Archive of Past Events
Events sponsored and co-sponsored by the Women's & Gender Studies Program and Chellis House
Spring 2013
Monday, March 18
Dai Jinhua - After the Post-Cold War
The period that Professor Dai calls “After the Post-Cold War” commences in 2008 with the Beijing Olympics, the Sichuan earthquake, the global financial crisis, and discourses of “China’s rise.” Dai’s talk will address how this period of Chinese and global history can be understood and critiqued.
Dai Jinhua, one of China’s most prominent feminist cultural critics, is a Professor at Peking University’s Institute of Comparative Literature and Culture, and is the Director of the University’s Center for Film and Media Studies. Dai’s publications include Film Theory and Criticism (电影理论与批评, 2007) and Emerging from the Horizon of History: A Study of Modern Chinese Women’s Literature (浮出历史地表: 现代妇女文学研究, coauthored with Meng Yue, 1989). Her English-translated publications include Cinema and Desire: Marxist Feminism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua (Verso, 2002) and a forthcoming volume from Duke University Press.
The talk will be in Chinese, translated by Rebecca Karl (New York University). Karl’s works include Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World (Duke, 2010) and The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory, co-edited with Dorothy Ko and Lydia Liu (Columbia University Press, 2013).
4:30 p.m., Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room
Sponsored by the Chinese Department, the History Department, the John D. Berninghausen Professorship, the East Asian Studies Program, the Women and Gender Studies Program, and the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs.
Thursday, March 14
Girls Rising (Richard Robbins, 1 hour 44 minutes, PG 13)
This movie is sparking off a movement! Academy Award winner Richard Robbins focuses on nine girls around the world who rose above bad circumstances through schooling. The film demonstrates that the removal of barriers to girls’ education – such as early and forced marriage, domestic slavery, sex trafficking, gender violence and discrimination, lack of access to health care, school fees – means not only a better life for the girls, but a safer, healthier, and more prosperous world for all.
7:30 p.m., MBH 216
Sponsored by Stop Traffick, Sister-to-Sister and Feminist Action at Middlebury
Tues., March 12
Mothers Inc: Visions of Transnational Surrogacy
In this presentation, Professor Sujata Moorti (WAGS) will examine the visual culture that has emerged around the transnational surrogacy industry located in India.
12:15 p.m., Chellis House
Fri., March 8
Pussy Riot, Putin and the Sexual Politics of Contemporary Russia
A conversation with Russian journalist Masha Gessen, director of Radio Liberty, Moscow.
Masha Gessen is one of Russia's most important journalists. She has contributed to The New York Times, The New Republic, New Statesman, Granta, Slate and Vanity Fair, and US News & World Report. Gessen has written seven books ranging on subjects from the Russian intelligentsia to a biography of her grandmothers.
12:15 p.m., Chellis House
Fri., March 8
Masha Gessen on her biography of Vladimir Putin, "Man without a Face"
Acclaimed Russian journalist and author Masha Gessen will discuss her biography of Vladimir Putin, "Man without a Face" and the state of contemporary Russian politics
4:30 p.m., Axinn 220
Friday, March 8th
Women's History Month Dinner sponsored by Women of Color.
Great food and performances. If you would like to attend, please click here to register.
Time TBD, Crossroads Café
Sat., March 9
Elect Her Workshop and Retreat for Female Middlebury Students
In this workshop, over 50 Middlebury College women will learn how to be successful in their run for student government. Lecturers include Kesha Ram, the first person of color with a successful bid for Vermont State Representative; and Jessica Grounds, founder of Running Start and immediate past president of the Women under Forty Political Action Committee (WUPAC)
9:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m., McCullough Social Space
__________________
Wed., March 6
Fraker Prize Ceremony
Established in 1990 by Drue Cortell Gensler '57, Middlebury College trustee, this award honors the memory of Alison G. Fraker ’89, a much-beloved, vocally feminist student who was killed in a car accident a few weeks short of her graduation. The prize is awarded to a student whose essay on a topic specifically concerning women’s and gender studies is judged the best.
7:00 p.m., Chellis House
Tues., February 26
"The Makers: Women Who Make America" film screening
Over the last half-century, America has seen one of the most sweeping social revolutions in its history, as women have asserted their rights to a full and fair share of political power, economic opportunity, and personal autonomy. It’s a revolution that has unfolded in public and private, on grand stages like the Supreme Court and Congress, and in humbler ones like the boardroom and the bedroom. No individual and no aspect of American life has been unchanged.
MAKERS: Women Who Make America tells this remarkable story for the first time in a comprehensive and innovative way. Come and watch Gloria Steinem and Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric and Middlebury alum Dena Simmons! Here's a link:
http://www.makers.com/blog/power-being-surrounding-makers?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000031&ts=1361474571
Come to see the entire documentary or just some of it. We'll have popcorn and cider!
Coltrane Lounge, 8 to 11 p.m.
Thurs., February 21
"Female Power in Politics: Our Time on the Elizabeth Warren Campaign and in the White House"
Talk by Anna Esten ’14 and Luke Carroll Brown ’14.5
Students Anna Esten and Luke Carroll Brown recently interned at the White House. In their talk, they will focus on gender dynamics in the highest echelons of government, and, in Luke’s case, also on the campaign trail.
Lunch will be served. Please help yourself as you enter the room.
Due to time limitations at Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room, this event will start promptly at 12:30 p.m. and finish at 1:15 p.m.
12:30 p.m., Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room
Sponsored by the Program in Women and Gender Studies and Chellis House, Women's Resource Center
Hair Trigger
Lecture-demonstration by Catherine Cabeen (Dance Program)
Hair Trigger is a condensed solo version of the evening-length Fire!, which was originally inspired by Catherine Cabeen's research into the life and work of artist Niki de Saint Phalle, and cascaded through the creative process into a meditation on gendered expectations around taking up space, aggression, desire, and beauty.
4:30 – 5:30 p.m., Dance Theater
Sponsored by the Dance Program
Wed., February 13
Middlebury is RISING! Please join us!
One Billion Rising
In an effort to shake the world into a new consciousness to end violence against women, Eve Ensler’s One Billion Rising Campaign is calling on people around the world to collectively strike in solidarity, joy, rage, recklessness, and happiness and dance along fellow community members. Groups in 200 countries are joining in.
At Middlebury, this giant dance party will also feature performers such as DJ Mariam, Cheswayo Mphanza, Anna Stevens,
Debanjan Roychoudhoury, Middlebrow, and Poor Form Poetry.
Here is a video that students Sarah Kotb ’16 and Rabeya Jawaid ’16 have made for the occasion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdadd9ueJTc&feature=youtu.be
10 p.m. – 12 a.m. (midnight), Crossroads Café
Winter Term 2013
Friday, January 25
Media Representations of Gender and Sexuality in the WNBA, talk by Maya Goldberg-Safir ’12.5.
Lunch will be provided!
12:15 PM, Chellis House
Monday, January 28
"Hurtin' Songs" in Recent Quebec Drama: "Faire des Enfants" and "With Bated Breath" by Robert Schwartzwald, Université de Montréal
Robert Schwartzwald is a professeur titulaire in the département d'études anglaises at the Université de Montréal and formerly Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Winner of the 2008 Governor General's International Award in Canadian Studies, Schwartzwald's work focuses on interfaces between notions of cultural and national modernity, with particular attention to representations of sexuality. His publications include "Fear of Federasty: Quebec's Inverted Fictions," " ‘Symbolic Homosexuality,’ ‘False Feminine,’ and the Problematics of Identity in Quebec,” and " ‘Chus t’un homme’ Trois (re)mises en scène d’ ‘Hosanna’ de Michel Tremblay.” He is a member of the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire en littérature et culture québécoises (CRILCQ).
Lunch will be provided for those who RSVP by Wednesday, 1/23 by calling 802-443-5324.
Sponsored by Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, Department of French, Program in Women and Gender Studies, and Department of English.
12 :15 p.m., Robert A. Jones ’59 House conference room
Friday, January 18, 5-7 p.m., Vermont Folklife Center (next to Two Brother’s Restaurant at the roundabout on Main Street)
Labor of Love
Opening reception for a multimedia exhibit celebrating women’s work
This exhibit, which was created by Vermont Works for Women in collaboration with the Vermont Folklife Center, features photos and stories celebrating the transformative power of work by focusing on ways in which work can engage our passion and connect us to others and in communities. The featured women are farmers, doctors, tattoo artists, college presidents, electricians, and general store clerks. They are passionate about their work, exemplify excellence in their field, and are an inspiration to others.
Snacks will be provided.
Sponsored by the Women’s & Gender Studies Program and Chellis House, Women’s Resource Center
Friday, January 11, 12:15 p.m., Chellis House
Harriet Napier and Emmy Masur talk about their MALT Trip to C.A.S.A.(Center for the Adolescents of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico)
C.A.S.A. opened the first school of midwifery in Mexico and specifically involves women from rural areas in their training. These women return to their villages to work, and to improve the health of other women and children. C.A.S.A. also runs other programs to empower women and to raise awareness about the pressing issue of domestic violence in Mexico. The organization is operated largely by young people, and provides an excellent and inspirational model for community-initiated change. Lunch will be provided.
Fall Semester 2012
WAGS New Faculty Reception
Please join the Women's and Gender Studies Program for a reception to welcome new faculty on Tuesday, September 18, 4:30-6:00 p.m. at Chellis House, Women's Resource Center (white house behind Proctor Dining Hall). Refreshments will be served.
Sunday, September 23
40 YEARS OF TITLE IX, Film Screening: Sporting Chance: The lasting legacy of Title IX (NCAA, in conjunction with ESPN and Creative Street Entertainment, 2012). Title IX was not intended to redefine the world of amateur sports but this treatise on sexual equality opened the door to decades of successes for American girls and women.
7:00 p.m., Axinn 229
Monday, September 24
“40 YEARS OF TITLE IX — Legacy and Outlook”
Panel discussion with Associate Director of Athletics Missy Foote, Associate Director Emerita of Athletics Gail Smith, Middlebury Olympians Patty Ross (Assistant Nordic Skiing/ Track Coach) and Lea Davison ’05, and NCAA Woman of the Year Finalist Margo Cramer ’12.
Reception to follow the event in honor of Middlebury Olympian Lea Davison ’05, NCAA Woman of the Year Finalist Margo Cramer ’12 and Lauren Greer ’13, finalist for the Honda Sports Award for field hockey.
7:00 p.m., McCardell Bicentennial Hall 216
Sunday, September 30
Buddha Prince Backstage (Tiger Lion Arts and Twin Cities Public Television, 2011). Film Screening, discussion and workshops with director Markell Kiefer ’96.5, Tyson Lien ’98, and Tenzin Ngawang.
7:30 p.m., Dana Auditorium
Monday, October 1
Writing Crime: Transmigrated Border Subjects and International Violence. Lecture by Professor Ileana Rodríguez, Distinguished Humanities Professor of Spanish at Ohio State University.
4:30 p.m., Robert A. Jones ’59 Conference Room
Monday October 1 and Tuesday October 2
Half the Sky. Screenings of public television program based on the book by authors of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The two shows follow travelers to six countries to meet courageous individuals who are confronting oppression and developing meaningful solutions through health care, education, and economic empowerment for women and girls. These programs show that women are not the problem, but the solution and bolster the growing movement for change.
Monday, 9:00 p.m., Carr Hall & Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., Coffrin Hall Lounge.
Friday, October 5
What is a Dalai Lama and Who is the 14th Dalai Lama? The Buddhist Historical Context. Lecture by Professor William Waldron, Department of Religion
12:15-1:30 p.m., Dana Auditorium
Thursday, October 11
The Queer Politics of Sex. Lecture by Dr. Margot Weiss, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Anthropology Wesleyan University.
This talk investigates queer sexual politics -- the transgressiveness of alternative sexual practices and communities, and the possibilities of queer liberation. Drawing on fieldwork with BDSM communities and queer left activists, the talk challenges points of view that stabilize or presuppose the content of social categories like "transgressive," "normative", or, indeed, "political," and gestures toward new possibilities for queer social analysis—and social justice.
4:30-6:00 p.m., Axinn 229
Co-sponsored by American Studies Program, Brainerd Commons, Department of Sociology-Anthropology, Feminist Action at Middlebury, MOQA, QSH
Friday, October 12
“Shine a Light on Domestic Violence” Lamp Auction. Join the Addison County Council Against Domestic & Sexual Violence in an auction of artistic lamps designed by community artists!
5 p.m., Carol’s Hungry Mind Café
Friday, October 19
Gender in the Presidential Election 2012. Panel discussion with former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin, author of The New Feminist Agenda: Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work and Family (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012), Associate Professor Bert Johnson, Department of Political Science, and Professor Ellen Andersen, Department of Political Science and Women and Gender Studies, University of Vermont.
2:00 p.m., Axinn 229
Co-sponsored by Chellis House – Women’s Resource Center, Department of Political Science, Feminist Action at Middlebury, Institutional Diversity Committee, Queer Studies House, Women of Color
Friday, October 19
Birthing Responsibility: Resources from 20th Century French Thought for the Moral Significance of Natality
Lecture by Gail Weiss, Professor of Philosophy & Human Sciences, George Washington University
Building on the accounts of French philosophers Emmanuel Levinas, Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray, Professor Weiss will argue that the maternal activity of childbirth produces not only a newborn infant, but also generates a new responsibility to and for the other. Though this new responsibility to the newborn infant (as a separately existing entity) is produced through the laboring body of the birth mother, she argues that the obligations it entails necessarily extend beyond the birth mother to encompass others who must help to secure the well-being of this vulnerable new being-in-the-world.
4:30 p.m.,Twilight Hall 302
Co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department, European Studies Program, French Department, the Women’s & Gender Studies Program & the Academic Enrichment Fund.
Saturday, October 20
Screening and discussion of Class Dismissed
Malala Youzufzai, a 14-year old Pakistani girl who advocated for girls' education was shot by the Taliban on October 9, 2012. Her only crime was loving education. Come learn about Malala's life and the state of education for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Students from the region will screen the New York Times documentary Class Dismissed (2011, 30 mins) and discuss education for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
3:00 p.m., Axinn 229
Sponsored by Chellis House, Women's Resource Center
Thurs., October 25
Race, Love, and Violence: A Conversation with Kate Manning. In her controversial debut novel, Whitegirl (Random House, 2003), Kate Manning explored the intersections of race, gender, class, and domestic violence.
4:30 p.m., Chellis House
TODAY: Tuesday, October 30
Bridge Markland: Faust in a Box
Berlin performer Bridge Markland is a virtuoso of role play and transforma- tion. An artist who effortlessly crosses boundaries between dance, theater, performance, cabaret and puppet theater, she specializes in transgender performances in which the audience can experience the change of woman to man (or vice versa). Her main focus are collages of classic German plays with pop music performed. "Faust in the Box will be performed in English.
7:30-93 p.m., Chateau 005 (Performance Space)
Sponsored by MOQA, Queer Studies House, German Department, Theater Department, Dance Program, Brainerd Commons, and the Program in Women and Gender Studies.
Friday, November 2
Fiber Arts — The FUN Stress Antidote
An event for textile novices and fiber gurus with apparel engineer and artist Dorothea Langevin.
Living the spirit of the community, you are invited to join in, share and inspire, listen and talk, relax and explore — together!
4:30 p.m., Chellis House
Sponsored by Chellis House, Women's Resource Center
Sunday, November 4
Film screening: Guerrilla Midwife (Deja Bernhardt, 2011, 90 mins)
This documentary follows the remarkable work of 2011 CNN Hero Ibu Robin Lim and her efforts to protect the smallest citizens of the Earth. Captured on camera are tender moments of childbirth and human bonding, as they unfold in our planet's most extreme locations of environmental and political disaster. As filmmaker Bernhardt takes us from beautiful Bali, where terrorist bombings have destroyed the economy, to post-Tsunami Aceh, she highlights the efforts of one woman who has been recognized globally for illuminating the difference one person can make. Q&A with Ibu Robin Lim after the screening.
4:30 p.m., Twilight Auditorium
Sponsored by the Program in Women and Gender Studies and Chellis House, Women's Resource Center
Tuesday, November 6
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in the Developing World
Lelise Getu ’13 talks about her efforts to help several female owners of start-ups in Ethiopia.
12:15 p.m., Chellis House
Sponsored by the Program in Women and Gender Studies and Chellis House, Women's Resource Center, and the Center for Education in Action
Spring 2010 Events
at Chellis House in February and March
~ An Active Mind Deserves a Free Lunch ~
For reservations contact Karin Hanta: khanta@middlebury.edu,
"Scheming Young Ladies: Images of Female Musicians in Ragtime Novelty Songs."
“Life of the Mind” talk by Larry Hamberlin, Assistant Professor of Music and author of That Opera Rag: Operatic Novelties in the Ragtime Era (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Monday, February 22, 12:30 p.m., Chellis House
Student talk by Lark Nierenberg (’11) on her gender research project at SIT and the University of Amsterdam.
“What Women’s Work Does to Men: A Crisis of Masculinity from 19th Century America”
“Life of the Mind” talk by Amy Morsman, Associate Professor of History.
Tuesday, March 9, 12:15 p.m., Chellis House
“Bombay’s Cruel Months”
Yumna Siddiqi, Associate Professor of English, reads from her most recent creative work.
Tuesday, March 16, 12:15 p.m., Chellis House
Poet Karin Gottshall reads from her most recent work.
Monday, March 29, 12:15 p.m, Chellis House
Chela Andreu, professor emerita of Spanish, reads from her autobiographical manuscript.
Thursday, March 31, 12:15, Chellis House
“Takin’ It Like A Man: Troubling Gender in Japanese Martial Art”
Discussion on power/gender dynamics in the practice of Japanese martial art (aikido) with Jonathan Miller Lane, Assistant Professor of Education, and Linda White, Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies and WAGS.
“Being a (Wo)man of Color at Middlebury”
Panel discussion organized by the student group Women of Color.
“Coming to See Privilege Systems: The Surprising Journey”
Lecture by Peggy McIntosh, Associate Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Founder and Co-director of the United States S.E.E.D. Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity). In 1988, she published the ground-breaking article, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work on Women’s Studies.” This analysis and its shorter form, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” 1989, have been instrumental in putting the dimension of privilege into discussions of gender, race, and sexuality in the United States.
Co-sponsored by the Dean of the College, Women of Color, AAA, KASA, Atwater Commons, Women’s & Gender Studies-Chellis House, and the Education Studies Department.
“The Devil Came on Horseback” (Ricki Stern/Anne Sundberg, 2007)
Using the exclusive photographs and first hand testimony of former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle, the film goes on an emotionally charged journey into the heart of Darfur, Sudan, where in 2004, Steidle became witness to a genocide that to-date has claimed over 400,000 lives. Together with his sister Gretchen Wallace, Brian Steidle also penned the book The Devil Came on Horseback.
Officer hours with students -- one-on-one conversations: 2:30 - 4 p.m., CSO Library
Workshop: Conscious Social Change, 4:30 – 6 p.m., Axinn 232
In response to her experiences working for social justice with women in South Africa, Sudan, and Chad, Gretchen Wallace founded the organization Global Grassroots in 2006. While an MBA student at Tuck Business School at Dartmouth, she had developed a social entrepreneurship training program designed to assist women in post-conflict communities in need of personal security and financial independence. Integral to Global Grassroots' work is the value of cultivating inner strength and self-awareness through meditation and alternative healing practices. A therapeutic practitioner of Integrative Breathwork, Wallace uses these principles towards healing trauma from war and sexual violence.
Co-sponsored by the Dean of the College, Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Chellis House, UMOJA, MCAB, ISO, CSO.
“Unveiling the Mystery of the Hijab”
Three young Middlebury women, Hafsa Ahmad ('12), Mahnaz Razaie ('13) and Mariam Boxwala ('13), will discuss their experiences wearing hijab, the veil worn by Muslim women. Professors Stearns and Armanios will be speaking about the historical and religious backgrounds of the hijab and Muslim women. The students will be discussing how it is to wear hijab in America post-9/11, their experiences as "hijabis" abroad and in Middlebury and dealing with misconceptions of Muslim women. After the panel discussion, there will be an open question and answer session for the panelists and professors."
Sponsored by the Middlebury Islamic Society
Helen Benedict, professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of four novels and five books of non-fiction. The Edge of Eden is an elegant, often wickedly funny novel about a British family’s disintegration in the last-gasp colonial outpost of the Seychelles Islands in 1960.
“The Lonely Soldier: Women at War in Iraq” Lecture by Helen Benedict
More American women have fought and died in Iraq than in any war since World War II, yet as soldiers they are still painfully alone. In Iraq, only one in ten troops is a woman, and she often serves in a unit with few other women or none at all. This isolation, along with the military’s deep-seated hostility toward women, causes problems that many female soldiers find as hard to cope with as war itself: degradation, sexual persecution by their comrades, and loneliness, instead of the camaraderie that every soldier depends on for comfort and survival.
Sponsored by WAGS-Chellis, the Creative Writing Program, and Womensafe.
Monday, March 8, 7 p.m. Chellis House
Fraker Prize Reception for International Women’s Day
Every year, the Alison G. Fraker prize is awarded to a student whose essay on a topic specifically concerning women’s and gender studies is judged the best.Wednesday, March 10, 7 p.m., Chateau Grand Salon
Thursday, April 1, 12:15 p.m., Chellis House
“The State of Queer Families in the Netherlands:
Discrepancies Between Intentional and Legal Three-Parent Families”
Student talk by Lark Nierenberg (’11) on her gender research project at SIT and the University of Amsterdam.
“Interrogating Citizenship: Sex, Race, Class and Regimes of Power”
This forum attempts to interrogate the concept of citizenship by looking at the ways it has been and is deployed by regimes of power, as well as in reaction to these regimes. In particular, we will focus on the interaction between constructions of citizenship and those of race, sexuality, gender and class. How has the concept of citizenship been used in projects of nation building, war, empire and labor mobilization? How have categories of race and sexuality entered into this? Have there been significant cases of counter representations, alternative constructions of citizenship that question received categories in the cases under consideration?
“Deconstructing Citizenship: Expanding Rights or Impeding Freedom”
Keynote talk by Saskia Sassen, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University
Saskia Sassen’s research and writing focuses on globalization (including social, economic and political dimensions), immigration, global cities (including cities and terrorism), the new networked technologies, and changes within the liberal state that result from current transnational conditions. Much of her research, as seen in books such as The Mobility of Labor and Capital, The Global City, and Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, has focused on the unexpected and the counterintuitive as a way to cut through established “truths.” Her latest book is A Sociology of Globalization (Norton 2007). She has just completed for UNESCO a five-year project on sustainable human settlement for which she set up a network of researchers and activists in over 30 countries; it is published as one of the volumes of the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems.
9:30-11:30 AM: Panel 1: The Other Among "Us: Gendering Diaspora and Citizenship," Kamakshi Murti (German, Middlebury College)
“To Veil or not to Veil? Shakespeare’s Dane misspeaks!”
Cem Özdemir, a member of the Green Party, became the first person of Turkish descent to be elected to the Bundestag in October, 1994. One need only listen to the extremely contentious debate about the presence of Islam not just in Germany, but in the countries of the EU, to comprehend why Özdemir’s election to the German Parliament made headlines. ‘German Citizenship’ and the ‘Turkish Community’ –these two terms are seen as mutually exclusive. My paper will attempt to unravel the palimpsest of discourses that underlie this debate in order to understand what anxieties surround the increasingly visible Muslim presence in Germany in particular.
“Emotional Regimes, Care Labor and Citizenship in the Filipino Queer Diaspora.” This presentation is a critical reading of the Israeli documentary "Paper Dolls" which is about Filipino gay and transgendered (male to female) paraprofessional care workers who look after elderly Orthodox Jewish men in Tel Aviv. Like other Filipino migrant laborers, these queer workers are faced with the dilemma of engaging with Philippine state mandated emotional regimes around care labor (e.g. Filipinos are a "loving people" hence are suited for care work), navigating Israel's tough immigration controls and being immersed in the contradictory realm of family life in a foreign land. Therefore, this presentation explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, race and emotions with citizenship as these nodes relate to the labor of nation building and national survival.
“Second-Class Nationalism vs. Second-Class Citizenship: Puerto Rican Women’s Status within the U.S. Cold War Empire.” Puerto Rican scholars and pro-independence politicians have often portrayed Puerto Ricans as dupes for consistently voting to maintain Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the United States. This presentation uses the ways Puerto Rican women were gendered in the debates over the island’s political status in the 1930s-1950s, along with their actual experiences of labor and migration, to examine and reconsider this claim. Noon: Lunch in RAJ Conference Room
1:30-3:30 PM: Panel 2: "nvisible Exclusions? Citizenship and the Everyday." Ritty Lukose (Anthropology, New York University)
“Anthropologizing Citizenship: The 'Everyday' as a Standpoint of Critique." This presentation will explore the possibilities and limits of a specifically anthropological approach to the study of citizenship by interrogating the ways in which the category and lens of the "everyday" gets deployed to examine citizenship and the politics of belonging. It will chart the ways in which the everyday is a particularly useful and productive lens for understanding the intersectional dynamics and complexities of gender, class and caste (using an Indian context) while also pointing to some of the difficulties of this approach for articulating a vigorous politics of citizenship.
Rebecca Tiger (Sociology, Middlebury College) - “Just Say No: Criminalized Exclusion and Marginalized Citizenship in the U.S.”
Over 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S. with another 5.1 million supervised by probation and parole. These 7.3 million people, the majority of whom are African American and Latino, are in a state of legal limbo in the US. Having been convicted of a crime and, in many instances, having served their sentence for this crime, they are monitored in extraordinary ways, often denied the right to vote, housing and education and permanently marked as an “outsider” because of their criminal conviction. In this presentation, I’ll provide an overview of the expansion of the criminal justice system in the US, consider the overt and subtle ways people labeled criminal are excluded from full participation in society, and link these exclusionary mechanisms to enduring regimes of racial control. Overall, I’ll consider how our “culture of control” creates a permanent class of citizen-outsiders.
Felicia Kornbluh (History, University of Vermont)
"A Right to Welfare? Post-World War Two U.S. Social Movements and Citizenship Claims for Economic Justice." - This paper will discuss the role of claims for economic justice in the agendas of major social movements in the post-World War Two United States. Such claims were most evident in the movement for welfare rights, which emerged in the early 1960s and collapsed at the national level in the middle 1970s. However, they were also present more generally in the African American freedom movement, north and south, from the end of World War Two until at least the 1970s, the postwar women's movement, and the early movement for disability rights. Kornbluh will speak based upon three case studies-welfare rights, northern civil rights, and disability rights-as well as recent scholarship on "trade-union" or "working-class" feminism.
4:00-5:30 PM: Panel 3: Citizen/Soldier: The Violence of Citizenship
Holly Allen (American Studies, Middlebury College)
“Sex, Citizenship, and the U.S. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Feminists have long sought women’s full inclusion in the military, including combat roles. At the same time, GLBT activists have worked to overturn anti-homosexual exclusions in the military, including the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” rule. This paper examines the current status of such civil rights claims in light of the following questions: What are the sexual dimensions of U.S. warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan? How essential are sexual violence and intimidation – against female and homosexual troops and against Iraqi and Afghani civilians -- to U.S. military strategy in those contexts? Finally, how might recent feminist and queer theories about the sexual dimensions of citizenship duties, rights, and obligations prompt us to reframe our thinking about military inclusion?
Deb Cowen (Geography, University of Toronto)
“The Security of the Barracks’: Welfare, Warfare and the Soldier Citizen”
In 1944 Friedrich Von Hayek asserted that the army offered the only possible model for guaranteeing social security for the 'whole of society’. For Hayek, the 'security of the barracks' was inseparable from the unfreedom of military life. And indeed, from Bismarck's social insurance to the American GI Bill, key social technologies of the welfare state were initially engineered to support the battlefield, even as they came to transform relations in factories and households. The connections between soldiers and social citizenship remain profound today even as they are dramatically recast. While 'military welfare' was once the basis for civilian social citizenship, today we witness the expansion of the former alongside the erosion of the latter. With a focus on the gendered and racialized geographies of war work and national identity, this paper places organized violence at the centre of the social.
Sponsored by the Gensler Family Fund, the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity,
the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the Department of American Studies, the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs,
Atwater Commons, Ross Commons and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
"Women’s Leadership Today and Tomorrow"
Student talk by Ashley Cheung and Sydney Alfonso talk about their participation in the National Conference of College Women Student Leadership organized by the American Association of University women. If you are interested in going this year in June and receiving a stipend, please come and attend.
Chela Andreu, professor emerita of Spanish, talks about her book manuscript on Corín Tellado, a prolific Spanish writer of romantic novels and photonovels that were best-sellers in several Spanish-language countries. The author published more than 4,000 novels and sold more than 400 million books, which have been translated into several languages.
"Gender Inclusion for Poverty-Alleviation in a Market Economy:
Opportunities and Challenges"
Lecture by Vanita Viswanath, Chief Executive Officer of Udyogini, a non-profit organization working in seven states of North and Central India building capacity, enabling market access and undertaking supply chain development for microenterprises for poor women.
Co-sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, the South Asia Studies Program, and the Women’s & Gender Studies Program-Chellis House.
Film screening of “Where the Water Meets the Sky”
Narrated by Morgan Freeman, Where the Water Meets the Sky is the story of a remarkable group of women in a remote region of northern Zambia, who are given a unique opportunity: to learn how to make a film, as a way to speak out about their lives and to challenge the local traditions which have, until now, kept them silent.
Many in the group can’t read or write, most are desperately poor, and few have been exposed to film or television. But with the help of two teachers, this class of 23 women learn to shoot a film that portrays a subject of their own choosing. It involves an issue that is traumatic for them all, and rarely spoken about: the plight of young women orphaned by AIDS.
Co-sponsored by WAGS-Chellis, the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, and the African Studies Program.
"Grandma’s Got A Video Camera"
Screening of 1-hour documentary by Brazilian filmmaker Tânia Cypriano A family of Brazilian immigrants portray their lives in the United States for over 20 years. From enchantment to disillusionment, from idealization to conformity, first-hand images and voices depict how newly arriving immigrants see their new world, and struggle to establish their final home. Discussion with filmmaker about the “making of” and transnationalism to follow film
Co-sponsored by the History Department, International Studies, Latin American Studies, and WAGS-Chellis.
"Why Myth Matters:
A Personal and Literary Look at the Story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar"
Lecture by Charlotte Gordon, a writer of poetry, non-fiction and fiction. She began her writing life as a poet and has published two books of poetry, When the Grateful Dead Came to St. Louis and Two Girls on a Raft. Her biography of the 17th century poet, Anne Bradstreet, Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America’s First Poet, (Little, Brown, 2005) won a New England Book Award for non-fiction. She is the recipient of a Robert Penn Warren Award for her poetry, and has taught Religion and Literature in the Department of Theology at Boston University. From 1999-2002 she was a lecturer in Elie Wiesel’s seminars, The Literature of Memory. Her latest book, The Woman Who Named God: Abraham’s Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths (Little, Brown, 2009), retells the famous biblical story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar.
Co-sponsored by Hillel, WAGS-Chellis, Brainerd Commons, Jewish Studies, and
The Chaplain's Office.
Faculty lecture by WAGS member Heidi Grasswick, Professor of Philosophy. “’Science Says’: Problems of Trust Across the Expert-Lay Divide”
A Lunchtime Conversation with Carla Fehr, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Iowa State University. Friday April 23, 3 p.m., Hillcrest 103 - “What’s in It for Me? Selfish Reasons for Hiring Women Scientists and Treating Them Well”
Lecture by Carla Fehr, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Iowa State University
Co-sponsored by the Philosophy, Biology, Neuroscience, and Physics Department, the Women’s & Gender Studies Program & Wonnacott Commons.
