Cleveland State University will present its third “Crossing Over” Symposium to kick off the 2009-2010 Cultural Crossings lecture series, on Friday, October 9 through Sunday, October 11 in Main Classroom, rooms 101-105 and 134, located at 1899 East 22nd Street.

The Symposium will run from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Friday, 9 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 9 a.m.-noon on Sunday, with a guest lecture on Saturday at 5 p.m. The events are free and open to the public.

The conference is an opportunity for interdisciplinary dialogue between scholars from 11 countries in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Scholars from different parts of the United States, Canada, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Israel, Georgia, Italy, India, Spain, and Austria will present papers on the topics of borderlands and confrontations, including: national borders, international borders, educational borders, religious borders, linguistic borders, social class borders, gender borders, political borders, age borders, and identity borders.

The keynote speaker is acclaimed author Judith Ortiz-Cofer, Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, who will present a free lecture on Saturday, October 10 at 5:00 p.m.

Ortiz-Cofer’s works span a range of literary genres, including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young adult novels. Her autobiographical work often focuses on her attempts to negotiate her life between two cultures, American and Puerto Rican, and how this process informs her sensibilities as a writer. Her work also explores racism and sexism in American culture, machismo and female empowerment in Puerto Rican culture, and the challenges immigrants face in a new culture.

The Cultural Crossings lecture series is sponsored by Cleveland State’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. For more information, please contact Dr. Antonio Medina-Rivera, director of Cultural Crossings, at 216.523.7168, or visit www.csuohio.edu/class/crossings.

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