WSU sponsors Women’s History Month events
Historical portrayals, the airing of a video chronicling a project honoring women and a lecture by a founding women’s studies faculty member are part of WSU-related celebrations of Women’s History Month.
Congress passed the first resolution recognizing Women’s History Week in 1981 and expanded the national designation to an entire month in March 1987.
WSU-related events include:
- A dramatic
performance by Maxine Maxwell will look at what it has been like to
be black and female during the last 150 years. She will perform "Echoes
of the Past" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 6, in the CAC Theater. Tickets
are $3 with discounts available.
"Echoes of the Past" weaves in and out of history to explore the turning points in the lives of five African-American women of remarkable strength and courage.
The play opens with Henrietta King, an old slave woman who moves the audience along this time line with an incredible story of "what slave days was like." The other women spotlighted include antislavery activist Sojourner Truth, journalist Ida B. Wells and 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, one of the "Little Rock Nine" who integrated Central High in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957.
The performance ends with the courageous battle of the children of South Africa, known as the Uprising of Soweto, relived through the words of Winnie Mandela.
Maxwell is a native of St. Louis and a graduate of Webster University Conservatory of Theatre Arts. She has worked in New York as a solo artist and as a member of performing ensembles.
Currently Maxwell is on the roster of the New York Foundation for the Arts, Young Audiences, and Arts Connection in the New York area.
- A documentary
that chronicles the planning, development and construction of WSU’s
Plaza of Heroines will air on KPTS Channel 8 at 2 p.m. Sunday, March
11.
"For Generations: Making a Plaza of Heroines at Wichita State University" was produced and directed by WSU graduate Valda Lewis, who spent three years filming the plaza’s creation. The 60-minute documentary features the stories of five heroines and the family and friends who honored them and interviews with the Wichita volunteers who worked on the plaza project.
The Plaza of Heroines, dedicated in September 1998, honors living and deceased women who have made a difference in people’s lives. The names of more than 1,200 women are engraved on bricks, granite pavers, benches and bronze plaques. A touch-screen computer in nearby Jabara Hall displays the heroines’ histories and pictures. They can be viewed online at http://plaza.twsu.edu/heroines.
The project supports Center for Women’s Studies scholarships and its community programming activities.
- Sally
Kitch, a founding member of WSU’s Center for Women’s Studies
30 years ago, returns to campus as the center’s featured Women’s
History Month speaker. Kitch, now professor of women’s studies
at Ohio State University, will present "Forecasting the Feminist
Future: The Dangers of Utopia" at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 13,
in 107 Devlin Hall. The talk is free and open to the public.
Kitch will discuss her most recent book, "Higher Ground: From Utopianism to Realism in American Feminist Thought and Theory," during a campus seminar for faculty, staff and students at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, in the Kansas Room, Rhatigan Student Center.
Kitch’s academic work on feminist theory and the intersecting of gender and cultural status has led her to explore and develop new theoretical perspectives on American utopian communities and feminist utopian literature. In her earlier book, "Chaste Liberation: Celibacy and Female Cultural Status," she examined the role of celibacy in 19th-century utopian societies. She co-edited "Women and Careers: Issues and Challenges" with Carol Wolfe Konek, WSU professor of women’s studies.
- University
of Kansas dance director Joan Stone will bring to life Populist activist
Annie Diggs during a free program at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 18, at the
Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, 204 S. Main. The Center for
Women’s Studies co-sponsors the event.
Through dance, period music and narration, Stone depicts Diggs’ prominent role as a leading advocate for workers’ rights, women’s suffrage and fair treatment for farmers. Stone’s portrayal of Diggs is based on extensive research by Connie Andes, whose master’s thesis at WSU chronicled the political life of this Populist firebrand.
Darcy Prilliman, instructor and doctoral candidate in piano at KU, will accompany Stone on the museum’s historic Decker grand piano.
Seating is limited.
– Compiled by Amy Geiszler-Jones
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