Gender Studies Symposium 2018

37th Annual Gender Studies Symposium

inSECURITY

March 7-9, 2018

View the video

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, writer, educator, and disability and transformative justice organizer
Transformative Justice is Not A Magic Unicorn, But It Still Might Save Our Lives: Towards a Harm Reduction, Real-Talk Approach to Saving The World

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All symposium lectures, workshops, performances, and panel discussions are free and open to the public. No registration is required.

Visitors are encouraged to stop by our information table in Templeton Campus Center outside the Council Chamber from 9-5 daily to talk with symposium organizers, pick up a program, and learn more about the events.

Please note that this schedule is subject to change. 

 

Watzek Library Display

As of March 1, Watzek Library has a temporary exhibit exploring the idea of “inSECURITY.” On the top floor of the library, Lewis & Clark’s Special Collections is displaying for the first time its collection of material relating to the lesbian communes that developed in eastern Oregon throughout the second half of the twentieth century. This exhibit runs through the end of the spring term.

Additionally, the Diversions book display in the Watzek atrium features books related to this year’s theme, including publications by the keynote speakers. These books can be checked out at the circulation desk.

 

Wednesday, March 7 

9:30–11 a.m., Thayer
Workshop: Community Through Craft: Reviving Tapestry Weaving
Facilitated by Marieclaire Wilcox, L&C ’18

This workshop will be rooted in the concept of creating community in craft, and continuing a tradition of weaving in Portland. Participants will learn some fundamentals of weaving. All supplies will be provided. No experience necessary. Limited to 15 participants.

 

9:30–11 a.m., Council Chamber
The Politics of Representation: Investigating Sex and Gender Myths
Moderator: Sarah Warren, L&C associate professor of sociology
Emily Bauer, Whitman College ’18, “But Does Sex Matter?: A Critical Look at BDSM and Asexuality”
Lisa Francine Fernandez, graduate student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “The Dark Side of Telenovelas: Discrimination, Domestic Violence, and Drug Cartels”
Taylor Thomas, St. Mary’s College ’18, “Warped Images: The Sapphire and Relationship Abuse in the African-American Community”
Margie Oxley, Reed College ’18, “The Last Mandarin: Problematizing Authenticity in Chinese-American Cuisine in the 20th Century” 

 

11:30 a.m.– 1 p.m., Council Chamber
Feminist Interventions, Institutional Challenges
Moderator: Kim Cameron-Dominguez, L&C visiting assistant professor of anthropology
Paradise Razma, L&C ’18 and symposium co-chair, Mikay Parsons, L&C ’18, “Feminist Endeavors: Autonomy and Access at Lewis & Clark College”
Elizabeth Gillingham, L&C ’19 and FSU member, and Jamie Strickler, L&C ’20 and FSU member, “Confronting the Conspiracy of Silence: Testimonials of Sexual Assault and the Conversations We Need to be Having”
Samuel Z. Shelton, graduate student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Heteronormativity, Gender Essentialism, and the Construction of Safe Space in the Movement Against Sexual and Domestic Violence”
Najia Hichmine, doctoral student, Women’s and Gender Studies, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah University, Fulbright visiting scholar at University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Social-Sexual Behavior Effects on Women’s Wellbeing in the Moroccan Armed Forces” THIS PRESENTER HAS WITHDRAWN.

 

1:45–3:15 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Building Security Through Community Organizing
Moderator: Angela Buck, L&C director of inclusion and multicultural engagement
Chloe Bell-Wilson, graduate student in history, California State University-Long Beach, “Disrupting Medical Dictatorship: How Anti-Cancer Campaigners Challenged Their Doctors, 1953-1975”
Zoë Gregozek, Reed College ’19, “Class Consciousness at the Bryn Mawr Summer School, 1921-1929”
Alexander Castanes, L&C ’18, “Accountable to Whom?: White, Male-Identifying People Organizing for Racial and Gender Justice in Portland”
Hannah Rosenau, program director, NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon, Oregon Foundation for Reproductive Health, “Progressive Coalition Work for Reproductive Rights in Oregon”

 

1:45–3:15 p.m., Council Chamber
Let’s Talk About Lesbians
Moderator: Melanie Kohnen, L&C assistant professor rhetoric and media studies
Bryn Parry, L&C ’18 and former symposium co-chair, “A ‘Niche’ Phenomenon?”
Samantha Peterson, Reed College ’18, “Out of the Closet and Into the Streets: Making Lesbian Language Visible”
Emily Hays, L&C ’19, “Queer Communes in the Country: Trials and Tribulations of Feminist Lesbian Spaces
Kara Marler
, L&C’19, One of Us?: Locating Homosociality and Queerness in Historical America”

 

3:30–5 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Demonstration Debate on Feminist International Politics
Charlie Brothersen, L&C 19, Sarah McDonagh, L&C ’18, Mikay Parsons, L&C ’18, Austin Smith, L&C’18
L&C Debate Team members will debate a resolution related to current issues of international security and gender.

  

7 p.m., Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
*Keynote Presentation
The Trouble with Gender: Rethinking Feminist Security Studies in “the Colonial Present”
Melanie Richter-Montpetit,
 lecturer in politics and international relations, University of Sheffield

Introduced by Clelia Davis Del Piccolo, L&C ’18 and symposium co-chair.

American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be provided.
No tickets needed. Please note that seating is limited. First-come seating.

 

Thursday, March 8 

9:30–11 a.m., Council Chamber
The Gendered Politics of Immigration and Citizenship
Moderator: Magalí Rabasa, L&C assistant professor of Hispanic studies
Madeline Brown, University of Puget Sound ’18, “Hegemonic Constructions of the Citizen in the Liberal Democratic State” THIS PRESENTER HAS WITHDRAWN.
Lauren Krumholz, L&C ’18, “National Identity and the Post-war Migration of Japanese Peruvian Enemy Aliens, 1946-1955”
Clelia Davis Del Piccolo, L&C ’18 and symposium co-chair, “Detention, Security, and Care Work: An Examination of the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program”
Karla Castaneda, Momentum Alliance program and advocacy director, and Fox Flores, Oregon Dream Activist, “Undocumented and Unafraid”

 

9:30–11 a.m., Gregg Pavilion
Workshop: Sensing, Feeling, Performing?: Searching for Bodily Security through Movement
Facilitated by Annie Reynolds, L&C ’19, and Gayle Stamos, L&C ’19

This interactive workshop will explore questions of gender, sexuality, and security through physical modes of sensing and feeling. Through a series of somatic exercises, we will engage with space and touch, as well as topics such as consent, awareness, judgment, and perception, in order to question the body as a site for outward expression and performance. Though this workshop engages with physical understanding, folks are encouraged to move and participate in whichever ways which are most accessible and comfortable for them. Limited to 30 participants.

 

11:30 a.m.– 1 p.m., Council Chamber
Resisting Gendered State Violence
Moderator: Kabir Mansingh Heimsath, L&C visiting assistant professor of anthropology
María Laura Andrade Laso, L&C ’18, “Trans Health in Ecuador: Autonomy, Death and Public Policy in the Margins of the State”
Sema Hasan, L&C ’18, “Dying for Honor: An Examination of Pakistan’s Honor Killings”
Leilani Rania Ganser, Reed College ’19, “Mana Wahine: Hawaiian Femininity and Resistance to Colonial Gendered Violence”
Sonya Morud, Reed College ’19, “​Transformations of Memory: Intersections of Gender and Nationalism Within Ireland’s Cumman na mBan”

 

11:30 a.m.– 1 p.m., Thayer
Workshop: Exploring Gender, Exploring Insecurity through Free Writing
Facilitated by Daena Goldsmith, L&C professor of rhetoric and media studies; Brianna Barrett, writer, playwright, performer; and Julia Burns, L&C ’16.


“Insecurity” often has a negative connotation. This workshop invites participants to reflect on that and to also consider experiences of insecurity as openness to change, spontaneity, and ambiguity. How do we personally experience “insecurity” in relation to gender? How is writing related to the experience of insecurity? This workshop invites participants to explore the conference theme through personal writing and will provide the opportunity to contemplate how insecurity relates to writing: insecurity as a barrier to writing, an impetus for writing, a topic of writing, an outcome of writing.

 

1:45–3:15 p.m., Council Chamber
Youth Vulnerability, Security, and Resilience
Moderator: Maureen Reed, L&C college advisor and fellowships advisor
Paula Martin, doctoral student in comparative human development, University of Chicago, “Anticipated Futures: Gender Expansive Youth and Bodily Intervention”
Folasade Mojisola Oludayo, graduate student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Girl Child Trafficking: A Global Trend Among Girls Experiencing Violence and Neglect in the Yoruba Ethnic Group in Nigeria”
Eva Newbold, graduate student, women’s studies, University of Florida, “Representations of Girlhood in Wartime: The Effects of the Iraq War on American Girlhood as Explored in the Novel Dear Blue Sky
Emily Squires, engagement and education specialist at Sexual and Gender Minority Youth Resource Center (SMYRC), and Veronica Green (Klamath), senior at NAYA’s Early College Academy

 

1:45–3:15 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Artistry, Activism, Affect: Searching for Security in Creative Realms
Moderator: Rishona Zimring, L&C professor of English
Aaron Beck, L&C professor of music, and Elsa Dougherty, L&C ’20, “Insecurity and Creativity”
Natalie Godfrey, Whitman College ’18, “Affective Potential, Performance Art, and Public Feelings: Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present (2010) and the Potential for Resistance”
Fatima Rezai, graduate student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Cultural Feminist Art Activism in Afghanistan”
Nasim Basiri, doctoral student,Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Teaching of Arts and Literature of Oppressed in a Feminist Classroom”

 

1:45–3:15 p.m., Stamm
Psychological Perspectives on the “Body-Mind”
Moderator: Janet Davidson, L&C associate professor of psychology
Diana Curtis, University of Michigan ’18, “Feminizing Fear: Investigating the Intersections of Paranoia, Empathy, and Sex”
Mikay Parsons, L&C ’18, “The ‘Gender Paradox’ Effect: Discrepancies in the Diagnosis and Adult Outcome of Initial and Comorbid Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents”
Avery Laliberte, L&C ’18, “Do I have resting bitch face?”: The Influence of Gender and Facial Expressions on Likability”

 

3:30–5 p.m., Stamm
Roundtable: Feminist Participatory Action Research
Moderator: Deborah Heath, L&C associate professor of anthropology and director of gender studies
María Laura Andrade Laso, L&C ’18, Tenacity Remington, L&C ’18, and Kate Smock, L&C ’18

 

3:30–5 p.m., Council Chamber
Queer(ing) Narratives: Storytelling and Identity Formation
Moderator: Andrea Hibbard, L&C assistant professor of English with term
Minerva Zayas, graduate student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Methods of Survival: Queer Chicanx Identity Politics”
Taylor Walters, L&C ’18, “‘She’s not here right now’: Graphic Representation of Queerness and Neurodiversity”
Kora Katherine Link, L&C ’18, “Devising New Narratives: Collaborative Theatre Creation through the Embodied Witch”
Nik Wiles, graduate assistant, Center for Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies, University of Florida, “Matherhood”

 

7 p.m., Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
*Keynote Presentation
Carceral Feminism and Prison Abolition: Black Feminist Reflections on State and Intimate Violence
Beth E. Richie
, professor of African American studies and law, criminology, and justice, University of Illinois at Chicago

Introduced by Annie Baker, L&C ’18 and symposium co-chair.

American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be provided.
No tickets needed. Please note that seating is limited. First-come seating.

 

Friday, March 9 

9:30–11 a.m., Stamm
Spheres of Influence: Women’s Resistance from the Home to the Capital
Moderator: Jane Hunter, L&C professor of history
Hannah Crummé, L&C head of special collections and archivist, “The Politics of Female Households: Lady Jane Dormer and English Recusants in Spain”
Mariela Szwarcberg Daby, assistant professor of political science, Reed College, “Gender and Politics in Buenos Aires”
Lani Felicitas, L&C ’18, “‘Identity Wasn’t Enough for Me’: Portland-Based Filipinas Taking Up Anti-Imperialist Struggle”
 

9:30–11 a.m., Council Chamber
Roundtable: (Settler) Colonialism, In/Security, and Decolonial Resistance
Moderator: Qwo-Li Driskill, associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University Christine Hoang, Lzz Johnk, and Miriam Wojtas, Oregon State University students
. THIS PANEL HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

 

11:30 a.m.– 1 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Ancestors/Futures/Freedom Portals: A Writing Workshop with keynote speaker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

In “dreaming futures like bread in our children’s mouths,” as Audre Lorde said, we can also reach and root to the past—to the sick and disabled, queer and trans, Black and brown ancestors, blood and chosen, known and forgotten, who resisted in enormous and small, undetected ways, to make freedom, justice, and safety happen in ways that allow us to be here. In this interactive writing workshop, we will have a chance to write about the chosen and blood ancestors whose stories carry us, to imagine and remember the safety and freedom—in all its blood, guts and complexity—that they knew. This workshop is open to all but centers Black, Indigenous, and People of color, and is disabled, working class, and femme as fuck. Limited to 30 participants.

 

11:30 a.m.– 1 p.m., Stamm
Capitalism, Selfhood, and Financing Security
Moderator: Elizabeth Bennett, L&C assistant professor of international affairs and director of political economy
Liz Montegary, assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Stony Brook University, “Familiar Insecurities: The Financialization of LGBT Family Life” THIS PRESENTER HAS WITHDRAWN.
Diane Cady, professor of English, Mills College, “‘My Purse and My Person’: Financial Insecurity and Gender Ideology in Chaucer’s ‘The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse’”
Emily Hays, L&C ’19, “The Bloody Revolution: Anti-Capitalist Menstruation”
Joyness Byarugaba, L&C ’18, “Economic and Financial Security in East Africa”

 

11:30 a.m.– 1 p.m, Council Chamber
Insecurities in the Flesh: Navigating the Medical Industrial Complex
Moderator: Lzz Johnk, doctoral student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University
Abigail Mulcahy, doctoral student, College of Public Health and Human Science, Oregon State University, “Default, Deviance, Defi-Ace”
Gabrielle Boyle, graduate student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Always Already Pregnant: On the Assumed Promiscuity of Queer Femmes”
Sasha A. Khan and Lzz Johnk, doctoral students, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “A Queer Crip Mad Critique of the Medical Industrial Complex”
Leida (LK) Mae, doctoral student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Digital Worldmaking: Online Safe Space and Real World Insecurity”

 

1:45–3:15 p.m., Council Chamber
Roundtable: World Making in the Academy: Transnational Scholars Seeking ‘Home’ in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Chair: Patti Duncan, associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University
Qwo-Li Driskill, writer, activist, and performer, associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University
Ron Mize, associate professor of Ethnic Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University
Nana Osei-Kofi, director of the Difference, Power, and Discrimination Program, associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University
Mehra Shirazi, associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University

 

1:45–3:15 p.m., Stamm
Gendered Economies
Moderator: Sara Appel, L&C adjunct professor of humanities
Bryn Parry, L&C ’18 and former symposium co-chair, “Surrogacy Worldwide”
Phebean Adekunle, graduate student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University, “Challenging Gender Dynamics: Implications of Unpaid Reproductive Labor on Yoruba Women Living in Southwest Nigeria”
Emily Wilson, L&C ’10, doctoral student in comparative human development, University of Chicago, “Healing Touch: Professional Cuddling in the American Gig Economy”
Seth Douglas, Reed College ’18, “Indissolubly Linked to Class Struggle”: Clara Fraser, Radical Women, and the Construction of a Feminist Labor Movement Against Economic Precarity”

 

3:30–5 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Workshop: Digging In To Act Out: Creating Spaces of Security for LGBTQ Students
Facilitated by Bethy Leonardi, PhD, and Sara Staley, PhD, research associates in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-founders of A Queer Endeavor

Historically, institutions of education have been biased toward particular kinds of learners and particular ideas about what is “normal.” This session will focus on how taken-for-granted norms surrounding gender and sexuality tend to silence and isolate students who identify as LGBTQ. In this 90-minute workshop, participants will engage in critical self-reflection and dialogue as they question, “What counts as normal?” in our classrooms and on campus, and what am I doing, knowingly and unknowingly, to create more people who fit that norm? Participants will learn strategies for organizing learning environments that are expansive and affirming of gender and sexual diversity and that support LGBTQ students. Co-sponsored by L&C Teaching Excellence Program and Queer Student Union.

 

5–6:30 p.m., Thayer
Information Session and Reception hosted by Oregon State University graduate program in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Learn about MA and PhD programs in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University, as well as the Queer Studies minor, Oregon State Queer Archives, and Feminist Formations, a national journal currently based at OSU. Light refreshments.

 

7 p.m., Templeton Campus Center, Council Chamber
*Keynote Presentation
Transformative Justice is Not A Magic Unicorn, But It Still Might Save Our Lives: Towards a Harm Reduction, Real-Talk Approach to Saving The World
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, writer, educator, and disability and transformative justice organizer

Introduced by Nick Hensel, L&C ’18 and symposium co-chair.

American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be provided.
No tickets needed. Please note that seating is limited. First-come seating.