Sandya Hewamanne (Drake University)

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

TITLE: 

 Duty Bound?:  Militarization, Romances and New Forms of Violence among Sri Lanka's Free Trade Zone Factory Workers

Hewamanne analyzes the social dynamics between Sri Lanka's women Free Trade Zone workers and the military by exploring the militarization of factory employment in the Free Trade Zone.  She argues that the militarization of the work of women in the Free Trade Zone persists even during the peace process and analyzes the political economic forces that create this situation.

UTA Central Library, 6th Floor, Reception follows

Wednesday, March 12, 12:00 noon

 Mia Bay (Rutgers University)

Associate Professor of History

TITLE:

  If Iola Were a Man: The Sexual Politics of Ida B. Wells

Bay discusses Ida B. Wells' understanding of race and gender, noting that her gendered understanding of Jim Crow was possible only because the Southern notions of chivalry were not applied to African American women.  Wells' gender played a key role in her understanding of race, her career followed a typically male path.  The paradox of Ida B. Wells' life is examined in this fascinating lecture.

UTA Central Library, 6th Floor, Reception follows

Winifred Breines (Northeastern University)

Professor of Sociology

TITLE:

  The Trouble Between Us: White and Black Women in the Early Second Wave Feminist Movement

Breines considers the role of race in the early women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s.  In particular, she notes that although the early women's movement was explicitly anti-racist it was perceived as racist by African American women.  She discusses the gender history that explains this seeming paradox.
 

UTA Central Library, 6th Floor, Reception and book signing follows