“Bound for Feminism” Lecture Will Focus on Wonder Woman

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Noah Berlatsky, a critic who has written for the Chicago Reader, the Comics Journal, Reason, and Bright Lights Film Journal, will present a lecture titled “Bound for Feminism” from 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 in Room 212 (the Topping Room) of Old Chapel at Randolph-Macon College. The lecture is free and open to the public.

William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, was obsessed with bondage. In the early Wonder Woman stories, the title character was tied up in every other panel. Yet, at the same time, Marston was a committed feminist who felt that women were superior to men — mostly because women understood submission. In "Bound for Feminism," Berlatsky will discuss Wonder Woman as fetish object, crackpot fever dream and feminist icon.

The lecture is presented in conjunction with the First-Year Experience (FYE) course Wonder Woman and Beyond: Extraordinary Women in Theatre and Comics, taught by Asian Studies Professor Todd Munson, Ph.D. and Communications Studies Professor Marilyn Mattys, M.F.A.

The course focuses on theatre and graphic novels/comics from the perspectives of history, literature and theory, with an emphasis on some of the extraordinary female characters who populate these art forms and the extraordinary women playwrights, artists and authors who have helped create them.

Munson joined the faculty at Randolph-Macon College in 2003. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Massachusetts and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington.

Mattys joined the faculty at Randolph-Macon College in 1990. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the College of Wooster, her master’s degree from Illinois State University and her M.F.A. from The University of Virginia.



For information on R-MC’s Asian Studies department, visit http://www.rmc.edu/academics/asian-studies.aspx  

For information on R-MC’s Drama Department, visit http://www.rmc.edu/academics/drama.aspx  

For information on R-MC’s First-Year Experience program, visit http://www.rmc.edu/why-rmc/FYE.aspx