[145]WOMEN’S STUDIES LECTURE HIGHLIGHTS AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 8, 2008
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

WOMEN’S STUDIES LECTURE HIGHLIGHTS AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN Groundbreaking Fisk University Librarian Subject of October Discussion

(MURFREESBORO) – “Piecin’ a Quilt: Jessie Carney Smith and African-American Women’s History” is the title of the next MTSU Women’s Studies Research Series lecture at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16, in the SunTrust Room of the Business and Aerospace Building. Christa Hardy, research fellow at the James E. Walker Library, will examine contributions to history and to American librarianship by Dr. Jessie Carney Smith. “As head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, Smith has been a central figure in the emergence of Black Studies and African-American women’s history in a career that has spanned civil rights, black power and the women’s movement,” says Hardy. Both historical and critical in nature, this study provides an analysis of how one aspect of her scholarship, Notable Black American Women, is an illustration of black feminist knowledge production. “The MTSU Women's Studies Research Series has something for everyone interested in women's experience,” says Dr. Jane Marcellus, professor of mass communication. “By bringing together scholars from across campus, we touch on a wide variety of feminist viewpoints in an informal monthly gathering.” All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information on the Women’s Studies Research Series, contact Marcellus at 615-898-5282 or jmarcell@mtsu.edu.

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