Gender Studies Symposium - College of Arts and Sciences - Lewis & Clark

Material Conditions: Gender, Sexuality, and Capitalism

March 11-13, 2015

All symposium lectures, workshops, panels, and performances are free and open to the public.

Wednesday, March 11

11:30 a.m.- 1:00 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Workshop: Cripping Capitalism: Disability, Feminism and the Controversy of Work
Caitlin Wood
, disability justice activist, and Cheryl Green, board member of Disability Art and Culture Project
This interactive workshop will examine the relationship of feminist activism, capitalistic exploitation, and experiences of disability.  Presenters and audience members will explore questions of human value, the US emphasis on “hard work,” and the question of “gainful employment.”

1:45-3:15 p.m., Council Chamber
Homeless: LGBTQ Space
Moderator: Seraphie Allen, L&C ’15
Denise Parry
, University of Puget Sound ’16, “Institutionally, Culturally, and Familialy Disposable: Homeless Queer Youth as a Zone of Social Abandonment”
Jordan Clapper, graduate student, University of Idaho, “Queer Nomad: The LGBTQA Individual as Lacking a Connection to Place”
Neola Young and Nash Jones, Q Center

1:45-3:15 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Feminism and Neoliberalism
Moderator: Marika Liebman, L&C ’15
Marina Xochitl Moro
, Reed College ’16, “Blurred Lines: An Analysis of Popular Discourse on the ‘Work-Family Balance Dilemma’” This panelist is unable to present
Tamara Metz, associate professor of political science, Reed College, “‘Inclusive Capitalism’: Neoliberal Ruse or Real Solution? A Feminist Analysis”
Tami Fawcett, graduate student, Oregon State University, “The ‘Girling’ of International Development: Neoliberal Feminism and Global Girl Power”

3:30-5:00 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Women, Work and Health in South Asia
Moderator: Maryann Bylander, L&C assistant professor of sociology
Lamia Karim, associate professor of anthropology, University of Oregon, “’Learning to Labor’: Female Factory Labor in Bangladesh”
Jennifer Aengst, adjunct professor of anthropology, Portland State University, “Producing Contraception: Choice, Trust, and Women’s Work”
Melissa Tennyson, instructor, Portland Community College, “Female Domestic Labor in Bangladesh”

7 p.m., Council Chamber
Keynote Presentation: Towards a Feminist Critique of the Advanced Neoliberal Security State

Inderpal Grewal, professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, Yale University

Introduced by Emily vanKoughnett, L&C ’15

Presentation Abstract: This paper examines the specificities of neoliberal security in India, and the relation between neoliberalism and the security state.  The forms of protest that have emerged in recent years against the state, one against sexual violence and one against corruption, are useful in showing the ruptures of security, the policing of protest through media productions, and the necessity for critiques of power and authority that are, again, deeply transnational.  I suggest that a more general argument about a global neoliberalism can obscure the particularities of masculine privilege and power, and the inequalities between and within national contexts

 

Thursday, March 12

 9:45-11:15 a.m., Stamm
In Circulation: Mobility, Migration, and Transnationalism
Moderator: Kim Cameron-Dominguez, L&C visiting assistant professor
Hannah Swernoff
, L&C ’16, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade: A Review in Perspective”
Tessa Ong Winkelmann, assistant to program director, L&C Office of Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement, “Romance and Exchange: Reading Interracial Intercourse in the American Colonial Philippines, 1898-1946”
Valerie Francisco-Menchavez, assistant professor of sociology, University of Portland, “Mother that Leaves is a Mother that Loves: Labor Migration as Part of the Filipina Life Course and Motherhood”

9:45-11:15 a.m., Council Chamber
Messages and Meanings in Popular Culture
Moderator: Zibby Pillote, L&C ’14
Lindsey Conrad
, University of Puget Sound ’15, “’It’s Like A Rare Unicorn Sort of Thing’: Homonormativity and the Marginalization of Bisexuality in Queer Media”
Andrew Shaw-Kitch, L&C ’08, writer, zine maker, “Seinfeld is a self-conscious reinforcement of the capitalist patriarchy—Not that there’s anything wrong with that: (De)constructing the sitcom and its modes of production”
Kimberly Fanshier, L&C ’09, graduate student, Portland State University, “My Mountains, My Memories, My Modes of Production: Capitalism and Gender Performance on the Frontier of a Folk Tradition”

11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Workshop: She Works Hard For The Money: How to Ask for What You Deserve in Workplace Compensation Negotiations
Diana Wiener Rosengard
, L&C CAS ’04 and Law ’09
This interactive workshop aims to educate the audience about ongoing issues of compensation inequality and offer resources and practical skills for successfully managing negotiation opportunities.

11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Stamm
Powerful Voices: Agents of Resistance and Social Change
Moderator: Reiko Hillyer, L&C assistant professor of history
Kathleen Dixon, professor of English, University of North Dakota, “‘Don’t Cry’: Lesbian Rebetiko Singer Sotiria Bellou and the Address of the Greek People”
Ciarra D’Onofrio, L&C ’15, “Empowerment, Women’s Rights, and Nonprofit Development in Morocco”
Feather Crawford, graduate student, University of Oregon, “Gender, Capitalism, and Resistance in the Creek Borderlands, 1765-1842” This panelist is unable to present
Julia Duerst, L&C ’15, “Long Live the Queen!: Marion Stamps, Tenant Activism, and Chicago Public Housing in the 1970s”

1:15-1:30 p.m., Fir Acres Theatre, Black Box
Multimedia Performance: [A Theory of Perfection]
Created by L&C students Solveig Esteva ’15, Raymond Fenton ’16, Kristen Lang ’16, and Emilia Soracco ’16
A multimedia production that takes up questions of how conscious and subconscious modes of consumption mold and restrict sexual and gender identities.  This piece explores the ways in which forced consumption of media and products, including food, shapes and problematizes female identities. Content warning for themes of bondage and coercion.

1:45-3:15 p.m., Stamm
Deviance and Pathology: Intersections of Illness, Queerness, and Disability
Moderator: Rishona Zimring, L&C professor of English
Seth Blum, L&C ’14, “Disruptive Bodies: Abjection, Depression, and the Medicalization of Transness”
Annabel Carroll, L&C ’15 and symposium co-chair, “The Role of Illness in the Works of Virginia Woolf”
Corinne Vandagriff, Whitman College ’15, “Cripping Survivorhood: The Nation-State’s Treatment of Sexual Violence as a Disability” [Please note that this new paper title does not appear in the printed program.]

1:45-3:15 p.m., Council Chamber
Lesson Plans: Pedagogies and Power
Moderator: Claire Jamieson, L&C ’15
Jennifer Gale De Saxe
, assistant professor, L&C Graduate School of Education, “Rethinking Critical Feminism and Teacher Education”
Alex de Man, Willamette University student, “Our Bodies, Our [Sex] Lives: Sex Education as a Social System”
Marissa Parr, Willamette University ’15, “The Silence of Gender: A Closer Look at Early Childhood Development”

3:30-5:00 p.m., Stamm
History and Public History in an Artist’s Work: A Roundtable on Rosemarie Beck
Moderator: Jane Hunter, L&C professor of history
Aaron Beck
, L&C James W. Rogers Professor of Music, “Music in the Art and Life of Rosemarie Beck”
Patricia Schechter, professor of history, Portland State University, “A Painter and her Poet: Rosemarie Beck and Marcia Nardi in 1950s New York”
Jenna Barganski, graduate student, Portland State University, “A View to Women’s Networks in the Arts in Portland: Building an Audience for Rosemarie Beck”

3:30-5:00 p.m., Council Chamber
Social Media and Sexual Violence Activism
Moderator: Melissa Osmond, L&C associate director for health promotion
Amanda Green
, director of finance and administration at Bitch Media and board member for Oregon End Violence Against Women PAC, and Megan Kovacs, education coordinator at Raphael House and co-chair of Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force Prevention & Education Committee, “A Best Practice: Using Social Media for Sexual Violence Prevention”
Sarah Mirk, online editor, Bitch Media
Katie Borofka, emergency services coordinator, Volunteers of America Home Free; member of Sex Worker Outreach Coalition

7 p.m., Council Chamber
Keynote Presentation: Putting Consumption in Its Place: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Complicated Times

Tracey Deutsch, associate professor of history, University of Minnesota

Introduced by Claire Hinkley, L&C ’15

Presentation abstract: This talk offers a feminist analysis of consumption and consumer politics.  Taking socialist-feminist theorizations and contemporary food politics as points of departure, I ask what the possibilities are for a politics of consumption in the present day.  How does the category of labor reframe the history of malls and supermarkets and what happens in those spaces?  How do struggles for gender and sexual freedoms intersect with struggles over consumption and the economy? How might we view consumption as a site of instability and structure?  Power and possibility? In these complicated times, how can a feminist reading of shopping be helpful?

See the keynote presentation in full {Video Here}

 

Friday, March 13

 9:45-11:15 a.m., Gregg Pavilion
Teaching Gender and Sex in Contemporary America
Moderator: Cathy Busha, L&C associate dean of students for student engagement, interim director of inclusion and multicultural engagement
Traci Craig
, associate dean, University of Idaho, “The Pedagogical Challenge of Teaching Privilege, Loss, and Disadvantage in Classrooms of Invisible Social Identities”
Kristin Haltinner, assistant professor of sociology, University of Idaho, “Teaching about Gender Inequity Without Reifying Gender Essentialism or Heteronormativity”
Maggie Rehm, lecturer in women’s and gender studies, University of Idaho, “Agency and Activism as Elements in a ‘Pedagogy of Hope’: Moving Beyond ‘This Class is Depressing’”

9:45-11:15 a.m., Stamm
Excess and Deprivation: Gendered Appetites
Moderator: Deborah Heath, L&C associate professor of anthropology and director of gender studies
Sarah Huddleston
, graduate student, Portland State University, “The Hungry Heroine: The Winner and the Woman in The Hunger Games
Diane Cady, associate professor of English, Mills College, “Sex in the City: Consuming Women, Medieval and Modern”
Sandra Reineke, associate professor of political science and women’s and gender studies, University of Idaho, “Women’s Bodies Under Siege: Simone de Beauvoir’s Material Feminism Before and After The Second Sex
Beau Broughton, L&C ’14, “Brutes, Blowjobs, and Butchers: An Exploration of Meat and Masculinity”

11:30 am-1:00 p.m., Stamm
Social Networks: Technologies of Self and Sexuality
Moderator: Daena Goldsmith, L&C professor of rhetoric and media studies
Evan Griffis
, Whitman College ’15, “Artificial Sexuality in the 21st Century: Beyond Corporeality in Sexual Subjectivity”
Julia Lanning, L&C ’15, and Karma Rose Macias, L&C ’15 and symposium co-chair, “Feminism?! Opportunities for Learning in Social Media”
Jessica Willis, visiting assistant professor, and Callie Spencer, lecturer and faculty development consultant, Eastern Washington University, “Girlhood in Neoliberal Capitalism: Consuming Facebook, Producing Biopolitical Subjectivities”

11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Albany Quadrangle 220
Workshop: Student Research Projects
Collaborative, cross-campus dialogue about ongoing undergraduate student research projects related to gender and sexuality.  Participants will provide constructive feedback, share ideas about theoretical approaches and methodologies, and discuss ways to refine and strengthen their projects.  Short papers will be made available ahead of time for participants to review before attending the session.  Advance registration required.

1:15-1:45 p.m., Thayer
South Central to Saigon: A Performance—One Woman’s Body as a Site for Dialogue and the Commodification of the Past
Performance by Jasmine Nyende, L&C ’15
An exploration of two worlds to consider the place of the black female body in art and the meaning of colonization.

1:45-3:15 p.m., Stamm
Multiplicity, Fracture, and Wholeness: Selfhood and Identity
Moderator: Dani Shapiro, L&C ’16
Katharina Marchant, graduate student, Utah State University, “Living in the Shadows of Perfection: Identity and Motherhood”
Elaine Stamp, University of Puget Sound ’15, “The Sweetness that Hides the Toughness: Habitus, Masculine Sexuality, and Internalized Homophobia in Allan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty
Nicholas Coney, Linfield College ’15, “Performing Genders: A Study of Gender Fluidity”
Shannon Boerner, L&C ’15, “Riot Grrrl Exposed: The Limits of Intersectionality as Identity”

1:45-3:15 p.m., Council Chamber
Queer Times at Gresham High: A Look at LGBTQ* Youth Navigation of Public Education and Queer(ing) Discursive Spaces
Moderator: Marissa Yang Bertucci, adviser of Gender and Sexualities Alliance, Gresham High School
Gresham High School students Leslie Altamirano, Gia Dacayanan, Haley Ellis, Yasmin Flores-Lopez, Marcela Menera, Bailey Milner, Quinn Plucar, and Hayley Schlueter

3:30-5:00 p.m., Gregg Pavilion
Body Language: Taboos, Misconceptions, and New Directions
Moderator: Sam Viklund, L&C ’15
Maren Fichter
, Reed College ’15, “Taboo Terms for Genitalia and their Gendered Social Meanings”
Courtney Neubauer, Willamette University student, “An Ugly Intervention: Ugly and the Women’s Health Movement”
Melissa White, Willamette University ’15, “Are Our Bodies Billboards?: An Exploration of Tattoos and Identity at Willamette University”
Kalie Weninger, Willamette University ’15, “Female Ejaculation: “Did You Mean Male Ejaculation?””

3:30-5:00 p.m., Stamm
Art Appreciation: (Mis)Understanding Visual Culture
Moderator: Therese Augst, L&C associate professor of German
Angie Epifano
, L&C ’16, “Baga D’mba Re-Envisioned: The Female Image in Coastal Guinea”
Jackie Davis, artist, Reed College ’14, “What’s Your Fantasy: German Expressionist Dance’s Gender Trouble”
Jacqui Lara, L&C ’15, “Disrupting the Illusion: The Truth Behind the Mask of an Icon”

7 p.m., Council Chamber
Keynote Presentation: Blood Lines: AIDS, Affective Accumulation, and Viral Labor

 

Eric Stanley, UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in communication and critical gender studies, University of California, San Diego

Introduced by Samson Harman, L&C ’16

Presentation Abstract:  If capital, as Karl Marx has argued, “lives only by sucking living labor,” what formations of value are reproduced through death? Or, how might disability studies, critiques of racial capitalism, and queer theory help us argue that dead labor, or necrocapital, is central to the extraction of surplus value?  Reading with an HIV-reagent bank run by the National Institutes of Health and ACT UP’s 1992 “Ashes Action,” this talk tracks the massive wealth accumulated by global pharmaceutical companies and the structured abandonment of its viral laborers. It is in this interdiction of the money form and the biopolitical that the question of whom and what constitutes the human, and who is ground into dust, appears.

see the keynote presentation in full {Video Here}