From the Virgin Mary to a million Hollywood moms.

The politics and particulars of motherhoodmotherhood as depicted by a diverse host of writers and filmmakerswill be explored this month at West Virginia University, during the Universitys annual Colloquium on Literature and Film, Sept. 30-Oct. 2.

Constructing and Deconstructing Motherhood in Literature and Film,is the theme of this years event, which will be in the Mountainlair student union and at various locales across the downtown campus.

The event is free and open to the public.

This is the 29 th year for the colloquium, which carries a different theme every year and is presented annually by the Department of Foreign Languages.

The motherhood theme, colloquium coordinator Dr. Janice Spleth said, was a natural this year.

Spleth, a foreign languages professor who has organized the colloquium for the past three years, said she wanted a logical transition from her event to a national conference on women and creativity held next month across WVU , Morgantown and the region.

We wanted both gatherings to be seamless,Spleth said.

The conference on women and creativity will be Oct. 13-15 and offers a large overview of the creative accomplishments of women, from writers, thinkers, composers and artisans.

The Sept. 30 colloquium, meanwhile, will make for a good lead-in to later conference in October, Spleth said, as it looks at critical, creative depictions of the internal struggles and victories of women from all walks and circumstances who are taking the role of motherhood.

Were going to look at writings and movies from Russia to Japan,she said.Were giving takes on motherhood from �€~The Passion of the Christto �€~Fahrenheit 9/11.Well have over 100 scholars from across the country on our campus. Were understandably pretty excited on how its all coming to life.

Colloquium sessions includeMothers and Soldiers,Women and Creativity,The Politics of the Breast,Hollywood Mothers and MentorsandPortrayals of the Virgin Mary,a panel discussion that will explore the portrayal of the mother of Jesus in Mel GibsonsThe Passion of the Christ.

Universal roles of motherhood in different cultures will be book-ended in two films:Stella Dallas,a 1930s Hollywood melodrama directed by King Vidor and starring Barbara Stanwyck; and a historical, period piece from Japan, Kenji Mizoguchis 1952 stark classic,The Life of Oharu.

The filmmakers are from different cultures and they take their subject matter from different centuries,Spleth said,but both films depict mothers who confront social prejudice and who make sacrifices for their children.

And that, Spleth said, is all part of the universaland heroicfabric that makes up motherhood.

Keynote speaker is Dr. Alexandra Keller, who will discussFrom �€~Stella Dallasto Lila Lipscomb: Reading Real Motherhood through Reel Motherhood,on Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. in Room 458, Business and Economics Building.

Keller is the author ofRe-Imaging the Frontier: American Westerns Since the Reagan Administration,She has also penned critical studies of movie directors James Cameron and Chantal Akerman, and is a contributing writer forFilm and History JournalandDrama Review.Keller is on the Film Studies faculty of Smith College and holds a doctorate in cinema studies from New York University.

For a full schedule of events, visit the Department of Foreign Languages online atwww.as.wvu.edu/forlang.

This years colloquium is co-sponsored by the English Department, the Center for Womens Studies and Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.