You are Invited: UVA's Mardi Gras Celebration!

Our UNESCO/UNITWIN Affiliate, Unbound Visual Arts (UVA) – a local non-profit art organization that enriches the community with educational and inspiring exhibitions and programs – invites you to its Annual Celebration!

From UVA: "Mardi Gras and Carnival Arts Celebration

Fat TUESDAY FEBRUARY 9th, 2016

4th ANNUAL MARDI GRAS & CARNIVAL ARTS CELEBRATION

  THE SOCIAL RESTAURANT & BAR

Crowne Plaza Hotel, just off Exit 17 on the Mass. Turnpike

320 Washington St., Newton Corner, MA

FREE Garage Parking

 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm

We've started a new tradition in Boston and we want you to be a part of it.  It's an evening of fun and celebration for all Unbound Visual Arts members, guests and friends at the very contemporary Social Restaurant and Bar. We'll have a live Mardi Gras band, Josiah Reibstein Trio,  light hors d'oeuvres appropriate for Mardi Gras & Carnival, a full cash bar, an art show of UVA member's work, dancing, and a raffle to win some great prizes. Come and be part of the excitement. Share a good time with artists and other art supporters from throughout the area. We'll provide the beads and masks too! Free garage parking and it's on the 57, 504 and 554 bus lines.

Don't know what Mardi Gras and Carnival is all about? No problem, it's basically a huge worldwide celebration that happens every year to start the Spring. It's really a big deal in New Orleans and most Latin American and many European countries. It's also called "Fat Tuesday" because theoretically it's the last day to indulge before Lent sets in for Christians. But everyone gets to celebrate the approaching Spring!"

For updates, visit: http://www.unboundvisualarts.org/

Margaret 'Peg' Snyder delivers African Studies Association Annual Lecture

UNESCO/UNITWIN Affiliate Margaret 'Peg' Snyder, the Founding Director of UNIFEM (The UN Development Fund for Women) recently gave the annual lecture for the Women's Caucus of the African Studies Association. Her lecture was titled “Four Decisive Decades: The Birth and Growth of a Global Women’s Movement”. The event coincided with the 40th anniversary of the first world conference on the status of women in Mexico City and the subsequent creation of UNIFEM, as well as the founding of the African Studies Association’s Women’s Caucus.

Peg Snyder (bottom right) with colleagues of the ASA Women's Caucus.
Photo credit: African Studies Association Women's Caucus

Coming soon: Bulgarian Folk Concert!

You are invited to a traditional folk music performance in Brighton, Massachusetts on November 15th! Dr. Barbara Gottfried of BU's Women's & Gender Studies faculty has a long association with Divi Zheni, the Boston-based Balkan Women's Chorus & Orchestra.

As Barbara shared with us, “Divi Zheni is a chorus and orchestra of 25 women from the U.S. and Bulgaria directed by renowned Bulgarian vocalist, instructor, and conductor Tatiana Sarbinska. We sing to share our love of Bulgarian music—once you have heard it, you can never go back.” 

Photo courtesy Barbara Gottfried

Barbara teaches courses in women in literature, mass media, and film at BU’s Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies program. As the Divi Zheni website notes, “She has traveled extensively in the Balkans, including trips to Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. She has studied Balkan dance and singing at seminars in Ohrid, Macedonia with Goran Alacki and Ljupco Manevski [Tanec] and Bansko, Bulgaria with Tatiana Sarbinska, and the dance of Transylvania at a dance camp in Felsosofalva in the Transylvanian part of Romania [Szekelyfold]. She has been folk dancing since a fateful night in 1971, when she stumbled upon Israeli dancing in the MIT Student Center.” 

Do join to enjoy the upcoming cultural performance 

by this renowned Balkan Women's Chorus!

Brighton Allston Congregational Church, 404 Washington, Street, Brighton

Sunday, November 15th at 2 pm

Shahla Haeri featured in upcoming BU lecture series, Monday November 9th

Dr. Shahla Haeri, one of the founding coordinators of the UNESCO/UNITWIN program based at Boston University, will be featured in the Asian Women in Public Life lecture series. Shahla will be speaking on "Muslim Women's Paths to Power: From Bilqis to Benazir" on November 9th at 12:15pm at the Pardee School located at 121 Bay State Road, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Dr. Adil Najam, Dean of BU's Pardee School of Global Studies, will be the discussant. 

As Shahla shared with us on the theme:

 "'Kings, when they enter a city, disorder it, and make the mighty ones of its inhabitants abased. Even so they too will do' (Quran 27: 32-33).  So says judiciously the Queen of Sheba to her advisors and counselors in the face of imminent threat of war from a formidable adversary.   Juxtaposing the Quranic story of the Queen of Sheba, and the purported Prophetic hadith: 'Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity,' Shahla Haeri in her forthcoming book (2017) attempts to bring to life stories of the legendary and historical women who have reached the apex of authority and power in patriarchal Muslim societies.  Taking an ethno-historical view of Muslim women’s paths to power and a cross-cultural anthropological perspective, she explores the circumstance surrounding women’s ascent to power in medieval Egypt, Yemen and India or in modern Pakistan, Turkey or Indonesia.  She critically discusses the politio-religious discourses, and cultural beliefs and practices that have helped or hindered women from attaining political leadership and authority in Muslim societies.  Highlighting medieval and modern examples of Muslim women who actually occupied the exalted office of a sultan, a queen or a prime minister, Haeri problematizes the assumption of religious objections to women's political leadership in Islam. She asks whether the justifications for barring women from positions of political leadership are to be sought in a divine mandate, a prophetic dictum, or patriarchal cultural traditions?  The theoretical line that runs through women’s narratives is threaded through a focus on the paradox of patriarchy, i.e., the animating dynamics of father-daughter relationship.  With the growing Muslim women’s mobilization in the public domain and their demand for political representation and leadership, this book on the historical and contemporary Muslim women rulers is highly timely."

Watch this space for news on the release of Shahla's book!

Photo of Dr. Shahla Haeri: courtesy  BU

NEW:

Photo album by Brenda Gael McSweeney depicting Dr. Shahla Haeri's event at BU's Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies here

Article by Camille Nguyen on the screening of Shahla's documentary and talk as part of the lecture series of BU's Center for the Study of Asia, here  

Destry Rides Again, at the original site of the Egyptian Theater in Brighton Center!

The Brighton-Allston Historical Society (BAHS), a UNESCO/UNITWIN Network Affiliate, invites you to a special screening of Destry Rides Again:

Join to view this classic film with an original take on society's stereotypical gender roles! Enjoy the setting steeped in the cultural atmosphere of the then famous Egyptian Theater built in 1929 in Brighton Center (now site of the Elks Lodge, at 326 Washington Street).

The Egyptian: courtesy BAHS Archives

NEW:

Photo album by BAHS Board Director Brenda Gael McSweeney of the packed-to-capacity event: hearty Congratulations to the organizers, and profuse Thanks to the enthusiastic audience! View photographs here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/unitwin/gK5Xpm

UNESCO's Dr. Sonia Bahri moving on!

Sonia Bahri as the then Chief of Section for International Cooperation in Higher Education – UNESCO/Paris came to visit us back in 2007 at Boston University to announce the official creation of our UNESCO/UNITWIN Network on Gender, Culture, & Development! After collaborating with us for many years as our UNESCO/UNITWIN Network expanded thematically and geographically, she became Chief of UNESCO's Section for Science Policy and Partnerships. Sonia is once again on the move: she will be an advisor for Science, Technology and Innovation and education policies, and will help University Paris-Dauphine launch its Master2 in Peace Studies. 

Congratulations Sonia! 

(Left to right, July 2007): Dr. Sonia Bahri; Dr. Brenda Gael McSweeney, initiator of this UNESCO/UNITWIN Network; Dr. Barbara Gottfried, Women Studies Program faculty; and Maryam Shahsahebi, then WSP program manager.

Beyond the Book IX!

Mark your calendars! WGS is proud to be a sponsor of the book-art exhibition Beyond the Book IX, opening 21 November at the Faneuil and Brighton Branches of the Boston Public Library.
Do join the opening reception on 21 November from 11am-1pm at the Faneuil Branch at Oak Square!

You are invited: "over-under-in-between" by Martha Shea Smith

You are invited to the opening reception on October 20th for the exhibition "over-under-in-between" by Martha Shea Smith at the Faneuil Branch of the Boston Public Library in Oak Square, Brighton.

Boston University's Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program is proud to be an exhibition sponsor!

Venue: 419 Faneuil St, Brighton MA

Mass. Memories Road Show Collection

Women's Empowerment in West Africa is now part of a Boston historical archive! The exhibition that the Faneuil Branch of The Boston Public Library hosted in its art gallery on female education and empowerment in Burkina Faso over four decades is captured in the Mass. Memories Road Show collection! More below.

Photo by Eric West

https://equalityburkina.blogspot.com/2015/10/womens-empowerment-in-burkina-exhibit.html?fbclid=IwAR121KnrSjfQYqR0dG9CbMmP37b_QUVefBFhj811nx3l47Xc13yWQ0uiquA

Women's History Initiative in Brighton/Allston now figures in the University Archive and Special Collections at UMass Boston

Brenda Gael McSweeney, Board of Directors of the Brighton/Allston Historical Society – a UNESCO/UNITWIN Affiliate, describes the background to this photo collage contributed to the University Archive and Special Collections at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

"This photo captures the Women's History Initiative that I launched with the Brighton Allston Historical Society when I came from India to live in Oak Square in 2003. The BAHS published fabulous accounts of men's contributions to our town's history; however one Member, Louise Bonar, had detected the phenomenon of 'Brighton's Forgotten Women'! So we undertook research and hosted events on Brighton's remarkable women. Here is Jennie Loitman Barron of Selkirk Road in Brighton in the 1950s. She became the first full-time female judge in Massachusetts. Her daughter Joy gave us this photo.

Collage by Ali O'Hare

Also depicted is our Women's History Initiatives team that shared the stories of Brighton's Women of Vision: best-selling novelists, a newspaper columnist, the de facto postmaster and numerous strong social activists across four centuries. At top right is Linda Mishkin who currently presides the BAHS, then Priscilla Biondi, Mary Rita Grady, then me – Chair of the group, next is Peg Collins, the immediate past President receiving an award, and at bottom left, Nancy O'Hara.

Other BAHS Board Members Ronni Komarow, Sharon Cayley and Ann Mulligan also presented last May at our multi-media show at the Congregational Church in Brighton Center. Earlier on we had created a Heritage Museum exhibit that ran for over a year, and a Women's Heritage Trail Guide and Bus Tour! Boston University's Women's Studies Program and the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis both supported these initiatives. Collage prepared by Ali O'Hare. Pictured clockwise from top left: Jennie Loitman Barron and colleagues, Linda Mishkin, Priscilla Biondi, CSJ Mary Rita Grady, Brenda Gael McSweeney, Peg Collins and Nancy O'Hara."

Also available: Women's History Initiatives: Gender, Culture, People-Centered Development

Photo credits: Jennie Loitman Barron & colleagues, courtesy BAHS; photo of Brenda Gael McSweeney by Nancy O'Hara; all others by Brenda Gael McSweeney