Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage in Pennsylvania

Please make note of an important upcoming GWS event! On Wednesday, March 12th at 4:30 p.m. in Driscoll Auditorium, GWS will host a panel discussion on same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania.

Since the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in June 2013, many gay couples have been challenging analogous state laws, claiming that they too are unconstitutional. This panel will explore same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania through a variety of perspectives, including John Culhane, Associate Director of Pastoral Care Education, Campus Ministry; as well as several local Philadelphians who have a stake in same-sex marriage laws in the Commonwealth: Isabella Barker, a litigant who filed a law suit against Pennsylvania; Jessica Streeter, visiting professor of Sociology at Villanova; and, Ken Oakes, a disability rights activist member of the vestry at Christ Church.

 The panel co-sponsored by GSC (Villanova's Gay Straight Coalition).

Welcome Back Lunch and Faculty Talk

GWS invites you to help us kick off the new spring semester with a "Welcome Back" lunch and faculty talk. The event will be held on Wednesday, January 29th at 12:00 p.m. in the Radnor St. David's Room. Travis Foster will be giving his presentation, "Darwin, Jewett, Freud, and the Ecology of Queer Life."

Travis Foster is Assistant Professor of English at Villanova University, where he specializes in pre-1900 American Literature. He is finishing a manuscript on literary culture and affective belonging in the wake of the Civil War, a piece of which is forthcoming in American Literary History. His articles have also appeared in American Literature, ESQ, and the Edith Wharton Review, and his chapter on nineteenth-century queer texts is forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to Gay and Lesbian American Literature.

His talk for GWS comes from a new project on literature, botany, and the conceptualization of sexuality before sexology.