Throughout the school year, the Office of Multicultural Student Development sponsors many programs and special events. These programs highlight the diverse cultures that are present at Appalachian, and serve as an educational tool to inform students and members of the community about different perspectives, cultures and social issues.

All programs are free of charge and open to the public. Parking is available free of charge in the new parking deck next to the library after 5 p.m. For more information about parking, contact ASU Parking and Traffic at (828)262-2878 or www.parking.appstate.edu. Please visit www.maps.appstate.edu to see a campus map highlighting available parking and areas where our events take place.

Depending on travel schedules, many of the speakers are eager to meet with classes, student, staff or faculty groups in addition to the scheduled evening presentation.  DVD and web-based recordings of some lectures are available for free on-demand viewing.  

Please email Gus Peña at penaae@appstate.edu to request a class visit or to check-out a DVD from the Multicultural Resource Library.

Spring 2010 Lectures

The Making of German/Jewish Identity: Jewish Literature in Nineteenth-Century Germany

Cancelled due to weather/travel concerns

For generations of Jews in the German-speaking world, the works of Goethe and Schiller epitomized the world of European high culture, a realm that Jews actively participated in as both readers and consumers. Yet from the 1830s on, Jews writing in German also produced a vast corpus of popular fiction that was explicitly Jewish in content, audience and function. In his lecture, Jonathan M. Hess will explore the ways German Jews helped invent new forms of Jewish literature, inaugurating a tradition of Jewish fiction that is in many ways still with us today.

Jonathan M. Hess is professor of Germanic languages and literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also directs the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. He is the author of Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity (Yale University Press, 2002) and Reconstituting the Body Politic: Enlightenment, Public Culture and the Invention of Aesthetic Autonomy (Wayne State University Press, 1999). His lecture draws on his forthcoming book, Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity (Stanford University Press, 2010).

Beyond the Overcoming Narrative: The Culture and Politics of Disability

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Blue Ridge Ballroom, 7:00pm

What does it mean to be disabled? What does it mean to be abled? This talk explores the meaning of disability in contemporary society and ways of thinking about disability that go beyond the “super-crip” or overcoming narrative. Bart Floyd of the Western Alliance Center for Independent Living will raise issues concerning the social construction of disability, including the important disability civil rights movement, and consider how the definition of disability varies cross-culturally. He will also consider how disability affects the lives of men and women differently, as well as the role of the Americans with Disabilities Act in changing the lives of people with disabilities.

The history of independent living is closely tied to the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s among African Americans. The struggle to overcome disgraceful treatment based on bigotry and erroneous stereotypes in housing, education, transportation, and employment are very similar. This history and its driving philosophy also have much in common with other political and social movements of the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There were at least five movements that influenced the disability rights movement.

Free Screening of "Gone with the Wind" to be held on Sunday March 28 at 5pm in the Greenbriar Theater

Gone With the Wind? Never: Scarlett O’Hara and Southern Womanhood

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Blue Ridge Ballroom, 7:00pm

This presentation will explore the historical stereotypes of Southern women that went into the creation of the character Scarlett O’Hara, especially as portrayed in the 1939 film of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind. Then we will look at the stereotypes that resulted from this creation, the way in which Scarlett was both a composite of older ideals of womanhood and a very new type of woman who reflected the changing world of the South in the 1920s and 30s. Does Scarlett O’Hara still figure into the ways in which Southern women are viewed today? We will also address the “Mammy” image and the “Prissy” figure from the film to address stereotypes of black women and how they have been perpetuated or have changed since the film.

Dr. Lucinda MacKethan is Emerita Professor of English at NC State University, where she taught courses in American, Southern, and African American literature and culture. At NC State she was Alumni Distinguished Professor, was twice voted her College’s nominee for the NC Board of Governors Award, and in 2004 received the university’s highest teaching honor, the Holladay Medal of Excellence. She has published or edited six books and dozens of articles on the American South, including co-editing The Companion to Southern Literature, which received a Best Reference Book designation from the American Library Association in 2004. She has been a fellow at the National Humanities Center and senior consultant for an award-winning website on women writers, Scribblingwomen.org. She is now working on a book-length work on the intertwined lives of slaves and masters in the Old South.

26th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Farthing Auditorium, 7:00pm
Keynote Speaker: Nikki Giovanni

During the 1950s and 60s, Civil Rights Movement leaders like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired millions to stand up against social injustice. The Movement’s message of non-violence and civil disobedience would inspire pivotal events like the lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro NC, the bus boycott in Montgomery AL, the integration of Central High School in Little Rock AR, the freedom rides throughout the South, the march to Montgomery, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the most widely-read American poets, she prides herself on being “a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English.” Giovanni remains as determined and committed as ever to the fight for civil rights and equality with a focus on the individual, specifically, on the power one has to make a difference in oneself, and thus, in the lives of others. Giovanni is a Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech.

Nikki Giovanni appearances: Thursday, January 28 through Saturday, January 30

MLK Speaker Reception and Book Signing Thursday 5:30-6:30pm
Farthing Auditorium Lobby
Sign books and greet event attendees

MLK Commemoration Keynote Thursday 7-8:30pm
Farthing Auditorium
Deliver an approximately 50 minute keynote address reflecting on the contributions and legacy of Dr. King, and Professor Giovanni’s own thoughts on social justice today.

Poetry Reading and Q&A with the Center for Appalachian Studies Friday TBA
Location TBA
A short poetry reading and Q & A session for the Center for Appalachian Studies. Professor Giovanni was interviewed in the recently released documentary Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People. Dr. Giovanni will read from her poetry related to Southern Appalachia and elaborate on her comments in that documentary during a Q & A session with our students and faculty.

Contact Dr. Katherine Ledford 262-4089, 688-9521

Luncheon Keynote and Reading for The Children’s Playhouse Friday 12-1pm
The Children’s Playhouse of Boone
A 25-minute talk and reading on Professor Giovanni’s children's poetry. This luncheon is an annual fundraiser for the Children;s Playhouse.

Contact: Dr. Martha McCaughey 262-7603

CEAD Conference Saturday 11:30am-2:30pm

Plemmons Student Union

Dr. Giovanno to deliver keynote address and facilitate one conference workshop.

Contact: Suzette Patterson 262-6252

Community and University Co-sponsors
Center for Appalachian Studies
The Children’s Playhouse
A non-profit children's museum serving families in the High Country
Appalachian Seniors Program
ASU Sociology Club

*Appalachian Senior Programs and the ASU Sociology Club are sponsoring a food drive in conjunction with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration address by Nikki Giovanni. Please bring your donation of non-perishable food items to the auditorium. All donations collected at the event will be distributed among food banks for the five counties served by Appalachian Senior Programs (Ashe, Alleghany, Avery, Watauga, Wilkes).

Fall 2009 events click here for the series poster