{"id":4824,"date":"2023-03-31T18:00:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=4824"},"modified":"2023-03-31T21:28:25","modified_gmt":"2023-04-01T01:28:25","slug":"feminist-icons-gloria-steinem-and-robin-morgan-headline-hunters-sylvia-plath-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2023\/03\/feminist-icons-gloria-steinem-and-robin-morgan-headline-hunters-sylvia-plath-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"Feminist Icons Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan Headline Hunter’s Sylvia Plath Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feminist icons Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan spoke at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute during the keynote session of Hunter\u2019s \u201cSylvia Plath Symposium,\u201d commemorating the poet\u2019s life and legacy on the 60th anniversary of her death and 90th anniversary of her birth year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The keynote kicked off with a reading of four of Plath\u2019s poems by award-winning actress, Kathleen Chalfant. They included \u201cMorning Song,\u201d \u201cThe Applicant,\u201d \u201cDaddy,\u201d and \u201cMushrooms.\u201d The event was pulled together by Plath biographer and Hunter professor Paul Alexander, and was sponsored by Hunter President Jennifer J. Raab.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
From left, Roosevelt House director Harold Holzer, Gloria Steinem, President Jennifer J. Raab, Robin Morgan, Kathleen Chalfant, and Paul Alexander were all brought together during the “Sylvia Plath Symposium” to celebrate the life and legacy of the acclaimed poet. Photo from President Raab’s Instagram, @hunterpresident.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a remarkable day today,\u201d said Alexander.<\/span><\/p>\n

Steinem and Morgan discussed their history with Plath, as well as how her poetry helped spark the women\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0movement. Both Plath and Steinem attended Smith College in the mid-50s, a time she recalled as being \u201cvery conservative.\u201d She remembered how Plat<\/span>h\u2019s talents as a writer amazed students and faculty alike, describing her as being \u201ca world beyond\u201d everyone else. They acknowledged that for Plath, it must\u2019ve been a struggle to balance her career as a \u201cgenius\u201d writer and domesticity, as she was married to English poet, Ted Hughes, and was the mother of two children.<\/p>\n

Morgan said that when she first read Plath, she felt that the poet was \u201cmaking visible the reality of half the human population.\u201d She noted that Hughes was \u201ccruel\u201d to both Plath and her children, further ailing her mental health. This in part motivated Morgan to write her first book of poems, \u201cMonster,\u201d released in 1972. One of her poems from the collection, \u201cArraignment,\u201d accused Hughes of inducing Plath\u2019s suicide through his <\/span>abuse<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>philandering<\/span><\/a>. According to Morgan, it generated an \u201cunexpected\u201d reaction from women, who got her permission to pirate the book in places it was banned and picketed Hughes\u2019 readings to the point that he couldn\u2019t read anywhere in the Commonwealth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese were women with minds very much of their own,\u201d said Morgan. She said the response she received was \u201cfrightening yet magical.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Morgan credited Plath, specifically her poem, \u201cAriel,\u201d for helping her unde<\/span>rstand her own politics and for allowing women to rage. She recognized that by the time she came to feminism, especially following the release of \u201cMonster,\u201d there was already a women’s movement, whereas for Plath, there wasn\u2019t one for her to grasp onto yet. She followed this by reading an excerpt from one of the last 14 letters<\/a> that Plath wrote to her psychiatrist and friend, Ruth Barnhouse, documenting her turbulent relationship with Hughes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer voice in these letters is still ringing,\u201d said Morgan. \u201cShe was the women\u2019s movement before the women\u2019s movement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Steinem stated that she hopes those in the audience can help introduce Plath to a wider audience and bring her writing into a \u201cpost-patriarchal\u201d society, adding that the poet was far ahead of her time. Morgan further emphasized poetry\u2019s enduring importance to social movements, having the ability to move around \u201call the rhetoric and jargon\u201d and go directly to the heart. When asked about their thoughts on the current state of women\u2019s rights during the Q&A, the two remained hopeful, citing the protests in Iran<\/a> <\/span>as an example.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHope is a form of planning,\u201d said Steinem. \u201cIf you\u2019re not hopeful you\u2019re not making a space so that it can happen.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feminist icons Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan spoke at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute during the keynote session of Hunter\u2019s \u201cSylvia Plath Symposium,\u201d commemorating the poet\u2019s life and legacy on the 60th anniversary of her death and 90th anniversary of her birth year.\u00a0 The keynote kicked off with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,325,1],"tags":[523,524,366,15,13],"class_list":["post-4824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-multimedia","category-news","tag-newyorkcity","tag-poetry","tag-roosevelthouse","tag-cuny","tag-hunter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4824"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4839,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824\/revisions\/4839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}