Event Shines Light on Global Female Empowerment and Human Trafficking April 9-12

The University of Oklahoma’s world-renowned publication, World Literature Today, will host the "Puterbaugh Festival of International Literature & Culture" April 9-12, 2013. The Puterbaugh Festival is part of a forty-year tradition through which World Literature Today brings world-class writers (often future Nobel Prize winners) to the OU campus.

This year’s festival will highlight the utility of art in empowering women and promoting social justice.  The event will feature two keynote addresses, a photography exhibition at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, roundtable discussions, two student workshops, and a media slam.

On Wednesday, April 10 from 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM, there will be a panel discussing Human Trafficking in the Meacham Auditorium at the Oklahoma Memorial Union. The panel includes a survivor of domestic trafficking and several student activists, including a representative from the OU College of Law student organization, Law Students Against Trafficking.

Immediately following the panel discussion, the festival will screen Academy Award nominated director Richard Robbins’ Girl Rising, a powerful, multinational narrative about female empowerment.  Ethiopian writer and Puterbaugh Festival Fellow Maaza Mengiste is one of ten contributing writers to the film. She tells the story of Azmera, a thirteen-year-old Ethiopian girl who refuses an early marriage.  Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, and Liam Neeson each provide narration. 

For more information on the Puterbaugh Festival, please visit: http://puterbaughfestival.org/.