UpDate - Vol. 13, No. 20, Page 4
February 17, 1994
Up and coming

Annual women's film series on Tuesdays through March 22
     The University's eighth annual "Women's History/Women's Lives" film
series, arranged each year to celebrate Women's History Month, will be
presented this year at 7 p.m., Tuesdays, from Feb. 22 through March 22.
     Free and open to the public, the films may be seen in Room 100 of the
Kirkbride Lecture Hall. Special speakers follow each film.
     The series opens Feb. 22 with the film, All My Babies. Produced by the
Georgia Department of Health in 1951 as a training film for
African-American midwives, the film offers viewers in the 1990s a glimpse
of a vanished past, when women routinely gave birth at home and midwives
served as crucial public health educators. Filmmaker George Stoney and Kate
Conway-Turner, associate professor of individual and family studies and
director of the Women's Studies Interdisciplinary Program, will speak after
the screening.
     Two films, The Artist Was A Woman and Guerillas In Our Midst, will be
shown March 1, followed by a talk by Susan Isaacs, professor of art history
at Towson State University. Both films address the old question, "Where are
the great women artists?," by examining women's historical experiences as
aspiring artists, as well as the conditions faced by contemporary women
artists.
     Senso Daughters will be shown March 8. Recent reports documenting the
widespread use of "comfort women" during World War II have drawn attention
to the role of forced prostitution and other forms of sexual abuse in
wartime. By investigating New Guinea women's experiences under Japanese
occupation, this film raises disturbing questions as current as today's
headlines. Guest speaker after the film will be Deborah Milly, professor of
political science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
     Scheduled for March 15 is the film, You May Call Her Madam Secretary,
based on the life of Frances Perkins, best known as the first woman
appointed to a cabinet-level position in U.S. government. The film looks at
her many other talents as she served as a teacher, social worker, labor
activist and eventually Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of labor. Guest
speaker will be Ronnie Steinberg, visiting distinguished professor of
sociology at the University of Delaware and recent recipient of a 1993
Feminist of the Year Award from the Feminist Majority Foundation.
     The series concludes with Last Call at Maud's scheduled for March 22.
When Maud's, a popular lesbian hangout in San Francisco, closed in 1989, it
marked the passing of an era. This warm and nostalgic film looks back on
the history of Maud's and its clients since the 1940s, while also
documenting the struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights since the 1960s.
Guest speaker will be Sue Ellen Case, visiting professor of English at
Swarthmore College.
     The film series is sponsored by the University's departments of
Anthropology, History and Sociology; by the Black American Studies, East
Asian Studies and Women's Studies programs; by the Faculty Senate Committee
on Cultural Activities and Public Events and by the Office of Women's
Affairs.
     For more information, call 831-8474 or 831-8063.

Speaker to focus on math anxiety
     Sheila Tobias, a social scientist who studies math and science anxiety
and avoidance, will present two talks at the University on Monday, Feb. 28.
     "Are Our Tests Failing Our Students?" will be presented in the Rodney
Room of the Perkins Student Center. Refreshments will be served at 11:30
a.m., and the colloquium will begin at noon. A discussion period is
scheduled after the talk.
     Tobias will speak again in the evening on "Gender and Science: The
'Problem' of Women in Science and Why It's So Hard to Convince People There
Is One." This event will be held in 120 Clayton Hall, with a talk beginning
at 5:30 p.m., followed by the reception at 6:30 p.m.
     Both talks are sponsored by the University's Department of Chemistry
and Biochemistry, the Center for Teaching Effectiveness and the Women's
Studies Interdisciplinary Program. To register for either, call the Center
for Teaching Effectiveness at 831-2027.
     Holding degrees from Harvard/Radcliffe and Columbia, Tobias has held
appointments in political science at Vanderbilt and the universities of
Arizona and California-Dan Diego. She lectures and consults around the
country. Her books include Overcoming Math Anxiety, Breaking the Science
Barrier, They're Not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the Second Tier and
Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't.

Lenworth Gunther to speak Feb. 23
     Lenworth Gunther, professor of black American studies at Essex County
College, will speak on "The Importance of Black History" at 7 p.m.,
Wednesday, Feb. 23, in Room 100 of Kirkbride Lecture Hall.
     Gunther's appearance is part of the University's "African
Consciousness Celebration '94: U.N.I.T.Y. (Understanding Now Inspires
Tomorrow's Youth)."
     Gunther is a former Woodrow Wilson and Ford Foundation doctoral fellow
who earned his bachelor's degree, two masters' degrees and his Ph.D. from
Columbia University and went on to assist with the preparation and teaching
of that university's first African-American history course.
     He is president of Edmedia Associates, an educational and motivational
consulting corporation, that specializes in the areas of racial and ethnic
history and diversity. In l989 he won acclaim as the historian and
commentator for the Academy Award-winning documentary Adam Clayton Powell
Jr.
     Gunther is the author of many essays, magazine articles and
monographs, including "Black Image," and an early biography of Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. and an African-American history curriculum for high schools.
     His appearance at the University is free and open to the public.  The
African Consciousness Celebration is sponsored by the Center for Black
Culture, the Cultural Programming Advisory Board, the Office of Affirmative
Action and Multicultural Programs and the Black American Studies Program.
For more information, call 831-2991.

Expert featured at paper exhibition
     Geno Rodriguez, executive director of the Alternative Museum in New
York City, will serve as the juror of the 26th University of Delaware
Biennial Works on or of Paper Exhibition.
     The visiting juror will speak from 7:30-8:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 18, in
Room 112 McDowell Hall. His talk follows a reception in the University
Gallery, on the second floor of Old College, from 4:30-7 p.m.
     Eighty-four works by 56 artists from throughout the nation will be on
view through Feb. 28 at the University Gallery.
     The reception is co-sponsored by the University Gallery and the
Department of Art, with support from the Office of Affirmative Action and
Multicultural Programs.

Literary reading in Memorial Hall
     Donald H. Reiman, adjunct professor of English at the University, will
discuss "A Theory Against Theories: A Humanistic Reading of Literary
Studies" at 4 p.m., today, in Room 110 of Memorial Hall.
     The lecture comes from the final chapter of his newest book, A Study
of Modern Manuscripts, which explores the relationship between the study of
post-Renaissance manuscripts and current theories of literature.
     Reiman is editor of Shelley and His Circle, The Bodleian Shelley
Manuscripts and co-editor of The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
     Sponsored by the Department of English, the talk is free and open to
the public.