About The Mercer Cluster. (Macon, Ga.) 1920-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 1992)
► ' Renowned Sociologist Speaks at Mercer Jesse Jackson to Deliver Keynote Address by Hannah Eisenhower D r. Judith Lorber of Manhattan, masters at Columbia, and her Ph.D. NY, lectured on “Believing Is at New York University. Seeing: Biology As Ideology” on Lorber argued that “bodies are Oct. 1 in the Medical School socially constructed.” It is not Auditorium. Lorber, now a biology, she says, but culture that professor of sociology in Brooklyn determines sexuality because once and of women’s studies at the gender is assigned, boys and girls graduate school of the City are treated much differently. University of New York, received Actions are not necessarily caused her BA from Queens College, her by chromosomes, but by society. Blassingame to Speak at Lamar Lecture By Robert Twill ey The 36th annual Lamar Memo rial Lectures will begin Monday, Oct. 19, in the Trustees Dining Room. The lecture this year will feature Dr. John Blassingame, a professor of history from Yale University. Blassingame’s subject is planter testimony of slavery. Lecture topics and times are “Approaches to Planter Narra tives” (Monday, Oct. 19,7:30 p.m.); “Patterns of Revelation and Silence” (Tuesday, Oct. 20, 1 LOO a.m.); and “The Supremacy of Planter Personal Documents” (Tuesday, Oct. 20,7:30 p.m.). As a historian of U.S. slavery, Blassingame broke new ground in his 1972 study, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. He was the first person to consider the direct testimony of slaves, using slave writings and tape recorded observations by ex-slaves in his 1972 study. Originally from Covington, Ga., Blassingame is the first African American to be asked to speak at a Lamar Lecture. Some of his other works include Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies and New Perspectives on Black Studies. The Lamar Memorial Lectures were made possible by the late Eugenia Dorothy Blount Lamar of Jones County, Ga. Blount made provisions in her See Blasingame, page 3 Lorber says that, “Physical differences exist but are socially meaningless” until culture gives them meaning and certain person ality characteristics. The manifesta tion of social order— not physiol ogy or biology— produces sex and gender. Among the books Lorber has written is Paradoxes of Gender. Through research, Lorber has found that both women and men experience mood swings depend ing on the day of the week. Society says a man is just “being a man” while a woman is experiencing pre-menstrual syndrome. Lorber has also published papers on couples’ experiences with in vitro See Lorber, page 3 J esse L. Jackson, founder and president of the National Rainbow Coalition, will be the keynote speaker at Mercer University’s Executive Forum at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 14, in Mercer’s Medical School Auditorium. Jackson, a leading American social and political figure, is known around the world for his work in human rights and economic justice. He has been involved in the anti-apartheid movement and the liberation of Namibia and Angola. His two presidential campaigns broke new ground in U.S. politics. His 1984 campaign won 3.5 million votes and registered more than one million new voters. Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition, a national social justice organization devoted to empowerment, education, and mobilization, in 1986. He is also author of two books titled Keep Hope Alive and Straight from the Heart. Jackson began his activism as a student leader in the sit-in movement, and continued as a young organizer in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as an assistant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He went on to direct Operation Breadbasket and subsequently founded Operation PUSH in Chicago, two organizations aimed at expanding educational and economic opportunities for disadvantaged and minority communities. Bom in Greenville, Jackson now resides in Washington, D.C. He and his wife Jacqueline have five children. ■ Bateson Delivers NEH Lecture By Robert Twilley, News Editor W ednesday, Oct. 7 marked the kickoff of this year’s National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Visiting Scholar Series at Mercer’s College of Liberal Arts. The featured lecturer was Dr. Mary Catherine Bateson. Dr. Bateson teaches at George Mason University, and is the daughter of anthropologist Margaret Mead and philosopher Gregory Bateson. Her book, With a Daughter’s Eye, offers an unique perspective on her famous parents. More recently Bateson wrote Composing a Life, a work that explores the lives of five extraordi nary women (including her own and that of Johnetta Cole, president of Spelman College) in search of a new understanding of what constitutes achievement in contemporary society. Bateson spoke on Oct. 7 and 8 at Newton Chapel, addressing the theme of “Culture, Faith, and Learning.” She spoke about the recognition which underlies empathy and understanding, making use of metaphors to help further humankind’s understanding of the relationships shared on the Earth. Bateson later shifted her focus to recognition as a basis for how people deal with change. She spoke of the need for continuity of See Bateson, page 3 Inside: Around the Nation 2 From the Editor 4 Point/Counterpoint 4 On Campus 6 Features: Racism & Prejudice 8 Entertainment 10 Calendar of Events 11 Comics/Crossword 13 The Sporting Life 14
