Iowa State University


Inside Iowa State
Aug. 29, 1997

Harry Wu, Anita Hill to speak on campus this year

by Anne Dolan

Chinese activist Harry Wu, attorney and author Anita Hill and University of Iowa professor Deirdre McCloskey, formerly Donald McCloskey, will speak on campus this year as part of the Lectures Program series.

Wu will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, in the Memorial Union Sun Room on labor camps in China and Tibet. Wu spent 19 years in forced labor camps around China (1960-1979). In 1995, he was arrested trying to legally enter China and convicted of "stealing state secrets." In response to an international campaign for his release, he was expelled from China.

The next evening, Sept. 10, Alasebu Gebre-Selassi will give a talk on female genital mutilation, a common practice in some African cultures. She is the founding director of International Sustainable Social and Economic Responses Inc., Stamford City, Conn., and a former consultant to the Women in Development Department of UNICEF.

McCloskey will give a noon talk Friday, Oct. 10, as part of Women's Week activities. She underwent a sex-change operation in June 1996 and returned to Iowa for spring semester 1997. Her talk is titled "Thoughts of a Novice Woman."

Also speaking during Women's Week are Ruth Mandel, the 1997- 98 Mary Louise Smith Visiting Scholar in the Catt Center, and author Rebecca Walker (daughter of writer Alice Walker), who will look at contradictions affecting feminists today.

Hill will give the Strong Minded Women Awards Lecture April 6, 1998. She will speak on sexual harassment and social change.

Also in September is a three-hour workshop by former Iowan Jane Elliott, who has become known nationally for her efforts to battle prejudice, ignorance and racism. In the workshop, she divides participants into two groups based on eye color. Those with brown eyes are declared to be better and more intelligent and receive more privileges. The workshop begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18, in the Memorial Union Sun Room.

Don Smith, 1967 Government of the Student Body president who went on to become a national expert on wind-powered energy, will give two talks on Thursday, Oct. 2. At noon he will speak on "Lessons Learned from the Sixties" and at 8 p.m. he will talk about alternative energy resources.

This year's Institute on World Affairs will be Nov. 3-6, and the Institute on National Affairs will be Feb. 2-5, 1998.

Lectures Program events are listed online in the calendar, accessible from the ISU Web homepage.

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Revised 8/29/97