PULLMAN, Wash. Narrative relationships between storytellers, subjects and hearers will be explored during a free, public panel discussion at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16, in Todd 130 at Washington State University. Hosted by WSU Common Reading, the discussion will spring from this year’s book used by first-year classes, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” “Why does it matter that a privileged white woman wrote (the book about an African-American woman and her family?)” asks John Streamas, panel organizer and associate professor of critical culture, gender and race studies. “In an ideal world, it would not matter. But for most of American history, the stories of women, people of color and the poor have been told by privileged whites.
“This panel will examine the dangers of those unequal narrative relations – dangers that persist even today” in media, politics, higher education and culture, he said.
Panelists will include faculty T.V. Reed (moderator), Streamas and David Warner and WSU undergraduate Natali Magaña. Reed, the Lewis E. and Stella G. Buchanan Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies, teaches classes on cultural theory, contemporary American fiction, social movements and popular culture. Streamas writes and teaches literature, cultural theory and social justice and is researching the politics of time and space.
Warner is an instructor in critical culture, gender and race studies, where he teaches comparative ethnic studies, Native American studies and indigenous film. Magaña is a first-generation college student studying Spanish with the goal of going into immigration law.
The panel is part of the year-long Common Reading Tuesdays lecture series featuring faculty and guest experts who share information on topics raised in the book. This year’s book, by Rebecca Skloot, focuses on the first “immortal cell line” known as HeLa. The line has been used worldwide for research into cancer, AIDs, the effects of radiation and toxins, gene mapping and more.
Published in 2010, the book also covers the lives of Lacks’ five children. It is credited with raising issues about racism, scientific ethics, poverty and cancer, among others.
The lecture series will continue with a presentation at 3 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29, in the CUB junior ballroom by Stanley Gartler, emeritus professor of medicine and genome studies at the University of Washington. His groundbreaking research with HeLa cells is one of the many topics covered in Skloot’s book.
Common reading is a program of the University College at WSU. For more information and upcoming events and speakers, visit http://CommonReading.wsu.edu.
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