With the imminent screening of the second series of acclaimed drama The Handmaid’s Tale, Flinders University is co-hosting a lecture on 19 April 2018 discussing the famous novel on which the award winning television production is based.

The talk, ‘Not an instruction manual: dystopian visions and The Handmaid’s Tale’, will be delivered by Professor Christabelle Sethna, an international authority on feminist studies from the University of Ottawa in Canada, who has completed extensive research on sex education, contraception and abortion and authored a number of books on these topics.

Flinders University’s Associate Professor Barbara Baird, an expert in gender studies and member of the University’s Women’s Studies team will chair the event.

The adaption of Margaret Attwood’s 1985 novel – also titled The Handmaid’s Tale – to a television series began in 2016, in response to the likelihood of a first female president for the United States.

The poignant novel describes a fictional world where America has fallen victim to a repressive patriarchal regime, with a plummeting birth rate which has been blamed on its women.

Hailed a landmark feminist work, the book’s themes include the oppression of women by a society run by men, and the dangers of failing to recognise gender based oppression.

The free public lecture is the ‘Ninth South Australian Women’s And Gender Studies Annual Public Lecture’, a collaboration between Flinders University, the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia.

Event details

Where: 6:00pm Thursday, 19 April 2018

When:  Flinders University Victoria Square, Room 1, Level 1

Find out more or register to attend.