Visiting Professors Discuss Women’s Issues at Clarion University

CLARION, Pa. – Cindy LaCom, Ph.D., professor of English at Slippery Rock University, and Gayatri Devi, Ph.D., professor of English at Lock Haven University, will speak at 7:00 p.m. November 18 at Hart Chapel.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

LaCom will present “Hooking Up in a Pornified Culture: Sex, Intimacy and Agency.” Research suggests that more than 65 percent of university students participate in hook-up sex, that alcohol fuels the hook-up culture in significant and measurable ways, and that the experience often has different outcomes for women and men, according to LaCom.

Devi’s topic is “Individual Rights and Equal Rights: Women’s Rights in the Era of Privilege and Entitlement.” Devi will address women’s struggle for equal rights in the context of our cultural debates about individual rights. She will specifically discuss women’s rights to personal safety and violence-free lives.

Junior Megan Reinert, an intern in the Woman and Gender Studies Center, discovered both speakers while attending the 2014 PASSHE Women’s Consortium Conference at Bloomsburg University in September. After hearing their presentations, she suggested that the women and gender studies department invite the professors to speak at Clarion. Kathleen McIntyre, assistant professor of history, presented the idea to the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, which she chairs.

“The lectures by Devi and LaCom offer an excellent opportunity to hear these powerful speakers and think about what we are doing here at Clarion University to prevent sexual assault and harassment,” McIntyre said. “It is my hope that the lecture and discussion period will explore how larger national discussions regarding sexual assault on college campuses are also taken very seriously here on our local campus.”

For information email McIntyre at kmcintyre@clarion.edu.