This week's Distinguished Writer: Rebecca Brown

Who is Rebecca Brown?

"If Samuel Beckett were a woman in late- 20th century America," one critic has noted, "he might have written stories like Brown's."

Rebecca Brown’s thirteenth book is a collection of eclectic essays in cultural criticism entitled American Romances. Her other works of fiction and nonfiction include The Terrible Girls, The Gifts of the Body, Annie Oakley's Girl, The Last Time I Saw You, The End of Youth, and Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary. Her writing has appeared in anthologies including Queer 13: Lesbian and Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade (edited by Wesleyan Visiting Writer Clifford Chase) and has been translated into Japanese, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Dutch. A frequent collaborator, she has written numerous texts for dance. Woman in Ill Fitting Wig is a book-length collaboration with painter Nancy Kiefer. She has recently co-edited Looking Together, anthology of writers’ responses to work at the Frye Art Museum, which the University of Washington Press will publish in spring 2009.

What: Rebecca Brown - novelist, teacher, activist

When: Wednesday, February 11 at 8pm

Where: Russell House

V-Week Fundraising

Curious where tables selling the delicious vagina-shaped goods of Vagina Week* fundraising will be? Monica Vitti '12 writes in to tell us about the this years operations (which started yesterday):

V-Day volunteers will be selling chocolate vaginas, vagina cupcakes, vagina cookies, and other baked goods. We will also be selling raffle tickets. General raffle tickets are $2 and prizes include:

• a gift certificate to yoga in Middletown
• tequila from forest liquor (with id)
• a bike helmet from pedal power
• a gift certificate for café ology
• a gift certificate for typhoon
• a gift certificate to laser tag
• a gift certificate to la boca
• movie tickets for destina

There is a separate raffle to win dinner with Professor Demetrius Eudell; tickets are $3.

Proceeds will benefit a local shelter. The table will be there during mealtimes (11 am - 2 pm and 5 pm - 8 pm) at Usdan all this week (it started Monday) through Friday the 13th. There will also be people selling things at Olin from 9-11 pm.

I grabbed a piece of baklava yesterday. It was amazing. For those of you who don't know what baklava is, I suggest you support a good cause and find out.

What: Vagina Week baked goods and raffle tickets
Days: Now through Friday
Usdan: 11 AM - 2 PM and 5-8 PM
Olin: 9-11 PM

Also, don't forget to go to the Vagina Monologues later this week.

*If you don't know what Vagina Week is, here is the description from last year.

Open Mic @ WestCo... every Wednesday

Sam Long '12 from WestCo wants to let everyone outside of WestCo know about the weekly open mic's:

We, westco, hold an open mic night every wednesday at 10:30 and would like to publicize this to the entire Wesleyan community.
Here's what you have to know.

When: Wednesdays, 10:30 pm - 12:00 am
Where: Westco Lounge
What to Bring: Feelings to share, Songs to Sing, Poetry to Read, and anything that sounds good on a mic.

ADP Coffee House tomorrow

Come to the Alpha Delta Phi living room this Tuesday, February 10th (from 8 PM - 9 PM) to enjoy the sound of live music, the taste of delicious coffee, and the company of fine cookies!

There will be live music performances by members of the Wesleyan campus, and the cost of admission is free! Coffee, tea, and snacks will be provided.

When: Tuesday, Feb. 10th from 8pm - 9pm
Where: Alpha Delt living room

Sponsored by the Adelphic Educational Fund.

Broad Street Books Event: Professor Kauanui Reads From "Hawaiian Blood"

Anthropology and American Studies Professor J. Kehaulani Kauanui will read from her book Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity.

Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity is a detailed scholarly account of how blood quantum politics has emerged as a colonial policy of the US government, a history of the contemporary legal definition of what it means to be “native Hawaiian” and how Kanaka Maoli (the Hawaiian people) contest that term, which is incommensurable with indigenous genealogical modes of reckoning identity and degrades Hawaiian sovereignty claims to land and nationhood.

Where: Broad Street Books
When: Tuesday, February 10th at 5:00 PM