will also pay attention to the long history of social justice struggles that continue to inspire us to work towards making our world more egalitarian and just.<\/p>\n Panelists:<\/p>\n Dr. Annette Debo Dr.Brandi Hinnant Crawford Dr.\u00a0Ingrid Bego Dr. Preethi Krishnan Dr. Laura Wright Dr. Tasha Alston Dr. Michelle Sorensen
\n<\/span><\/b>Dr. Annette\u00a0Debo\u00a0is professor of English at WCU. She teaches classes on African American literature, gender and literature, and twentieth\/twenty-first century literature. Her publications include three books on the modernist writer H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)\u2014The American H.D.<\/i>, an edition of H.D.\u2019s\u00a0Within the Walls and What Do I Love?<\/i>, and the MLA\u00a0Approaches to Teaching H.D.\u2019s Poetry and Prose<\/i>, as well as articles in journals ranging from\u00a0African American Review<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Callaloo<\/i>\u00a0to\u00a0Modernism\/modernity\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0Quarterly Review of Film and Video<\/i>. She is currently completing the book\u00a0Writing the Past: The Historical Poem in Contemporary African American Poetry<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/b>I (Brandi Hinnant-Crawford) am a self-described womanist, liberation theologian, critical pedagogue, improvement scientist, and aspiring scholar-activist\u2014but these descriptors are aspirational.\u00a0\u00a0Each description describes someone committed to leaving the world better than she inherited it.\u00a0\u00a0They describe someone striving to dismantle oppressive systems and ameliorate the plight of the marginalized\u2014and that is who I am.\u00a0\u00a0I am a native of Goldsboro, NC living in the mountains working as an Associate Professor of Educational Research at Western Carolina.\u00a0\u00a0But more than anything, I am the single mom of 8-year-old twins (Elizabeth Freedom & Elijah Justice) seeking to raise good humans who will continue to try to change the world.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/b>Dr. Bego earned her Bachelor\u2019s degree in Political Science, German and Spanish from Washburn University. She then went on to earn an MA and PhD in political science from Washington State University. Dr. Bego\u2019s teaching and research interests focus on issues of democratization, gender and politics, global governance, and public policy. Her research has been published in various national and international journals and news outlets. Her book, \u201cGender Equality Policy in the European Union,\u201d was published by Palgrave in 2015 and she is currently working on finishing her second book project with Routledge examining the role of gender on executive appointments in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/b>Dr.\u00a0Preethi Krishnan is an assistant professor of sociology in the Department of Anthropology & Sociology at Western Carolina University. Her research interests include inequality (intersections of gender, caste, and class), state, globalization, and social movements. Her research in India examines how women negotiate inequality as they make claims for care and food from the state. She has published in The Global South, Current Sociology, and Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research. A strong supporter of public education, Dr. Krishnan envisions the university not only as a space for sharing knowledge but also as a driver of change in society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/b>Laura\u00a0Wright\u00a0is Professor of English at Western Carolina University, where she specializes in postcolonial literatures and theory, gender studies, ecocriticism, and animal studies.\u00a0Her monographs include\u00a0<\/span>Writing Out of All the Camps: J. M. Coetzee’s Narratives of Displacement<\/span><\/i>\u00a0(Routledge, 2006 and 2009),\u00a0<\/span>Wilderness into Civilized Shapes: Reading the Postcolonial Environment<\/span><\/i>\u00a0(U of Georgia P, 2010), and\u00a0<\/span>The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror<\/span><\/i>\u00a0(U of Georgia P in 2015). Her edited collection\u00a0Doing Vegan Studies: Textual Animals and Discursive Ethics<\/i>\u00a0was published in 2019 from the University of Nevada Press.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/b>Dr.\u00a0Tasha\u00a0Alston is a social worker and educational psychologist with over 23 years of experience in the field of social work and educational psychology. Dr. Alston\u2019s research interests combine both social work and educational psychology. Dr. Alston specializes in research and community work that focuses on African American fathers involvement in education, fathers, African American males, academic achievement, equity in education, parent engagement, school, family and community partnerships, strengthening families, qualitative research, equity and social justice for the betterment of society as a whole. Dr. Alston is an Assistant Professor in the Social Work department at Western Carolina University.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/b>Michelle J. Sorensen is an\u00a0<\/span>Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Western Carolina University, where she teaches courses including\u00a0\u201cReligion, Gender, Sexuality\u201d (PAR 260).\u00a0Michelle\u2019s research interests are in Buddhist studies, Asian philosophies and religions, and gender studies. At present,\u00a0she is writing a book that\u00a0examines\u00a0the ways in which different religious systems have contributed to the construction and maintenance of patriarchy (including paternity, patrimony, and sexual reproduction), power, misogyny, gender identities, and gender roles. In addition, she is\u00a0preparing an English-language translation of the\u00a0Sthiradhyasayaparivarta Sutra<\/i>\u00a0for the 84,000 project.<\/span><\/p>\n