The Hive for Feminist Research, an interdisciplinary research group formed at StFX to showcase the depth and diversity of feminist research happening across campus, will present its second annual lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. in Schwartz 205.
The Hive for Feminist Research Annual Lecture Series is an initiative of the research group formed in 2013 to increase the visibility and understanding of feminist research at StFX in all its diversity. A reception will follow the lecture and all are welcome. This year’s speaker is Shelley Price of the StFX Gerald Schwartz School of Business who will present her work on Indigenous North American stories of creation via the Sky Woman using an ecofeminist perspective. For this lecture, entitled "Ecofeminism and Interconnectivity via the Skywoman and Sedna Creation Stories,” the stories of Skywoman and Sedna will be shared and explored through the concepts of ecofeminism and interconnectivity. To the ecofeminist, people, animals and the earth itself are regarded as equal partners in evolution and no living being is privileged over another (Spretnak, 1990; Bullis & Glaser, 1992; Warren & Erkal, 1997), thus creating space for peaceful cohabitation through the respect of all forms of life and constituent voices. Skywoman and Sedna also help explore the concept of interconnectivity and the cycle of life as bound to spirit rather than body and form. In many Indigenous stories, ‘people, animals and the earth’ are not distinct and separate (different and categorized) bodies. People, animal and earth are of ‘the land,’ from ‘the land,’ and they are ‘the land’ (Momaday, 1969; Silko, 1981; Deloria, 1992; Yunupingu, 1997; Archibald, 2008). StFX women’s and gender studies professor Dr. Rachel Hurst, founder of the Hive for Feminist Research, constructed the Hive in the summer of 2013 to offer a space for StFX researchers to share and discuss work. The Hive defines feminist research broadly as a type of inquiry concerned with understanding relations of power, particularly those based on gender as it intersects with race, sexuality, class, and ability. The Hive for Feminist Research Annual Lecture Series serves as a connection between all four faculties, the Coady International Institute, and the Angus L. Macdonald Library. The lecture series runs on a three-year cycle, with a speaker from the Arts/Science/Library in year one, a speaker from Business/Education in year two, and from the Coady International Institute in year three. Members of the Hive for Feminist Research Annual Lecture Series committee include Rita Campbell (Library), Clare Fawcett (Arts), Catherine Irving (Coady), Opal Leung (Business), Rebecca Mesay (Women’s and Gender Studies Student Society), Jennifer Mitton-Kukner (Education), Melanie Warner (Women’s and Gender Studies Student Society), and Charlene Weaving (Science).
This research is, in part, made possible by the Government of Canada Research Support Fund.