Southwestern's 25th Brown Symposium Explores Oppression and Resistance
Movements
Georgetown, (Texas) For generations, religious and spiritual traditions
have provided the grounding for resistance to myriad oppressions.
Mahatma Gandhi, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, His Holiness the Dalai Lama
and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are just a few of those who have
led and continue to lead these struggles. Brown Symposium XXV: Spiritualities
of Resistance, held in Southwestern University's Alma Thomas Theater
Feb. 2-4, 2003, brings together voices from various perspectives speaking
to some current oppressions and spiritually and religiously based
resistance movementsparticularly those related to ecological justice.
The symposium will commence Sunday evening with a performance by
The Girls Choir of Harlem, conducted by Lorna Myers. The choir was
first instituted in 1988 following the success of the Boys Choir of
Harlem and the Choir Academy of Harlem Programs. The Girls Choir made
its concert debut at Lincoln Center in 1997. The vision of the choir
is to enable young women to transform their lives through music, build
self-esteem, find positive role models, experience the rewards of
creativity and develop a strong value system of discipline and hard
work.
The distinguished speakers for this year's Brown Symposium include
Karen Baker-Fletcher, James Cone, Roger S. Gottlieb and Winona LaDuke.
Baker-Fletcher is associate professor of systematic theology at Perkins
School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. She teaches courses
in the areas of constructive theology and cultural analysis, literary
criticism, and womanist, feminist and liberation theology and ethics.
Baker-Fletcher has published articles in journals and collections
on the topic of womanist concepts of freedom, womanhood and equality.
She is author of A Singing Something: Womanist Reflections on Anna
Julia Cooper; My Sister, My Brother: Womanist and Xodus God-Talk (with
Garth Baker-Fletcher); and Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit: Womanist
Wordings on God and Creation.
James Cone, the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic
Theology at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, has lectured
at more than 700 colleges, universities, divinity schools and community
organizations throughout the world. The author of Black Theology and
Black Power (1969), he is an internationally recognized liberation
theologian and a strong critic of "white" theology and its
ties to racism. In 1992, Ebony Magazine recognized Cone with the "American
Black Achievement Award" in the category of religion. Two years
later, the Association of Theological Schools gave him their "Theological
Scholarship & Research Award."
A social activist and the author or editor of 10 books on politics,
spirituality, the environment and the Holocaust, Roger S. Gottlieb
is professor of philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Arts
at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is a columnist for Tikkun magazine
and writes for popular and academic journals. His new book, Joining
Hands: Politics and Religion Together for Social Change, shares his
viewpoint that our political work needs religion and that our religious
life needs politics. His writings have appeared in top academic journals
such as the Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the American Academy
of Religion, and Ethics; and in popular publications such as The Boston
Globe and Orion Afield.
Winona LaDuke is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project
and the Indigenous Women's Network. She lives on the White Earth Reservation
in Minnesota and is a member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabeg.
Her publications include: Last Standing Woman, an acclaimed novel;
All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life, a non-fiction
work providing accounts of Native resistance to environmental and
cultural degradation; and The Winona LaDuke Reader, a collection of
40 speeches, articles and fiction excerpts. LaDuke lectures widely,
speaking before the United Nations, testifying at government hearings,
lecturing at universities and at corporate shareholders' meetings.
In addition, she served as the vice presidential candidate on the
Green Party's 2000 presidential ticket. Ms. magazine voted her one
of the "Women of the Year" in 1997, and Time magazine included
her among the "Top 40 Under Age 40." She teaches courses
on native environmentalism at the University of Minnesota.
Southwestern University's Brown Symposium annually explores topics
of global interest in one of a variety of disciplines and is funded
through an endowment established by the Brown Foundation, Inc., of
Houston, Texas, for professorships at the University.
Brown Symposium XXV has been developed by Laura Hobgood-Oster, assistant
professor of religion and philosophy and holder of the Elizabeth Root
Paden Chair. All events are open to the public without charge and
will be held in the Alma Thomas Theater at The Sarofim School of Fine
Arts. For more information or to register, please visit http://www.southwestern.edu/brownxxv
or call (512) 863-1902.
