Twelve years after visiting Vassar for the first time, Vandana Shiva—renowned feminist, environmentalist, and protector of farmers' rights—returns to give a lecture titled "Making Peace with the Earth: Shifting to Feminist Economics, Politics, and Culture," in the Villard Room on March 6 at 5pm.
Shiva, a Right Livelihood award recipient (also known as the alternative Nobel Peace Prize), is best known for her work on genetically modified food, indigenous rights to seed freedom and sovereignty, and ecofeminism. She developed the movement "Diverse Women for Diversity," which combines women's rights, nature's rights, and the rights of the Third World, revealing the connections between cultural and biological diversity. In 2011, the Guardian (UK) listed her as one of the 100 most influential feminists.
Her lecture explores the grassroots struggle for environmental resource protection, specifically focusing on how it affects women and farmers. Shiva will address how commercialized chemical agriculture and monoculture works against plant and soil biodiversity, increases food insecurity, widens social inequality, and breaks down democracy.
Vassar and Shiva will hold an entire day of activities that are free and open to the public. From 9:30-10:15am, there will be a tour of the Poughkeepsie Farm and Ecological Preserve. In the Vassar College Center Multipurpose Room, there will be a program "Putting Our Heads Together: Community Action Workshop" from 10:30am-12pm. Shiva will hold a roundtable discussion with students from 1:30-2:30pm in the Culinary Institute of America Renaissance Lounge. Finally, there will be an open conversation with Shiva called "Chat and Chaat" in the Multipurpose Room from 3-4:30pm.
Shiva's lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Vassar's Villard Room at 5pm.
