News

Students from Portland State University contributed to a new curriculum guide released this January from Portland State's student-run Ooligan Press. The book, Speaking Out: Women, War and the Global Economy will be showcased at a multimedia event at Portland State January 27, 2006.

Speaking Out: Women, War, and the Global Economy is a curriculum guide that builds on Sierra Leonean women's accounts of that country's civil war. The book introduces a series of questions concerning links between gender and war and provides tools for addressing those questions at differing levels of education. Speaking Out was published by PSU's student-run Ooligan Press and is a collaboration of PSU Psychology professor Jan Haaken, PSU Psychology students and local Sierra Leonean women.

A copy of Diamonds, Guns and Rice, a related documentary co-produced by Professor Haaken, accompanies the book. Using the Sierra Leonean civil war as a case study, the video documentary, like the curriculum guide, brings into focus key forces operating behind the front lines of war zones-forces that continue to fuel armed conflict in regions throughout Africa, and other unstable areas of the world.

The book and DVD will be showcased at a multimedia event Friday, January 27, 2006, in the PSU Multicultural Center, Smith Memorial Student Union, Second Floor, Room 228 (1825 S.W. Broadway). Showings of the documentary will take place at 1:00, 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. Screenings of the documentary will be followed by a catered reception and discussion panel led Jan Haaken, as well as Emma Fofanah and Karifa Koroma, two local Sierra Leonean activists who served as consultants on both projects. Fofanah and Koroma will discuss their stories of coming to the United States, their experiences in the Sierra Leonean civil war and present perspectives on causes underlying the Sierra Leonean civil war and the peace process. For more information please contact Jonah Loeb at 503-810-3085 or jonah@pdx.edu

Jan Haaken is professor of psychology at Portland State University, a clinical and cultural psychologist, and a documentary filmmaker. She is author of Pillar of Salt: Gender, Memory and the Perils of Looking Back, and co-author of Scarves of Many Colors: Muslim Women and the Veil, a curriculum guide.

Ooligan Press
Run by students enrolled in the publishing concentration of the master's program in Writing, Ooligan Press is unique as a teaching press fully integrated in the academic curriculum. Students acquire, edit, design, and market real books that enjoy national distribution. For a complete list of current and forthcoming books from Ooligan Press, visit http://www.publishing.pdx.edu/ooligan/catalog.html.

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For Immediate Release (#06-010)

Source: Jonah Loeb, (503-810-3085)
Ooligan Press, Portland State University