Schedule

11:30 a.m.–1 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Reading and Workshop: Lovely Letters: Healing from Gender Dysphoria and Sexual Trauma

A short reading by Lee Hinkle, L&C ’24, followed by a creative writing workshop.
* Participants are invited to bring their own journal and writing materials, but supplies will also be provided.

1:45–2:45 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Queering the Stage

Moderator: Rebecca Lingafelter, L&C associate professor of theatre
AC Campbell and Tucker Uriarte, L&C ’23, “Queering the Broadway Musical: A Thesis Presentation of the Music from Fun Home“ 
Negasi Brown, L&C ’23, “Gender Performance as Catharsis: Ballroom and Queer Revolution”

3–4:30 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Writing the Body: Autotheory and Archive

Moderator: Andrea Hibbard, L&C assistant professor with term of English
Newton Arbogast, L&C ’23, “Wrong Bodies: The Trans Experience in the Face of Cisnormative Narratives”
Kellen/Raven Rice, L&C ’24, “She Writes to Me”
Leanne Robinson, L&C ’24, “Visceral Remembering, Archival Animation, and Chronic Pain”

7 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Keynote Event

Transition and Abortion as Vernacular Medicine
Jules Gill-Peterson, associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University

• Presentation abstract: The legal principles of the right to abortion and the right to medical transition have been framed since the 1970s as analogous to one another. Now that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has imperiled both, what other modes of relation activate ongoing histories of mutual aid and care? This talk takes up trans histories of transition and abortion as forms of vernacular medicine to explore what they can teach us in this moment about expertise, practice, and care that exceed legal or state blessings.
• Masks are required at this event.
• American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be provided. For additional information about accessibility, please consult the Event Details page.
• First-come seating. Latecomers will not be admitted after 7:15 p.m.
• This event will be streamed for remote viewing. No registration is required.
• Book signing and reception to follow in the Council Chamber foyer. Dr. Gill-Peterson’s book, Histories of the Transgender Child, will be available for purchase.

9:45–11 a.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Gender Formations: Racial Ideology, Colonialism, and Queerness

Moderator: Kim Cameron-Domínguez, L&C assistant professor of anthropology
Lisa Weasel , professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies, Portland State University, “‘How Neanderthal Are You?’: Gendering Racial Formations in the Genomics of Human Prehistory” Note: This presentation has been canceled.
Grace Marchant, L&C ’25, “Assessing Dominant and Subordinate Gender(s): Queerness, Embodiment, and Invisibility”
McKenna Jones, L&C ’24, “Stolen Bodies: White Zombie and Ta-Nahisi Coates’ Disembodiment”

11:30 a.m.–1 p.m., Watzek Library 245
Workshop: Narrative Medicine: Stories of Gender, Illness, and Health

Facilitated by Alexis Rehrmann, L&C Center for Community and Global Health and board member of Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative, and Edie Tavel, L&C ’22 and staff member at Fora Health

• Workshop description: Narrative medicine explores ways in which medicine intersects with an individual’s lived experiences. In this interactive workshop, participants will discuss a text that they will read together, write reflectively, and have a chance to share their writing. This narrative medicine practice will focus on texts that raise questions of gender, illness, and health. We will discuss narrative medicine applications and interventions in health settings and explore the potential of narrative medicine as a tool to reshape the creation of knowledge and establishment of authority in a clinical encounter.
• Limited to 24 participants on a first-come basis. No registration required.

11:30 a.m.–1 p.m., Fir Acres Black Box Theatre
Workshop: Movement as Medicine

Facilitated by Susan Davis, L&C senior lecturer in theatre and head of dance, and Eric Nordstrom, L&C visiting instructor of dance

• Workshop description: This workshop explores embodiment as identity. Our collective movement becomes a play of breath in relationship to gravity, self, and others. The warm-up will start with slow floor work and a focus on experiential anatomy, proprioception, and integration of breath. Following the warm-up, participants will play with the habitual and non-habitual use of time, space, and energy along a qualitative spectrum. The third focus of this workshop works with movement to embody a short text related to the symposium. Through this play of movement and text we seek to create a deeper understanding of the text and our bodies.
• Limited to 40 participants on a first-come basis. No registration required. 

1:30–3 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
The Vernacular Possibility of Transmasculine Representation: A Conversation about the Award-Winning Series BROTHERS

Moderator: Melanie Kohnen, L&C assistant professor of rhetoric and media studies
Mal Spicer, L&C ’23
Emmett Jack Lundberg, creator, director, and producer of BROTHERS
Sheyam Ghieth, director and producer of BROTHERS
* Please note that masks are required at this event.

1:30–3 p.m., Location TBD
At the Intersections of Science, Neurodivergence, and Queerness

A roundtable discussion featuring L&C students from the Neurodivergent Student Union and Portland community members. Panelist information will be added soon. We regret that this event has been canceled.

3:30–4:30 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Building Coalitions of Solidarity: Reproductive Justice and Trans Rights through Bodily Autonomy

Finn Johnson, doctoral student in women, gender, and sexuality studies, Oregon State University, “An Attack on One of Us is an Attack on All of Us: Trans Bodily Autonomy in a Post-Trump United States”
Jakki Mattson, doctoral student in women, gender, and sexuality studies, Oregon State University, “Reframing the Conversation: Utilizing Comprehensive Sexual Education to Build Coalitions Through Education for Reproductive Justice for All Bodies”
Elizabeth Kennedy, gender-based violence prevention educator and doctoral student in women, gender, and sexuality studies, Oregon State University, “Cultivating Coalitions: Solidarity Through Community Organizing Toward Reproductive Justice for All Bodies”

7 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Keynote Event

Black Anti-bodies and the Repercussions of Obstetric Racism
Dána-Ain Davis, professor of urban studies and anthropology at Queens College, author of Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth

• Presentation abstract: This talk charts the way two Black reproducing bodies are shaped into anti-bodies. In this thought piece, I share the birthing experiences of two women and think through their medical encounters by drawing on Hortense Spillers and Emily Martin to excavate how history degrades Black bodies, shaping them into fodder for medical mistreatment. Using historical examples of how Black bodies sit on a continuum of immunity and susceptibility to illness and disease, I argue that racism produces Black anti-bodies—those bodies weighed down by Black disposability, neglect, and medical abuse.
• American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be provided. For additional information about accessibility, please consult the Event Details page.
• First-come seating. Latecomers will not be admitted after 7:15 p.m.
• This event will not be recorded or streamed for remote viewing.
• Book signing and reception to follow in the Council Chamber foyer. Books by Dr. Davis will be available for purchase.

 

9:30–11 a.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
The Nexus of Trans/Queer Lives, Health Care, and Institutional Harm

Moderator: Carolyn Zook, L&C interim director of health studies and pre-health advisor, Center for Community and Global Health
Paige Matthews, doctoral candidate in education and leadership, Pacific University, “Understanding How Risk and Resilience Factors Influence Non-Binary People as They Decide to Get Drunk and High to Have Sex”
Cleo Whelan, LGBTQ+ projector coordinator at Center for Gender Equity, Rainbow Coalition president, Pacific University ’23, “Improving Transgender and Gender-Diverse Patients’ Experiences of Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy”
Sang-hyoun Pahk, assistant professor of sociology, Pacific University, “Gender Fluid Illegals (Or, Race and the Education of Desire)”
Aimee Wodda, assistant professor of criminal justice, law, and society, Pacific University, “‘The Necessary Thing’: Medical Authority, Gatekeeping, and Patient Agency in Ulane v. Eastern Airlines (1983)”

11:30 a.m.–1 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Medical Care, Mental Health, and Madness

Moderator: Sepideh Bajracharya, L&C assistant professor with term of anthropology
Annika Hartsock, Reed College ’24, “Situating the Female Malady: Women, Madness, and the Creation of Mental Illness”
Liliana O’Shea, Willamette University ’23, “The Body Leads the Way: A History of Squatting During Birth”
M. Killian Kinney, assistant professor, Pacific University Claire Argow Social Work Program, “Approaches to and Conceptualizations of Affirmation by Mental Health Providers When Working with Transgender and Nonbinary Clients”

1:15–2 p.m., Gregg Pavilion

Poetry Reading by Sage Braziel, L&C ’24

2–3 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Gendered Perceptions of Language

Moderator: Molly Robinson, L&C associate professor of French
Aubrey Roché, L&C ’22, “A World That Changes and a Language that Rarely Changes: My Experience with the French Language and Inclusivity”
Parker Scarpa, Reed College ’23; Satchel Petty, Reed College ’23; Montreal Benesch, Reed College ’22; and Kara Becker, associate professor of linguistics, Reed College, “Perceptions of Gender and Sexuality in Language: An Experimental Study of Uptalk”

3:30–5 p.m., Council Chamber, Templeton/Fowler Campus Center
Sexual Assault and Care

Moderator: Michelle Callahan, L&C director of health promotion and wellness
Deeksha Vasanth-Rao, L&C visiting assistant professor in health studies, Center for Community and Global Health, “Addressing Global Health Disparities: Access to Mental Healthcare Services Among Female Sex Workers in India”
Karma Rose Zavita, L&C ’15 and former GSS chair, doctoral student in criminology, law, and society program at the University of California, Irvine, Eliana Stivi, UCI ’23, Raelyn Chandra, UCI ’23, and Marissa Orta, UCI ’23, “Sexual Assault Forensic Exams and Institutions of Higher Ed”
Isabella Grace Cohn, L&C ’25, “Watch You Rise”