Eve Ensler, bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues and one of Newsweek's "150 Women Who Changed the World," has penned a new book, a visionary manuscript of separation and connection — to the body, the self, and the world. Ensler will be speaking on the journey that led to the writing of this self-exploratory memoir, entitled In the Body of the World, which addresses cancer, the brutal conditions of women in the Congo, and her own coming to terms with her body.

Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body — how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body — a disconnection brought on by her father's sexual abuse and her mother's remoteness. "Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth," she writes, "I could not feel or know their pain.",

But Ensler is shocked out of her distance. While working in the Congo, she is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of harrowing treatment, she is forced to become first and foremost a body — pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all distance is erased. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the Earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fully — and gratefully — joined to the body of the world.

In her talk and her work, Ensler is unflinching, generous, and inspiring: she calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world.

This lecture is hosted by the Office of the President at CSU, Chico as part of the annual President's Lecture Series.

Sponsors of this event include Chico State's STOP and GSEC student organizations.

Founded in 2008, STOP! (Stop Trafficking of Persons) is a student-led organization committed to raising awareness of global human trafficking and modern-day slavery. STOP! has partnered with campus, community and regional organizations to work toward those ends in the North State. STOP! sponsors a Human Trafficking Awareness Week every Spring on the Chico State campus.

The AS Gender and Sexuality Equity Center [GSEC] is a student run activist organization which strives to empower all students through its two programs: the Women's Program and the LGBTQ+ Program. The GSEC challenges societal norms that have been used to oppress and marginalize by hosting awareness-raising events and offering internships that provide opportunities for leadership and personal development.