• Tuesday, Feb. 6: “ABORTION: How You Got Personal Choices and How You Could Lose Them.” Galanti Lounge, URI Library, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Mary Ann Sorrentino, who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1985 because of her work with the Rhode Island chapter of Planned Parenthood, will be discussing her latest book, “The A Word – Abortion: Real Women, Tough Choices, Personal Freedom.’
• Tuesday, Feb. 13: “DES and Diflucan; Pharmaceutical Marketing Choices – Why Women Should Take Heed.” URI Women’s Center, Dana Shugar Library, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Jody Lisberger, a full-time lecturer in the URI Women’s Studies program, will combine her personal experience as a DES daughter with research on current pharmaceutical practices as they relate to women. Lisberger said her mother was one of the millions of women in the 40’s and 50’s given the synthetic estrogen diethylstilbestrol designed to prevent miscarriages, even though the Food and Drug Administration suspected it caused cancer.
• Tuesday, Feb. 27: “Sex Trafficking: Policy and Debates.” URI Women’s Center, Dana Shugar Library, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Donna Hughes, Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair and a professor in the URI Women’s Studies program, is a leading international researcher on trafficking of women and children in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Korea. She researches and writes on women’s rights including violence, slavery, sexual exploitation, Islamic fundamentalism, and women’s organized resistance to violence and exploitation. Her research has been supported by the U.S. State Department, the National Institute of Justice, the National Science Foundation, and the Association of American Colleges and Universities, among others. Hughes has testified before the U.S. House International Relations Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Moscow Duma, and the Czech Parliament.
• Tuesday, March 6: “The Old Folks at Home: Domesticity and Race in 19th Century Sheet Music.” URI Women’s Center; Dana Shugar Library, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Stephanie Dunson, assistant director of graduate studies and assistant professor of English, cultivates a broad range of interests including music history and 19th century American literature. Her most recent project focuses on cover illustrations, lyrics, and melodies of sheet music from the blackface minstrel tradition to gain insight into the racial attitudes of middle-class women in 19th century.
• Tuesday, March 13: “Song and Activism.” URI Women’s Center, Dana Shugar Library, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
“The Raging Grannies” are a group of women who write protest songs and perform civil action for political change. The grannies began in Canada and currently have more than 60 different granny groups in the U.S. and Canada. Locally, there are groups located in Westerly, Providence, and Boston. They will sing protest songs and talk about their activism for social justice.
• Wednesday, April 4: “Reading from Still River.” URI Women’s Center, Dana Shugar Library, 5:15 to 6:30 p.m.
Dawn Paul, the first URI student to graduate with a major in the Women’s Studies program in 1979, will read from her first novel, Still River. Paul has written stories and essays that have appeared in many anthologies, including Steady as She Goes: Women’s Stories of the Sea and Going It Alone: Women’s Adventures in the Wild.
• Tuesday, April 10: “Native American Women.” URI Women’s Center, Dana Shugar Library, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Naomi Caldwell, chair of the American Indian Children’s and Youth Book Award Committee, is an assistant professor in the URI Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. Her professional interests include American Indian materials for children, American Indian collection management, and multiculturalism in libraries and information centers.