November « 2015 « Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender

Sue Ellen Henry: “Social Class as Liminal Position: Understanding Experiences of First Generation College Students” November 13, 2007

How is social class experienced by the growing number of working class and first generation college students at Bucknell? How do first generation students talk about “fitting in,” and what promises and challenges permeate their experience? This talk explores three first generation female students’ descriptions of how their time at Bucknell influenced their social class identity and how they managed the conflict inherent in remaining true to themselves while accomplishing social class mobility.

Coralynn Davis “Talking Tools, Suffering Servants and Defecating Men: The Power of Storytelling and Subaltern Registers in Maithil Women’s Tales” October 25, 2007

What can we learn about the functions of folk storytelling by examining the telling of stories by characters within such tales? I examine Maithil women’s folktales in which stories of women’s suffering at the hands of other women are first suppressed and later overheard by men who have the power to alleviate such suffering. Maithil women are pitted against one another in their pursuit of security and resources in the context of patrilineal formations. The solidarities such women nonetheless form – in part through sharing stories together and keeping each other’s secrets – serve to mitigate their suffering and […]

Michael Drexler: “Hurricanes and Slave Revolts” – April 18, 2007

Throughout the colonial and antebellum period, Anglo—Americans used a stunningly similarly conceptual vocabulary to describe both hurricanes and slave revolts, phenomena that at a basic level challenged colonial mastery. Is there a deeper connection here? What does the specific, seemingly redundant, and only speciously subtle deployment of a literary trope tell us about material and social being or the struggle to represent it?

Michelle Johnson: “Culture’s Calling: Race, Gender and Cell Phone Use Among Madinga Immigrants in Portugal” – April 11, 2007

As global technologies facilitate communication between peoples once separated by impassible boundaries, we talk of the world becoming smaller—but anthropologists of transnationalism warn us not to equate globalization with cultural homogenization. By focusing on cell phone use among Mandinga immigrants from Guinea-Bissau living in and around Lisbon, Portugal, Prof. Johnson will show how the immigrants use cell phones in culturally specific ways to fashion community, enact gender, and redefine their place in the “new” Europe.

Mary DeCredico: “The Diary from Dixie: Mary Chesnut and the Southern Confederacy” – February 15, 2007

Mary Boykin Chesnut was the daughter of a wealthy and influential South Carolina politician. Married to a brilliant politician, James Chesnut, Jr., Mary Chesnut was able to circulate among the elite of Charleston, Washington and Richmond. During the Civil War, she began a diary that has become known as one of the finest accounts of that conflict. Thanks to her observations—by turns witty, insightful and biting—we can chronicle the reaction of the Southern elite to the rise and fall of the Confederacy.

Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender

Archive for November, 2015

Sue Ellen Henry: “Social Class as Liminal Position: Understanding Experiences of First Generation College Students” November 13, 2007

Coralynn Davis “Talking Tools, Suffering Servants and Defecating Men: The Power of Storytelling and Subaltern Registers in Maithil Women’s Tales” October 25, 2007

Michael Drexler: “Hurricanes and Slave Revolts” – April 18, 2007

Michelle Johnson: “Culture’s Calling: Race, Gender and Cell Phone Use Among Madinga Immigrants in Portugal” – April 11, 2007

Mary DeCredico: “The Diary from Dixie: Mary Chesnut and the Southern Confederacy” – February 15, 2007

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