Body Politic(s): 2008-2009

Events   |   Speakers   |   Resources

Throughout 2008-2009, the Weissman Center for Leadership series Body Politic(s) is exploring contemporary political matters, issues of women and power and powerlessness, and the issues, possibilities, and challenges that arise when bodies are politicized by domestic and international policies, wars, and conflicts.

Body Politic(s) events are featuring internationally renowned journalists, eloquent memoirists, courageous activists, and insightful political commentators whose lectures and seminars will provide us with chances to examine the ways in which the human body and the body politic come undone, is reconstituted, and can be reinvented and sustained even in the face of seemingly overwhelming threat.

This spring, we welcome veteran journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Frances Perkins biographer Kirsten Downey. In fall 2008, we hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and foreign policy analyst Samantha Power, Carolyn Jessop, the courageous sixth-generation descendant of a polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints family who has become the first woman ever to gain full custody of her children in a legal battle against the church, and renowned political commentators Patricia Williams and Kathryn Jean Lopez. In November 2008, we partnered with WGBY to bring award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa to the Pioneer Valley for a special screening of her timely documentary, Women, Power, and Politics: A Rising Tide?