UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 2, Page 4
September 7, 1995
Lavender Scholars schedules 1995-96 lecture series

     Topics ranging from "Academia and Sexuality" to "A Gay and
Straight Agenda" will be examined by national speakers in a lecture
series scheduled this academic year at the University by the Lavender
Scholars, a group of lesbian and gay male faculty, staff and graduate
students.
     All lectures, scheduled from 7-9 p.m. on the Newark campus, are
free and open to the public.
     The series opens Thursday, Sept. 28, with a panel discussion on
"Academia and Sexuality."
     The panel will explore how sexuality is currently being studied
in several of the humanistic disciplines and how it is possible for
lesbian and gay male scholars to integrate their lives and work in the
academy.
     Sandra Harding, professor of philosophy at the UD and an adjunct
professor of philosophy and women's studies at the University of
California at Los Angeles, will moderate the discussion that also
includes Hilton Brown, Harriet T. Baily Professor of Art, Art
Conservation and Art History at UD; and graduate students William
Letts, Kristen Miller and Frank Smigiel. The discussion will be held
in the Rodney Room of the Perkins Student Center.
     The lecture series continues on Thursday, Oct. 19, when attorney
Karen Harbeck speaks on "Coming Out of the Classroom Closet: Gay and
Lesbian Students, Teachers and Curricula." Harbeck is executive
director of the National Institute for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and
Transgender Concerns in Education and an adjunct assistant professor
in the Graduate School of Education at Boston College. Her talk will
take place in Room 313 of the Willard Hall Education Building.
     Philip Brett, professor and chairperson of the music department
at the University of California, Riverside, continues the series on
Wednesday, Nov. 8. His talk, "Piano Four-Hands: Schubert and the
Performance of Gay Male Desire," will be held in Room 130 of Smith
Hall.
     "Gary Fifher in Your Pocket" is the title of a talk by Eve
Kosofsky Sedgwick, scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 7, in Room 130 of
Smith Hall. Sedgwick is the Newman Ivey White Professor of English at
Duke University.
     The series continues into 1996 with the following lectures:
        * "Black, Red and Lavender: Bayard Rustin, Civil Rights and
          American Homophobia," presented by John D'Emilio, professor
          of history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro
          and director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
          Washington, D.C., Friday, Feb. 16, in the Martin Luther King
          Community, Ray Street, Hall C;
        * "Equal Pay for Equal Work: Domestic Partner Benefits for
          Lesbian and Gay Male Employees in the Academy" by M.V. Lee
          Badgett, assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs
          at the University of Maryland, College Park, Thursday, March
          7, Rodney Room of the Perkins Student Center;
        * "A Gay and Straight Agenda" by Richard D. Mohr, professor of
          philosophy at University of Illinois, Urbana, Thursday,
          April 11, in the Rodney Room of the Perkins Student Center;
          and
        * "Homosexual Christians: Homosexuals, the Bible and the
          Christian Church," by Bishop John Shelby Spong, Episcopal
          Bishop of Newark, N.J., Thursday, May 9, in the Rodney Room
          of the Perkins Student Center.
     The Lavender Scholars group is designed to provide opportunities
for intellectual, as well as social, integration for lesbians and gay
men, in order to become complete persons in their work as educators,
administrators and learners in an educational community.
     To meet this goal, the group members share information about
their academic disciplines, current scholarship, research and creative
art and about their personal lives, with the idea that integration of
life and work is necessary for all persons to realize successfully
their human potential.
     The lecture series is sponsored by the University Faculty Senate
Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events, the colleges of
Education and Urban Affairs and Public Policy and the offices of
Residence Life and Affirmative Action and Multicultural Programs, the
Black American Studies and Women's Studies programs and the
departments of Economics, English, History, Music and Philosophy.
     For information on the lecture series, call Kristen Miller,
coordinator, Office of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns, at 831-
8703.