The documentary “Ohero:kon - Under the Husk: A Native American Rite of Passage,” which was shown on Nov. 28 by the Office of Community and Belonging and the Zowie Banteah Cultural Center, follows two young Mohawk girls, Kaienkwinehtha and Kasennakohe, as they complete their traditional passage rites ceremony and become Mohawk women. The pair live “in the Mohawk Community of Akwesasne,” which is located on what came to be known the U.S. and Canada border. The ceremony takes place over the course of four years and, as the film distributor Vision Maker Media said, “Challenges [the girls] spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. It shapes the women they become.”
Mount Holyoke hosts film screening of local activists' documentary
On Monday, Nov. 7, 2022, the Weissman Center for Leadership hosted a screening and discussion of the documentary “Stop Time.” The film shares the story of Lucio Pérez, a migrant who faced deportation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and took sanctuary in First Congregational Church in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Global sustainability conference comes to Mount Holyoke
This year, Mount Holyoke College’s Miller Worley Center for the Environment is a host institution for the Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education. The conference, which is hosted virtually, has over 4,700 attendees from 353 institutions across 23 countries. The event is hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, which works to “[empower] higher education faculty, administrators, staff and students to be … drivers of sustainability innovation,” according to its website.
Russian Club hosts lecture on Russian and Ukranian art
On Thursday, Oct. 20, the Mount Holyoke College Russian Club hosted a talk entitled “The Black Square Goes Where?: (Re)locating Ukrainian Artists in the Russo-Soviet Avant-Garde.” The lecturer, Professor Daniel Brooks, is a visiting lecturer in Russian and Eurasian Studies at Mount Holyoke, and a Russian language and literature expert. His talk discussed Russian and Ukrainian art throughout history, grounding art in location, historical context, culture and language.
Court case in China revitalizes conversations around #MeToo movement
On Oct. 1, 2022, a settlement was announced in a sexual assault case that The New York Times called “a landmark episode in China’s struggling #MeToo movement.” The case followed a former college student at the University of Minnesota, Liu Jingyao, who accused Richard Liu — a billionaire entrepreneur — of sexually assaulting her in 2018.