The Rock Island Public Library and Augustana College are pleased to present the 26th annual Frieze Lectures on Feminism: From Basics to Barbie. This program partnership between the Rock Island Public Library and the faculty of Augustana College, will include four free presentations designed to create greater insight on topics centered around feminism.  All of the programs involve faculty or students affiliated with Augustana’s Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program.

 All presentations begin at 2:00 p.m. at the downtown location of the Rock Island Public Library, 401 19th Street. All are open to the public, free of charge. Lectures are as follows: 

• October 19: Intersectionality Explained: Why Feminism is About More than Gender Equality, presented by Dr. Jennifer Heacock-Renaud, coordinator of the WGSS program at Augustana College.
• October 26: Inaccessible Dreamhouses: Disability as a Feminist Issue, presented by Dr. Cathy Webb, assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders
• November 2: Beyond the View from Barbie’s Beach House: Reconsidering the Waves of Feminism, presented by Dr. Jane Simonsen, professor of history and Richard A. Swanson Chair in Social Thought.
• November 9: Barbie as a Feminist Icon? A Discussion of Greta Gerwig’s 2023 Blockbuster, a panel discussion led by Dr. Jennifer Heacock-Renaud and including WGSS students.

The Frieze Lecture Series was created by the late Ruth Evelyn Katz, a library board member, to celebrate the library's 125th anniversary in 1998. 2023 marks the completion of the library's 150th anniversary year. The Rock Island Public Library first opened to the public  on November 25, 1872, and is widely recognized as the first to actually open after the passing of the Local Library Act of 1872, which made tax-supported municipal libraries possible. The Downtown Library is also observing an anniversary in 2023, as it opened to the public on December 15, 1872. 

The name of the Lecture Series comes from the architectural feature, known as a frieze, around the top of the historic downtown library building. The authors carved into the sandstone are Homer, Longfellow, Emerson, Virgil, Hugo, Shakespeare, Goethe, Burns, Hawthorne, Tegner, and Bancroft. Though not well known today, the names of Tegner, a Swedish poet, and Bancroft, a naval historian, would have been familiar to 1903 residents.

For additional information, please visit the Rock Island Public Library website, or call 309-732-READ.