Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies (GWSS) faculty present at the annual National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Conference.

This year five GWSS faculty attended the annual National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) conference. GWSS co-coordinator Dr. Julie Shayne organized a session titled “Who Asks? Who Writes? Who Trains? Parsing the Complexities of Showcasing Historically Silenced Narratives.” Dr. Ching-In Chen and Dr. Neil Simpkins presented a paper titled “Organizing a Writing and Dreaming Space for Trans Writers,” and Dr. Shayne’s paper was titled “Your Stories Exist, We Just Need to Find Them: Teaching Students to Build Digital Feminist Archive Exhibits.”

Shayne’s was based on the feminist archive exhibits created by the students in her “Histories and Movements of Gender and Sexuality” (BISGWS 302) class, offered again in winter. The panel also included colleagues from the University of Massachusetts Boston and Wellesley College and was moderated by GWSS co-coordinator Dr. Alka Kurian. Dr. Alice Pedersen and Dr. Alka Kurian also presented papers on two separate panels. Dr. Pedersen’s presentation was called “Deep Listening: on centering silence and observation in the classroom,” and Dr. Kurian’s “Citizenship, Belonging, Sexuality and Desire: Rise of Fourth Wave Feminism.” In addition to these regular sessions Drs. Kurian and Shayne participated in the NWSA in other ways. Dr. Alka Kurian participated in the Ms. Magazine writers workshop, a program that trains academics to write for Ms. Magazine. (Drs. Shayne and Kari Lerum participated in this workshop in years past.) Finally, Dr. Shayne’s latest book Persistence is Resistance: Celebrating 50 Years of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies was featured in a Feminist Author Showcase session.