Journalist and author Susan Faludi to speak at GSU
The following news was originally posted on the Georgia State University News blog by Liz Babiarz:
ATLANTA – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Susan Faludi will lecture at Georgia State University Nov. 2 about gender, media, popular culture and political life in the contemporary age.
Her lecture, titled “Losing Ourselves in the 21st Century,” is part of the Hellen Ingram Plummer Lecture sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences. It will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Speaker’s Auditorium, and is free and open to the public.
An exhibition of a similar theme is on view in the Georgia State University Welch School of Art and Design Gallery through Nov. 19. It showcases performative media by emerging, U.S.-based women artists and was inspired, in part, by a talk Faludi gave on issues of gender in a post-911 world.
“Many young women learn about feminism, and post-feminism, via popular culture and media coverage,” said Susan Richmond, assistant professor in the GSU School of Art and Design and curator of the exhibition. “We felt it would be beneficial to all of our students to hear from someone who has studied media culture extensively, and who argues persuasively for the need to challenge the credibility and motivations of mainstream news sources.”
Faludi is the author of “Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man” and “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. Her most recent book, “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America” examines the outpouring in the media, popular culture, and political life following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Faludi’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Nation, among other publications. Her talk at Georgia State coincides with the National Women Studies Association Conference in Atlanta the week of Nov. 12-15.
“Over the past two decades, Susan Faludi has bridged journalism and scholarship in women’s studies to produce astute analyses of the shifting terrain of masculinity and femininity in the United States,” said Susan Talburt, director of the Women’s Studies Institute at Georgia State.
“Her studies of the ‘backlash’ against feminism, changing constructions of masculinity and the post-September 11 nostalgia for ‘real’ men and women illuminate important elements of the contemporary cultural politics of gender in this country.”
The Plummer lecture is the College of Arts and Sciences’ annual endowed lecture, featuring noted scholars, scientists, artists and performers who have made notable contributions to their fields of achievement and to society at large. The lecture was endowed in 1999 in honor of late Atlanta arts patron Hellen Ingram Plummer.
In relation to this event, the Georgia State University Library has several of Susan Faludi’s books, including Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. Also, the library has created custom bookmarks for the “Losing Ourselves in the 21st Century” exhibition at the Welch School of Art and Design. Each bookmark lists a different book in our collection related to the exhibition. You can find them at the gallery or by contacting our Arts Liaison Librarian, Nedda Ahmed.