Sunday, May 22 | 2:00 p.m. | Kinoteka 1
What Can We Learn From the History of Second-wave Feminism?
Meeting after the screening of TOWN BLOODY HALL, dir. Donn Alan Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus
On the evening of April 30, 1971, a standing room only audience of local literati and feminists packed New York City’s Town Hall to watch Norman Mailer, who had just written “The Prisoner of Sex”, grapple with a panel of passionate feminists. To test him was a fearsome panel of feminist representatives, among them journalist and lesbian spokeswoman Jill Johnston, legendary literary critic Diana Trilling, president of The National Organization of Women – Jacqueline Ceballos, and possibly his toughest match – the glamorous and razor-tongued author of “The Female Eunuch”, Germaine Greer. Among the audience was also Susan Sontag, who took to the floor on several occasions. What can we learn about the fight for women's rights from the film's protagonists? What kind of debate do we need these days? Dr hab. Agnieszka Graff will address these questions and explain the context of “Town Bloody Hall”. The meeting and the screening of the film, providing the context for Susan Sontag’s work, close the program of the American essayist’s retrospective.
dr hab. Agnieszka Graff – professor at the American Studies Center of the University of Warsaw. Her research interests include gender studies and feminist history. She is a feminist columnist and writer, the author of: “Matka feministka” (2014), “Świat bez kobiet. Płeć w polskim życiu publicznym” (2001), “Kto się boi gender? Prawica, populizm i feministyczne strategie oporu” (2022). A member of the Programme Council of The Congress of Women Association.
