The WVU Center for Womens Studies announces two upcoming presentations in their annual Fireside Chat series. On Tuesday, Feb. 4, Suzan Ayers, Kim Cordingly and Kathleen McNerney will discuss issues related to”Age, Ability and Disability.”The chat will be held at 4 p.m. in the Mountainlair Rhododendron Room.
Ayers, assistant professor of physical education teacher education, provides information, support and specific recommendations to women about ways to become and remain healthy across the lifespan in her presentation,”Women, Aging and Physical Activity: How to Stay Healthy Gently.”
The discussion will address ways to integrate fitness into daily life, regardless of current physical activity, Ayers said.
Cordingly, research instructor for the Job Accommodation Network, will address”The Emerging Geographies of Work and Identity: Exploring Self-Employment Strategies and Work Subjectivities of Women with Chronic Illness.”
“Older Women in Literature: Depictions by Carme Riera,”will be presented by McNerney, professor of foreign languages and adjunct professor of womens studies. She will read two short stories by Catalan writer Carme Riera that portray the treatment of older, traditional women.
“The topics strike at issues of holding on to the gains made in the struggle for equality while continuing to move ahead,”McNerney explained.
The second chat takes place at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, in E. Moore Halls Betty Boyd Lounge, with Christine Martin and Maryanne Reed focusing on the untold story of North Vietnamese women war correspondents in”Bylines as Lifelines: Love, Loss, and Sisterhood on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
Martin, dean, and Reed, associate professor and director of broadcast news sequence, both of the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, will discuss their research on the role of these remarkable and little-known women correspondents who covered the Vietnam War.
A short video, comprised of edited interviews with Vietnamese women journalists and a brief historical look at the role of Vietnamese women, will be shown.
“More than a million North Vietnamese women served their country during the years of the French and American Wars in Vietnam,”Reed said.”They were soldiers, nurses, farmers, laborers and journalists. But despite their pivotal role, their stories and their histories had never been significantly recorded, researched or documented.”
While the story is a story of the war in Vietnam, it is different from the hundreds already published, Martin said.
“It is a story told by journalists, told by women, told by Vietnamese,”Martin said.”Its a story that puts a human face, a feminine face, on the people Americans have viewed as the enemy for the last 30 years.”
The chats are free and open to the public; refreshments will be provided. The presentations are sponsored by the WVUCenter for Womens Studies, Eberly College of Arts and Science, and are made possible through the contributions to the Womens Studies Development Fund.
In addition to the chats, a Teaching Lunch,”Integrating Race, Class and Gender in the Classroom,”is set to take place from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, at the Café of India, 160 Fayette Street. Lunch is Dutch treat, and it is co-sponsored by the Center for Black Culture and Research and the Native American Studies Program. To make reservations or for information on any of the events, call Marlene Robinson at the Center for Womens Studies at 293-2339, ext. 1153.