Allie Bedell
Equinox Staff
In the midst of Women’s History Month, members of the Keene State College community joined together to critically examine and address not only how women’s issues impact education, but other diversity issues as well.
On Friday, March 23, speakers from across the Northeast spoke in Centennial Hall as part of a symposium called “Expanded Rooms, Unbridled Tongues: International Women’s Writing in the 21st Century.” The symposium, which included five sections of speakers and literature, was an all day event aimed at recognizing women in literature while acknowledging greater issues of diversity on all levels.
Professor Carol Bailey, of the English department, planned the symposium to coincide with the classes she’s teaching and to bring the community together to think about women and diversity in new ways. Bailey said though the overall theme was about women in literature, she wanted to incorporate other types of diversity, like racial and gender issues, as well.
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“It’s really to hopefully inspire the students’ interests and to really expose them to another level of their work,” she said. “We wanted to have a symposium that is interdisciplinary. One does not think of anthropologists and think of women writers.”’
Panelists from KSC included Lynda Pickbourn, of the economics department, and Anne-Marie Mallon, of the English and women and gender studies departments, as well as students Kelsey Hardy and Krista Sullivan. They spoke alongside professors from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Roger Williams University, Howard University, Westfield State University, and Brown University, many of whom Bailey’s students read in their classes.
Bailey chose panelists from many schools to gain multiple perspectives on the issues presented at the symposium.
“How different are all students? How different is a Keene student from an Amherst College student?” she asked, adding that the panelists were all “people who do women’s work, but come from it at different angles.”
Sullivan, who is a sophomore in the honors program, talked about her alternative learning experiences at KSC, and how she’s been able to get outside of the classroom to learn. As a self-proclaimed feminist, she’s been an active member of the community in vocalizing for women’s rights.
“With such strong female genes,” she said, addressing the roles of her mother and grandmother in their local communities, “it was really only a matter of time before I took on my fate of becoming an activist myself.”
As part of an outreach project, Sullivan and a group of women and gender studies majors from the college worked in a local women’s prison to teach but also learn from the inmates.
“I found myself asking so many times, ‘What does this have to do with feminism?’” she asked, coming to the realization that “any issue that is harming people is harming women.”
Sullivan found that the women in the jail were people; they had their own stories and situations. She said she was amazed to find the issues, poor conditions, and hardships with which the women were coping. One woman she met had intentionally broken her parole after getting sober in jail because she couldn’t afford rehab once she was released and being in jail was the closest thing she could get to keeping clean.
Sullivan said she was excited to be participating in the panel, and was astounded to be speaking alongside such notable people. She also said she thought the goal of the symposium was important to raising awareness for women’s issues.
“It’s refreshing to kind of see learning continuing beyond college and having such inspired people coming together is amazing,” she said. “It’s important to bring it to people’s attention and to give them an opportunity for careers.”
The afternoon panel, entitled “Women’s Writing, Foreign Cultures, and the U.S. College Classroom,” asked panelists to address issues of diversity in the college classroom. Although the panelists came from a variety of schools and disciplines, they all found one thing in common: there’s a delicate balance between recognizing the differences between groups and marginalizing them because of those differences.
Rachel Mordecai, of UMass-Amherst, showed a clip from “Dance Hall Queen,” noting how risky the move was at the symposium. The film shows the life of a woman who uses her body to profit and pull herself out of her economic disadvantages. Mordecai said she showed the clip to show that without cultural context, scenes from the movie seem patriarchal and offensive, and without the correct reading, she concedes that they are.
“North American students, particularly white middle class students, must grapple with the cultural context,” Mordecai said. “Without that contextualizing, it is too easy to read that film in one perspective.”
By forcing students to read more deeply and take on the perspective of a different culture, Mordecai said the film takes on an entirely different meaning.
Mallon said she pushes her students at KSC to do the same, finding that in order to truly understand and experience works, one must shed all of the preconceived notions.
“It’s one thing to imagine a different world. It’s another to feel it,” Mallon said. “The challenge has been to find a pedagogical equilibrium of sorts that will allow me and my students to live peacefully between those spaces.”
In reaching between these white and Westernized ways of thinking, Mallon said she and students continuously strive to find an entirely new way of thinking to push themselves out of their comfort zones to a better understanding of the literature being examined.
Shoba Sharad Rajgopal, of Westfield State, said she was impressed by the number of students at the symposium. She stressed the importance of reflection, especially in terms of expanding perception of culture and the norm.
“If the whole world was going to do that, we wouldn’t have half the problems we have now,” Rajgopal said. “College campuses have become a hotbed for culture wars.”
She said she’s seen a lot of resistance from students to open up and embrace different ways of thinking, and sees this as a detrimental to the future of the country.
“Multicultural education is a response to the way U.S. schools perpetuate a hegemonic way of life,” she said. “If the whole country doesn’t rise up, especially the younger generation, your country will be lost to you forever.”
Keynote speaker Keisha-Khan Perry, of Brown University, tied together the themes discussed during her presentation about her time spent in Gamboa de Baixo, Brazil, where she worked as an anthropologist studying racial issues. While there, she witnessed crime and police brutality against blacks as a black woman herself, which presented her with the challenge of doing research while coping with personal connections.
“My witnessing of violent police raids is not the anthropology I tell people I do,” she said. “I certainly do not write about my own trauma, yet I cannot ignore my own vulnerability.”
Perry addressed the very complicated balance, emphasizing that the work and personal aspects of research can never be entirely separated, but rather one must determine the best way to balance the two. She said even anthropologists doing research in specific fields enter those fields because of some sort of personal ties. Ultimately, she said she has found it most important to preserve her individual moral choices and relationships in that balance.
“Your job does not define who you are. Your vocation doesn’t define who you are,” Perry said. “Your relationships do.”
Allie Bedell can be contacted at abedell@keene-equinox.com.