OCTOBER 2, 2012 4 to 7 PM Talk with Lionel Delevingne and Anna Gyorgy , Reception.
W.E.B Du Bois Library Lower Level
University of Massachusetts Amherst MA. 01003
Call Kirstin Kay at 413 545 6843
Gyorgy ~ Tuesday, October 2, 2012, 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
“To the village square we must carry the facts of atomic energy. From there must come America’s voice.”
– Albert Einstein, June 23, 1946
Amherst, Massachusetts – The UMass Amherst Libraries will host a talk by Lionel Delevingne and Anna Gyorgy
in association with the exhibit by photojournalist Delevingne, “To the Village Square: an Experiment in American Democracy,” on October 2, 2012, from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., on the Lower Level of Du Bois Library at UMass Amherst. The event marks the eighth annual Social Change Colloquium and celebrates the acquisition by Special Collections and University Archives of Delevingne’s photographic works and Gyorgy’s Papers. Refreshments will be served and the public is invited to join in on the discussion.
Delevingne will discuss the mass media’s role in the nuclear power issue and his own responsibility before and after
the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster. Anna Gyorgy will discuss citizen action and democracy, with international examples based on her work with the Clamshell Alliance, and, more recently, with the strong German anti- nuclear/pro-solar movements.
New England was an epicenter of the antinuclear movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Sparked by the proposed construction of nuclear power plants in Montague, Massachusetts, and Seabrook, New Hampshire, a grass-roots movement blossomed in the region, drawing on a long tradition of non-violent political protest. Shortly after arriving in the United States from his native France in 1975, the photojournalist Lionel Delevingne began covering the antinuclear movement, including the history of civil disobedience and occupation at Seabrook, the aftermath of the Three Mile Island disaster, and other protests from New York to South Carolina and Europe.
Delevingne is the co-author of Drylands, a Rural American Saga (University of Nebraska Press, 2011); Northampton: Reflections on Paradise (Nouveau Monde Press, 1988); and Franco-American Viewpoints (Nouveau Monde Press/ Wistariahurst Museum, 1988). His work has been exhibited frequently in the U.S. and abroad and published widely
in the mainstream and alternative press, including the New York Times, Newsweek, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, Le Figaro Magazine, and Die Zeit. Delevingne has participated in many award-winning projects sponsored by National Endowment of the Arts/Humanities (NEA), Massachusetts Endowment for the Humanities, University & College Designers Association (UCDA), University Professional & Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), and Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
Anna Gyorgy was active in the early movement against nuclear power, and is the author-editor of the classic work NO NUKES: Everyone’s Guide to Nuclear Power (South End Press, 1979/1981). She is in the process of returning to the U.S. after 25 years abroad, where she has since 1999 coordinated the multi-lingual website project: “Women and Life on Earth” (www.wloe.org).
The related exhibit “To the Village Square” includes some of the movement’s most memorable images, shot by Delevingne, along with materials drawn from the rich anti-nuclear collections held in the UMass Amherst Libraries’ Department of Special Collections and University Archives. For more information and photographs, contact Kirstin Kay (413-545-6843, kay@library.umass.edu).
