The 30th anniversary celebration of the Women’s Studies Program at West Virginia University continues with the discussion of a volatile protest regarding school curriculum in West Virginia’s history, and a poetry reading by a WVU alumna living in Paris.

Carol Mason, associate professor of English and Gender & Women’s Studies at Oklahoma State University, and Heather Hartley, WVU alumna and the Paris editor of Tin House magazine, will give presentations next week.

Mason will present “The 1974 Kanawha County Textbook Controversy and Today’s Tea Party,” on Monday, Oct. 11, in 107 Olegbay Hall from 4-5 p.m. This event is co-sponsored with the WVU Department of History.

Mason’s research focuses on 20th Century American literature and culture; race and reproduction; theories of gender and sexuality; and discourse and society, particularly the post-World War II rise of the Right.

She is the author of two books: “Reading Appalachia from Left to Right: Conservatives and the 1974 Kanawha County Textbook Controversy,” and “Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-life Politics.” Currently she is working on a third book tentatively titled, “Global Oklahomo: Antigay Exports from Middle America.”

On Oct. 12, poet Heather Hartley will read from her first book, “Knock Knock.” Her reading will take place in 130 Colson Hall at 7:30 p.m.

Hartley’s poems, essays, and interviews have appeared in Tin House, Mississippi, Post Road, Night Train, and other literary magazine as well as in anthologies such as “Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast,” and “Satellite Convulsions: Poems from Tin House.”

Hartley lives in Paris, where she curates Shakespeare & Company Bookshop’s weekly reading series and teaches creative writing and poetry at the American University of Paris.

“We’re delighted to have Heather Hartley return to campus,” said Mark Brazaitis, an associate professor of English and the director of the Creative Writing Program at WVU. “Her poetry is wonderful, and how many writers get asked in interviews about their favorite Paris caf�s? She will have great poems—and great travel tips—to share with us.”

Both events are free and open to the public.

For more information about the events or the 30th anniversary celebration, please contact Ann Oberhauser at Ann.Oberhauser@mail.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

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