Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies faculty have big presence at the National Women’s Studies Association (#NWSA2017) conference

The NWSA held its annual conference in Baltimore, Maryland this year. The conference’s theme was “Forty Years After Combahee: Feminist Scholars and Activists Engage the Movement for Black Lives” and was an inspiring weekend full of panels, round-table discussions, plenaries, meetings, receptions, networking, and socializing. Seven GWSS faculty presented and co-presented papers. GWSS faculty coordinator Julie Shayne organized a panel called “Reflections, Curriculum, and Solidarity: From the Combahee River Collective, to Transnational Feminist Theory, to BLM.” On the panel she presented her paper “Reflections on 30 years in (Gender), Women (and Sexuality) Studies: From Salvadoran Solidarity Activist to GWSS Faculty Coordinator.” Also on the panel, Alka Kurian presented “Dalit women’s disruption in a GWSS classroom,” Karen Rosenberg presented “Teaching about Intimate Partner Violence: Insights from Black and Transnational Feminisms,” and Thea Quiray Tagle presented “From Black (W)holes, a Light.” GWSS faculty presented and co-presented in other sessions as well. Karen Rosenberg and Lauren Lichty co-presented their paper “When the University Fails to Name Relationship Violence: Classrooms as Sites of Intra-institutional Analysis, Individual Agency, and Calls for Change,” Alka Kurian, “‘Cry out Loud!’ Multiracial Organizing and Documentary Cinema,” micha cárdenas “Rituals, Recipes and Algorithms of Trans of Color Poetics,” and remotely Lauren Berliner presented “Mediating the Margins: Queer Girls and the Performance of Identity in Online Videos.” GWSS faculty had a wonderful weekend, including Kari Lerum who attended without presenting, and look forward to next year’s conference in Atlanta where the theme will be: Just Imagine. Imagining Justice: Feminist visions of freedom, dream making and the radical politics of futurism. You can see a few pictures of GWSSers at the conference in their Facebook photoalbum.