FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
On Tuesday, October 14th, nationally recognized marriage expert, Prof. Stephanie Coontz will be a guest speaker at a public forum entitled “What is a ‘Real’ Marriage? And Who Gets to Decide?” at 7:00 pm in the Theater Building, Olympic College Bremerton campus. The forum is free and sponsored by the Kitsap County Council for Human Rights and Olympic College Multicultural Services.
Professor Coontz will explore the surprising variations in how marriage has been defined at different points in history and demonstrate how the purpose and functions of marriage have changed over time, gradually stimulating new groups to demand the right to marry. We sometimes think that marriage has only recently become a political issue, but in fact, she’ll show, marriage was a politicized institution from the beginning. There have always been sharp conflicts over who should be allowed to marry and how marriage should be defined. From the so-called “love” story of Anthony and Cleopatra, to the fights between church and state in the Middle Ages, to the 20th-century battles over interracial and same-sex marriage, societies have fought over which social institutions or individuals should have the right to decide whether a marriage is valid.
About Stephanie Coontz
Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001-04. She is the author of Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage , (Viking Press, 2005), The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (1992 and 2000, Basic Books), The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families (Basic Books, 1997), and The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families . She also edited American Families: A Multicultural Reader (Routledge, 1999). Her work has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Norwegian, and Japanese.
Coontz has testified about her research before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families in Washington, DC, and addressed audiences across America, Japan and Europe. She has appeared on the Today Show, Oprah Winfrey, Crossfire, NPR, CNN’s Talk Back Live, CBS This Morning, Leeza, and MSNBC with Brian Williams, as well as in several prime-time television documentaries, including ones hosted by Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Observer/Guardian, The Times of London, Wall Street Journal, Salon, Washington Post, Newsweek, Harper’s, Vogue, LIFE, Time-LIFE Books, and Mirabella, as well as in such academic and professional journals as Family Therapy Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, National Forum, and Journal of Marriage and Family.
A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Coontz has also taught at Kobe University in Japan and the University of Hawaii at Hilo. In 2004, she received the Council on Contemporary Families first-ever “Visionary Leadership” Award. In 1995 she received the Dale Richmond Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for her “outstanding contributions to the field of child development.” She also received the 2001-02 “Friend of the Family” award from the Illinois Council on Family Relations. She serves as a marriage consultant to The Ladies Home Journal.
Copies of recent articles and other activities are available at www.stephaniecoontz.com
