Center for Ethics Announces Fall Programming: Sex, Ethics, and Pleasure Politics
A year-long series of special events and thematic lectures that aims to develop a comprehensive sexual ethics for the campus community.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013 04:14 PM
Through public talks and discussions, this theme will build an ethical conversation centered on interpersonal sexual behavior as well as the political, scientific, religious, aesthetic and legal forces that shape the permissibility and impermissibility of sexual acts. This programming theme will explore how culture, race, gender, class, technology and language can simultaneously constrain and create greater opportunities for sexual acts, interpersonal intimacy and pleasure-seeking.
Each year, the Center for Ethics sponsors an intensive series designed to encourage discussion and reflection on a timely, pertinent topic. Center for Ethics programs are free and open to all members of the Muhlenberg campus and the local community. For more information on the series, visit the Center for Ethics site.
Fall programs sponsored by the Center for Ethics will include:
Campus Forum:
How Should We Talk About Sex at Muhlenberg?
Tues., 9/10 • 7:30 p.m. • Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
Muhlenberg faculty and administrators will discuss the concept of sex, ethics, and pleasure politics from various perspectives. Panel moderated by Lanethea Mathews, (associate professor of political science), and features Mel Ferrara '15, Corey Goff (director of athletics), Randy Helm (President of the College), Robin Riley-Casey (director of multicultural life) and Alan Tjeltveit (Professor of psychology).
Talk by Joan Bertin
Title TBA
Wed., October 23 • 7:00 p.m. • Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
Bertin, the Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, addresses the history of the First Amendment, censorship, restrictions of sexually explicit speech, child pornography, political speech, government secrecy, broadcast decency and censorship of science and sex education. Co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program.
Talk by Dorothy Roberts:
Race, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies: The New Biopolitics
Tues., 11/29 • 7 p.m. • Event Space, Seegers Union
Roberts, the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania, will address issues of biopower, race, and gender; health disparities among racial minorities; sexuality and law; and socioeconomic regulation of sexual health.
Talk by Anne Fausto-Sterling:
Title TBA
Tues., 11/5 • 7:30 p.m. • Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
Anne Fausto-Sterling, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Women’s Studies at Brown University, will discuss the scientific efforts to study sexual behavior, argue for the scientific construction of sexuality, and discuss a critical re-appraisal of dualisms that drive scientific investigation (sex/gender, nature/nurture, real/constructed) Her scholarly foci are dynamic systems theory; biology of sexuality and gender; developmental biology; and sex-related differences in infants and toddlers.
Talk by E. Patrick Johnson
Sweet Tea
Tues., 11/12 • 7:30 p.m. • Empie Theater, Center for the Arts
E. Patrick Johnson, Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African-American Studies at Northwestern University, will discuss first-person ethnographic performance, documentary theatre, and race, gender, and sexuality in performance. He may discuss his recent publication Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South; Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. This event is co-sponsored by Theatre and Dance.
