Creativity is a method that can be used to deal with life's struggles, and women have had their fair share. The "Women and Creativity" conference seeks to combine the two by showcasing a play Friday by a woman who used creativity to illustrate her experience as a sexual assault victim.
The play is one of many events scheduled for the conference, which will be held today through Saturday, said Diane Hoeveler, coordinator of the Women's Studies Program.
"It's a good opportunity for students to hear other professors, academics and poets from all around the country and from other countries speak," she said. "It's a culturally enriching experience."
Hoeveler said the conference is co-sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences, Women's Studies program, Brico Fund, Association of Marquette University Women, Marquette Graduate School, the English department and Women's Leadership Conference.
There are panels running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, including the poetry and fiction reading held today from 3:15 to 5 p.m. in John P. Raynor, S.J. Library Conference Room B, she said.
"We have wonderful academic panels on any discipline you can think of on the arts," said Amy Branam, College of Arts & Sciences graduate student.
The panels on short fiction and poetry are events that are not "academic presentations," Branam said.
Branam has been involved with organizing the conference for the past four years and will moderate a panel discussion.
"I want to emphasize that the conference is not meant to detract from men," she said. "It's a celebration of women in addition to men, rather than at the expense of men."
For a complete list of panels scheduled for the conference, visit marquette.edu/wstudies to download the schedule of events.
Judith Wilt, the 2004-'05 AMUW Chair in Humanistic Studies, will speak at The Eleanor Boeheim Lecture at 7 p.m. giving the conference's keynote address, Hoeveler said.
The event, titled "Hunger, Anger, Gender: Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway," will be held in Raynor Conference Room B, she said.
A reception will follow the lecture, she said.
"How I Learned to Drive," a play by Paula Vogel, will play at 7 p.m. Friday in Lalumiere Hall 175, said Erin Kogler, the event's planner and a graduate student in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Naomi LaGrow, a student at Wisconsin Lutheran College, is directing the play, Kogler said.
The play is about "a young woman's coming of age," she said.
"She's from a dysfunctional family and turns to her uncle, who ends up sexually abusing her," Kogler said. "It discusses their relationship and how it changes and is damaged."
The playwright demonstrates the theme of the conference.
"Vogel used writing as a creative outlet to discuss her experience," Kogler said.
The play will be read behind music, which gives actors a chance to analyze the script and "talk about what it's all about."
This is the 11th conference the Women's Studies Program has held as part of Women's History Month, she said, and the seventh time the conference has focused on women and creativity.
"The conference is free for Marquette students and faculty," Hoeveler said. "Students can stop in and attend sessions as they like."
All of the events, with the exception of the play, will be held in the Raynor Conference Center, located on the lower level of the Raynor Library, she said.
Of the conference in general, Kogler encourages students to come because it "discusses women and how creativity plays a role."
"It celebrates women, and I think it's important to recognize women," Branam said. "It's a way for students to see what their professors do other than teach in the classroom. The other half of their job is to do research and contribute that research to a scholarly community. Plus, it's fun."
This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Mar. 10 2005.