November 13, 2003

Boise State Conference Looks At Media And Pop Culture

Boise State University is presenting a pop culture symposium featuring research and presentations by students, faculty, staff and community members. “Point of View: Mass Media and Pop Culture” is the theme of this unique four-day conference scheduled for Dec. 1-4. A full schedule with times will be available online at http://union.boisestate.edu/pointofview later this month. All events are free and will occur in the Special Events Center. Call 426-3049 for more information. The following keynote speakers will be featured: 7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 2, Elena Featherstone: “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?: Sex, Lies & Sterotypes” A political visionary, Featherstone has lectured on social theory throughout the United States and Europe since 1982. Sexism, racism, reproductive rights, women’s spirituality, multicultural democracy, heterosexism, women’s rights, gender violence and multicultural alliance-building are some of the varied issues she addresses. An outspoken proponent for human rights, Featherstone has coordinated the “Children Having Children” conference with the National Council of Negro Women to address the fundamentals of teen pregnancy, devised diversity training materials for battered women’s shelters and taught journal writing techniques as a form of narrative healing. Featherstone’s writings have appeared in numerous magazines and journals and her book Skin Deep: Women Writing on Color, Culture & Identity was published by The Crossing Press in 1994. She is the producer/director of the award-winning documentary “Alice Walker: Visions of the Spirit.” Featherstone is currently working on a children’s book on ethnicity and color titled This is Me; a documentary film that explores interracial relationships, “Under Our Skins”; and a book that fuses art, politics and spirituality, Weaving Change: A Guide to Personal and Political Transformation. 7 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 4, Dr. Napoleon Chagnon: “Media Mis-Representation” Chagnon is a sociobiology professor and is recognized primarily for his studies on tribal warfare of the Yanomamo tribes in the Amazon Basin. He began studying the Yanomamo people in 1964 and continued to do so until 1988. In 1988 a gold rush in the Yanomamo area brought many people into contact with the Yanomamo tribes, leading to new and deadly diseases. Chagnon established the Yanomamo Survival Fund to provide new health care for the Yanomamo people. Journalist Patrick Tierney, in his book Darkness in El Dorado, alleged that Chagnon, arguably the most well-know living anthropologist and author of Yanomamo: The Fierce People, used a dangerous vaccine with the intention of exacerbating a measles epidemic among the Yanomamo people in 1968. These charges were distributed throughout the world by the media before being discredited. The original broadcast of the allegations and the recent translation and publication of Darkness in El Dorado into Spanish has had negative implications for immunization campaigns among indigenous peoples in South America and around the world. Currently, the members of the American Anthropological Association are considering a referendum to repudiate this story in order to discourage its spread, asking that the Committee on Ethics deliberate on the ethical issues raised by the dissemination of these sorts of stories. Chagnon is currently working in more remote villages that he discovered between 1990 and 1992. -30- Contact Autumn Haynes Student Activities 208 426-1223 Media Contacts Kathleen Craven communications and marketing 208 426-3275 Angela Jones communications and marketing 208 426-3196