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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Center for New Words

The Center for New Words is committed to a simple mission: use the power and creativity of words to strengthen the voice of progressive and marginalized women in society. To accomplish this mission, our programs support diverse women's engagement with the entire word cycle, from literacy to blogging to literary writing to opinion-making in the media and other domains of influence. Built on the wisdom, commitments, and competencies of 28 years of running New Words Bookstore, CNW is creating spaces and places where women's words matter. break

http://www.centerfornewwords.org

  • Callie House: My Face is Black is True

    Wed, Sep 14, 2005
    Mary Francis Berry reclaims Callie House, a magnificent heroine who, though so long forgotten that the site of her grave is unknown, emerges as a pioneering activist: a female forerunner of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Born in to slavery in 1861, Callie House started the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, which sought African American pensions based on those offered Union soldiers, a movement so powerful it frightened the US government, upset Jim Crow legislatures across the South, and gave hope to hundreds of thousands of destitute former slaves. Co-sponsored by the Museum of Afro American History and the Center for New Words.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Center for New Words

  • Women of the World: Art and Adventure

    Thu, Nov 11, 2004
    Susan Orlean, author of *The Orchid Thief* and *My Kind of Place,* takes readers on an irresistible tour of the world via its subcultures: from Japan's Mt. Fuji, to the heart of the African music scene in Paris, to Midland, Texas, hometown of George W. Bush, a place where "oil time" is the only time that matters. Barbara Sjoholm (formerly Barbara Wilson, author of *Gaudi Afternoon* and, the new book *Pirate Queen*) takes readers along for the four months that she traveled around the North Atlantic, chasing little known biographies of women fishing captains, cross-dressing sailors, and bold Viking explorers.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Center for New Words

  • Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era

    Wed, May 4, 2005
    In celebration of the newest edition of *Our Bodies, Ourselves*, a panel of the book's authors and contributors for a look at how it has grown and changed to serve lesbians, bi women, and transpeople. In 1970, they showed us a cervix, talked openly about same-sex relationships, and helped get women safe information about sexual assault. But a lot has changed since *Our Bodies, Ourselves* first published the chapter *In Amerika They Call Us Dykes*! Co-sponsored by Fenway Community Health Center.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Center for New Words

  • Risking Hope: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars

    Thu, May 19, 2005
    Cristina Rathbone discusses *Risking Hope*, which explores every facet of prison culture and reveals the true face of the American criminal justice system. Rathbone spent five years visiting women prisoners at MCI Framingham, outside of Boston. *Risking Hope* provides a firsthand look at prison and the women that Rathbone came to know there, and shows why prison officials are so eager to keep journalists out. The book also describes the author's long legal struggle to gain access to the women inside. It took Rathbone a full year and two law suits against the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to win access to the women and hear their stories. Women are the fastest-growing population incarcerated in the United States; over 950,000 women are currently under some form of correctional supervision. Putting a human face to the statistics, Rathbone examines the devastating consequences of mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the use of male guards for women prisoners, substandard medical care that leads to high rates of suicide, and the drastic effects skyrocketing incarceration rates have on millions of families across the country.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Center for New Words

  • Under Her Skin: How Girls Experience Race in America

    Thu, Mar 10, 2005
    Pooja Makhijani, Patricia Goodwin, Judith Chalmer, and Lisa Drostova read from *Under Her Skin: How Girls Experience Race in America*, an anthology of essays by women that explore through a child's lens the sometimes savage, sometimes innocent, and always complex ways in which race shapes American lives and families.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Center for New Words

  • Taking Our Place in the Public Conversation

    Fri, Mar 18, 2005
    Medea Benjamin, a powerful and charismatic force in human rights activism, talks about her struggles for social justice in Asia, Africa and the Americas for over 20 years. She is the founding director of the human rights organization Global Exchange. **Medea Benjamin** is a leading activist in the peace movement in the United States and helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice. She is also the co-founder of Code Pink: Women for Peace, a women's group that has been organizing against the war in Iraq and pushing for a reorientation of budget priorities in the US to focus on heath care, education and housing, not war. In February 2003, Benjamin visited Iraq and met with weapon's inspectors, women's groups and ordinary Iraqi civilians. Benjamin's previous work focused on improving the labor and environmental practices of US multinational corporations, and the policies of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. She also ran for the US Senate on the Green Party ticket, mobilizing thousands of Californians around platform issues such as living wage, schools-not-prisons, and universal healthcare. She is the author of numerous books. Prior to founding Global Exchange in 1988, Medea worked for 10 years as an economist and nutritionist in Latin America and Africa for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the Swedish International Development Agency, and the Institute for Food and Development Policy. This event is co-sponsored with the MIT Program in Women's Studies.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Center for New Words