FARMINGTON – A Farmington professor will speak about her experience at the Women in Black International Conference held in August in Jerusalem at University of Maine at Farmington Tuesday.

Lee Sharkey, assistant professor of English and women’s studies at the university, will offer a presentation on the conference that drew 750 women peace activists from 44 countries to discuss issues they confront, propose strategies of resistance and strengthen international feminist alliances.

Her presentation will include journal entry readings, audio recordings, photos and poems.

The Jerusalem conference focused on the work Palestinian and Israeli women and allies in other countries are doing to end the occupation of the West Bank and bring about a just settlement of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It also demonstrated that coalition work is rarely without tension.

During a visit to the West Bank, during which international visitors were guests of the General Union of Palestinian Women, they participated in a nonviolent confrontation with Israeli Defense Forces in the village of Bil’in. There Sharkey experienced those tensions herself.

“Our Palestinian hosts’ vision of the purpose of the day turned out to be quite different from our own,” she wrote in a release about the upcoming event.

With this presentation, Sharkey hopes to convey the power of Women in Black’s vision of a transformed world and the complex work it will take to realize that vision.

The talk is sponsored by the UMF Women’s Studies Program, Farmington Women in Black and the Western Mountains Peace Action Workshop.