Troubling Monuments: Cultural Vandalism and Creative Practices of Dissent and Destruction

Erika Doss, Chair of American Studies, University of Notre Dame

Tuesday, February 25 ⋅ 3:30-5 PM ⋅ McKenzie Hall Rm 375

Dr. Doss is professor and chair of American Studies at Notre Dame. Her work on American monuments, memorials, and public democracy focuses on the ways that communities respond to art in the public sphere, often through mechanisms of violent resistance. Her research has been published in 6 books ranging from the Oxford History of Art’s volume on 20^th century American Art to recent articles on American humor in the Great Depression, and has won awards from the Smithsonian, Fulbright Foundation, and Stanford Humanities Center.

Her talk at UO, which will take place at 3:30 PM on February 25, draws from her recent article on cultural vandalism and memorial mania. It is entitled “Troubling Monuments: Cultural Vandalism and Creative Practices of Dissent and Destruction.” The talk will explore vandalism as a method of intervening in cultural messaging and memories constructed through public art in the US.

Intersectionality and the Intergenerational Labor Movement

April Sims, Secretary Treasurer, Washington State Labor Council (AFL-CIO)

February 20, 2020 – 3-5 PM
Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center
1870 E 15th Avenue, Eugene OR 97403

Sponsored by the UO Labor Education & Research Center and Department of Sociology

UO PeaceJam Film Showing – Desmond Tutu

Film: “Desmond Tutu – Children of the Light” (1hr 32mins)

Date: Thursday, November 21, 2019

Time: 6pm – 9pm

Location: 177 Lawrence Hall

Cost: free (snacks will be available!)

PeaceJam is an international organization that works to connect youth and 14 Nobel Peace Laureates. By introducing these positive members of society, PeaceJam hopes to empower young people to create positive change in themselves, their communities and the world. UO PeaceJam is our local campus partner with this organization.

UO PeaceJam will be hosting a film showing of “Desmond Tutu – Children of the Light” on Thursday November 21st, 6-9 PM in 177 Lawrence Hall. This the first film to tell the story of Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, one of the fathers of modern-day South Africa. It is free admission and open to everyone.

Progressivevoices.org and KEPW Community Radio 97.3 FM proudly present a new documentary and its producer:

The Corporate Coup d’Etat: how we “arrived at Trump” and the influence corporations wield over American politics

Tuesday, November 5th in the Mills International Center (inside the EMU above the Duck Store)
2:00 PM: Film screening
3:30 PM: Q&A with producer Jeff Cohen

See flyer for details.

6:30 pm Wednesday, November 6
175 Knight Law Center, 1515 Agate St.
Part of the Margaret Hallock Program for Women’s Rights

Cosponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, UO Division of Equity and Inclusion, Center for the Study of Women in Society, Department of Sociology, and Labor Education and Research Center.

Stephanie Land’s bestselling debut memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive recounts her harrowing saga as a single mom navigating the poverty trap. Her unflinching and inspiring testimony exposes the physical, economic, and social brutality that domestic workers face, all while radiating a parent’s hope and resilience.

At age 28, Land’s dream of attending college and becoming a writer are deferred when a summer fling turns into an unplanned pregnancy. After facing domestic abuse, and lacking any form of reliable safety net, she checks into a homeless shelter with her 7-month-old daughter. She begins the bureaucratic nightmare of applying for food stamps and subsidized housing, and starts cleaning houses for $9/hour. Mired in patronizing government processes and paltry wages, Land illustrates the trauma of grasping for stability from a rigged system, and demonstrates how hard work doesn’t always pay off.

After years of barely scraping by, Land graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Montana in 2014, and started a career as a freelance writer. She writes about economic and social justice, domestic abuse, chronic illness, and motherhood, and has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Vox, Salon, and many other outlets. She’s worked with Barbara Ehrenreich at the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and is a writing fellow at the Center for Community Change.

Mimi Thi Nguyen – “Of Gifts and Debt”

Associate Professor of Asian American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

May 22, 2019

12 – 1:20 PM

Co-Sponsored by UO Common Reading Program and UO Department of Sociology

We have an exciting series of speakers lined up for the Winter Quarter Colloquium Series. Please join us for the following talks Fridays at 12pm in  PLC 714.

• 1/18/19: Dimitra Cupo, “Doing Self-Defense: Women, Habitus and Privilege”
• 1/25/19: Victoria Reyes (UC Riverside), “Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines”
• 2/8/19: Ana Paricio (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), “Cities and Gender: Mapping Everyday Life Activities in Barcelona’s Public Spaces”
• 2/15/19: Anthony Ocampo (Cal Poly Pomona), “Lessons in Manhood and Morality: The Immigrant Family as Moral Context of Reception”
• 2/22/19: Ryan Light, TBA
• 3/1/19: Dawn Harfmann, “How Corporate Power, Environmental Labor, and Political Polarization Shape Environmental Concern in Rural Wyoming, and Why it Matters for Our Environmental Future”

Barbara Sutton, Associate Professor
Department of Women’s,
Gender, and Sexuality Studies
University at Albany, State
University of New York

Thursday, October 25, 2018
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Gerlinger Alumni Lounge
1468 University Street
University of Oregon campus
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
csws.uoregon.edu/sutton

This presentation is based on Sutton’s recently published book, Surviving State Terror.
Based on oral testimonies of women who survived clandestine detention centers during a period of state terrorism in Argentina (1976–83), this book illuminates the gendered and embodied forms of trauma that women endured while also highlighting their historical and political agency. Through the lens of the body as a cross-cutting theme, the book examines gendered dimensions of experience during captivity and beyond. Sexual violence as a weapon of state terror is addressed, yet the book also shows more subtle dynamics of gender inscription through torture. Similarly, though the study attends to motherhood ideologies and the egregious treatment of pregnant women in captivity, it also explores women’s experiences beyond maternity.
Public and scholarly discourse has tended to pay attention to the relatives of the people disappeared, particularly mothers; this book makes a needed contribution by bringing to the fore the stories of women who themselves were forcibly disappeared, but ultimately survived.
Surviving State Terror incorporates women survivors’ narratives of solidarity, resistance, and political organizing as well as their perspectives on social change, human rights, and democracy. The book draws on the urgent lessons that women survivors offer to a world that continues to grapple with atrocities.

Barbara Sutton earned her PhD in sociology at the University of Oregon in 2004 and is a former CSWS Jane Grant Fellow.