Violence against women may currently preoccupy America's attention, due to the O.J. Simpson trial, but female artists have used the theme in their work for decades.
That's the contention of a University of Maryland Baltimore County professor who has organized a three-day colloquium at the Catonsville campus to explore such works.
"I hope we won't mention too much about it [the trial] during our discussions," says Renate Fischetti, a professor of German in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. She began planning the event before last June's murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Ms. Fischetti suggests that violence "is an assumption of the general social climate in which we live," and that violence against women has particularly absorbed feminist artists.
"Women Artists and the War on Violence: A Cross Cultural Perspective" begins at 8 p.m. today, in Fine Arts Room 306, with screenings of videos of California-based performance artist Suzanne Lacy. Much of her work springs from the prevalence of domestic violence, such as a display titled "Underground," which includes battered cars bedecked with statistics about violence against women.
At 7 p.m. tomorrow, in the same location, there will be a screening of "Liberators Take Liberties," by German filmmaker Helke Sander. In the three-hour film, now-elderly women recount the wave of rapes committed by occupying soldiers after the defeat of Germany in World War II.
And on Saturday, workshops on "Gender and Violence" will take place in Lecture Hall V of the Engineering and Computer Science Building. Ms. Lacy and Ms. Sander will be panelists in the 10 a.m. discussion.
Other guests in sessions through the afternoon include: art historian Arlene Raven; UMBC professor Angela Moorjani; German critic/author Gesine Strempel; George Mason University professor/author Paul Ruth Gilbert; George Mason professor Lorna Marie Irvine; Charlotte Bunch, director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University; Asha A. Samad, director of women's studies at City College of New York; and Afaf Mahfouz, a legal scholar, psychoanalyst and consultant in international women's rights issues.
Ms. Fischetti says she got the idea for the event after attending a New York screening of Ms. Sander's film.
'WAR ON VIOLENCE'
What: "Women Artists and the War on Violence: A Cross Cultural Perspective"
When: Today through Saturday
Where University of Maryland Baltimore County
Cost: Free
Call: (410) 455-2003