IU Northwest Selects ‘Women and Power’ for This Year’s Campus-Wide Reading Initiative

IU Northwest Selects ‘Women and Power’ for This Year’s Campus-Wide Reading Initiative

Indiana University Northwest’s One Book…One Campus…One Community reading initiative has announced its selection for the 2018-19 academic year, “Women & Power: A Manifesto,” by Mary Beard.

Throughout the academic year, the book’s themes will be integrated into classroom curricula, and explored on campus and in the community through discussions, film screenings, and other public events.

About the book
Selected in part due to its relevance to recent news about the devastating results—for women and men—of imbalanced power structures, particularly in the workplace, “Women & Power” “traces the origins of misogyny to its ancient roots, examining the pitfalls of gender and the ways that history has mistreated strong women since time immemorial.”

“As far back as Homer’s Odyssey,” Beard shows, “women have been prohibited from leadership roles in civic life, public speech being defined as inherently male. From Medusa to Philomela (whose tongue was cut out), from Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren (who was told to sit down), Beard draws illuminating parallels between our cultural assumptions about women’s relationship to power―and how powerful women provide a necessary example for all women who must resist being vacuumed into a male template.

“With personal reflections on her own online experiences with sexism, Beard asks: If women aren’t perceived to be within the structure of power, isn’t it power itself we need to redefine? And how many more centuries should we be expected to wait?”

About the reading initiative
The One Book … One Campus … One Community reading program is intended to build an intellectual and social rapport among students, staff, faculty, and community members. Through the collective experience of reading, thinking about, and discussing challenging ideas and themes about important social issues – especially those surrounding issues of diversity – campus perspectives are enriched.

Inspired by a similar program hosted on the IU Northwest campus from 2006 until 2010, the One Book...One Campus...One Community initiative has introduced a different book each year since January 2013.

Get Involved
The community is invited to join in the reading program by participating in public events. For more details and event updates, visit iun.edu/onebook.

“Women & Power” is available for purchase at the IU Northwest Book Store, as well as through Amazon.com.

About Indiana University Northwest
One of eight campuses of Indiana University, IU Northwest is located in metropolitan Northwest Indiana, approximately 30 miles southeast of Chicago and 10 miles from the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The campus has a diverse student population of approximately 4,000 degree-seeking students and 1,500 dual-credit students. The campus offers Associate, Baccalaureate and Master’s degrees in a variety of undergraduate, graduate and pre-professional degree options available from the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Health and Human Services, the School of Business and Economics, the School of the Arts, and the School of Education. The campus is also host to IU School of Medicine-Northwest-Gary, which actively involves students in research and local healthcare needs through its four-year medical doctorate program. IU Northwest emphasizes high-quality teaching, faculty and student research and engagement on campus and in the community. As a student-centered campus, IU Northwest is committed to academic excellence characterized by a love of ideas and achievement in learning, discovery, creativity and engagement. Indiana University Northwest is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to achieving excellence through diversity. The University actively encourages applications from women, minorities, veterans, persons with disabilities, and members of other underrepresented groups.