Lorwin Lecture
“The Last Exhale of Our Mother’s Breath” — The ‘Work’ of the First Generation Writer
Crater Lake Rooms
Erb Memorial Union (EMU)
1222 E. 13th Ave.
Activist Methods Workshop
Many Nations Longhouse
1630 Columbia St.
Workshop space limited:
please RSVP to csws@uoregon.edu
The UO Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) hosts esteemed and iconic Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright Cherríe Moraga for the keynote Lorwin Lecture on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at 6 p.m. on Thursday, October 13 at the Erb Memorial Union on the UO campus. She will lead an activist methods workshop (see description below) for faculty and graduate students from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Friday, October 14 at the Many Nations Longhouse. Workshop space is limited. Please RSVP to csws@uorgon.edu to reserve your space. CLLAS is a cosponsor.
Maestra Moraga has been an artist-in-residence at the Stanford University Department of Theater and Performance Studies and in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity for nearly twenty years. A poet, playwright-director, writer-essayist, educator, and cultural activist, she is also the co-editor of the seminal anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, which won the Before Columbus American Book Award in 1986. Her most recent work, A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings 2000 – 2010, was published by Duke University Press in 2011.
She is the recipient of the United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature, the American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Lambda Foundation’s “Pioneer” award, among many other honors.
Description of “Activist Methods” Workshop
“There is no ‘method’ to being an Activist. There is only, courage, consciencia and commitment. There is the rigor required in recognizing what we do not know and the willingness to learn on the spot. There is the process of coming to understand the difference between the too-often ease of political rhetoric vs. the true complexity of direct action.” Cherríe Moraga
In this two-hour workshop Maestra Moraga will field questions from participants about activist organizing strategies and obstacles. She will discuss the relationship between cultural/art production and direct action; on-line activism and direct action; educational institutions and direct action; and more. She will also engage participants in a theater exercise (or two) to approach embodied understanding of power relations and our response to them.
Hosted this year by the Center for the Study of Women in Society, the Lorwin Lectureship on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is funded by a gift from Val and Madge Lorwin to the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences and School of Law. This year’s lecture is also being cosponsored by the Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs; CSWS Women of Color Project; Departments of Ethnic Studies, Philosophy, Romance Languages, and Theatre Arts; Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics; Oregon Humanities Center; HUM Program; UO Libraries; Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies; Clark Honors College; Latin American Studies Program; and School of Journalism and Communication.