Move over, guys: If you think women dont know how to rock and roll, you dont know Susan Shaw. She wrote the book on the subject, and shes talking about it Thursday (Nov. 13) at West Virginia University.

Shaw, who directs the Womens Studies Program at Oregon State University, will discussGirls and Guitars: Women, Feminism and Rock and Rollat 7 p.m. in G-24 Eiesland Hall on the Downtown Campus.

WVU s Center for Womens Studies is hosting Shaw through its annual Womens Studies Residency Program. Shaw will be at WVU through Thursday for the residency.

Shes the co-author ofGirls Rock! Fifty Years of Making Music,which was selected by The Amelia Bloomer Project for its 2005 list of recommended feminist books for young readers.

A book signing will follow the talk, which is free and open to the public.

Janice Spleth, interim director of WVU s Center for Womens Studies, said Shaws research interests take in everything from gender and religion to women in popular culture.

Its a pleasure to have such an important figure in the field here to interact with students and faculty,Spleth said.The residency is an opportunity to expand intellectual horizons and to raise awareness about womens issues in the community.

Shaw has spent her professional career doing just that, and shes crossed oceans more than once for the cause.

She most recently traveled to London, where she taught courses on Britains women writers of crime fiction and how religion factors into the lives of women across the United Kingdom.

She also helped lead workshops on HIV prevention in Botswana in a program through the Department of Public Health.

In addition to her appearance Thursday, shell also talk to several classes and campus groups about womens issues.

Shaw earned a bachelors degree in English from Berry College in her hometown of Rome, Ga. She also holds a masters degree and doctorate in religious education from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and a masters of interdisciplinary studies in womens studies and English from Oregon State.

Her most recent book isGod Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home and Society.Shes also co-authored two other important works on womens studies and tolerance:Womens Voices, Feminist VisionsandWriting for Change: Raising Awareness of Difference, Power and Discrimination.

The Womens Studies Residency was established in 1999 in honor of Judith Gold Stitzel, who helped launch the womens studies program at WVU in 1980. She was also the first director of the WVU Center for Womens Studies.

The residency is supported in part by the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and the Friends of Womens Studies.

For more information, contact Spleth at ” janice.spleth@mail.wvu.edu rel=nofollow> janice.spleth@mail.wvu.edu or 304-293-2339.