Brooke Hauser To Speak On Women, COVID, And  The Meaning Of Work

Source: UMass Department of History

Brooke Hauser, Writer in Residence with the UMass/Five College Graduate Program in History and former editor of the Daily Hampshire Gazette will present a public lecture entitled “What is the Meaning Of Work” on Thursday March 31 at 7:30 p.m. at the Flavin Family Auditorium of the Isenberg School of Management at UMass.  The event will be simulcast over Zoom.  Additional information and registration for the Zoom link can be found here.  The event is free and open to the public.

For many people, the pandemic delivered a wakeup call about work. Your job doesn’t have to define you; if you’re lucky, you define your job. If you’re really lucky, your job is part of a career that feels more like a calling. Hauser’s talk will look at the ever-evolving landscape of work — and the changing mindsets of workers — through a personal lens as well as examples from history, literature, pop culture, and the news. Particular attention will be paid to working women, from the original “girl bosses” of the Baby-Sitters Club to the single women who looked to Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown for career advice, to the droves of women who left the workforce during COVID-19, and the often-invisible labor of mothers. How can women better support each other and other underrepresented groups in and out of the workplace? What role can men play? And how can we be more thoughtful in talking about caregivers and emotional labor? 

A longtime journalist, Brooke Hauser formerly edited the Daily Hampshire Gazette newspaper and is at present an Assistant Arts Editor at the Boston Globe. She has reported and written for the New York Times, Allure, Marie Claire, The New Yorker online, and the Boston Globe Magazine, among other publications. For several years, she covered the film industry as a writer and editor at Premiere. She is also the author of two nonfiction books: Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman and The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens. Originally from Miami, FL, she is a New Englander-in-training. Learn more about Hauser here.

Location Information
Flavin Family Auditorium is located in Room 137 of the Isenberg School of Management on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (121 Presidents Drive, Amherst). Isenberg is located on the Haigis Mall and is a short distance from the Robsham Visitors Center (300 Massachusetts Ave, $1.50/hour) and lot 34 (located on Massachusetts Avenue directly west of the Visitors Center) which is free and open to the public after 5pm. There are several bus stops nearby. More information: bus schedule, campus map with Flavin and nearby parking indicated. Flavin Auditorium is wheelchair accessible.

To request additional accommodations, email the history department’s communications office at: communications@history.umass.edu.

More information: accessible parking, campus accessibility map.

Writer-In-Residence Program
This event is presented by the UMass/Five College Graduate Program in History as part of the 2022 History Writer-In-Residence Program. Supported by Five Colleges, Inc., this programs hosts renowned writers whose historical work engages broad public audiences in residence in the UMass Amherst Department of History.