March 08, 2006

25th Annual Gender Studies Symposium

Body Language:  Sexualities, Identities, and Time
March 8-10, 2006
Art Exhibit, March 8-10, Stamm

Curated by Barbara Bartholomew, LC Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, LC student Jenn Smith, and the Gender Studies Symposium Art Committee.

 

Wednesday, March 8, 2006
9:00-10:30 a.m.

Tearing Down the Walls: Women’s Mobility Throughout History (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Jim Kopp, LC Director of Watzek Library
Alena Chun, LC student and Symposium co-chair, “Freedom Machines: Women’s Mobility and Bicycles during the Victorian Era”
Sarah Hill, LC student, “Change in East German Lesbian Social and Political Culture with the Fall of the Wall”
Susan Ferentinos
, Public History Manager, Organization of American Historians, “The Case of the Flapper: Age and Gender in 1920s America”
Laura Dedon
, Linfield College student, “’A Smart Woman Can Do Very Well in This Country’: Women, Higher Education and the Northwest Frontier”

Body Positive Dialogues (Thayer)
Moderator: Janet Davidson, LC Associate Professor of Psychology
Amelia Blakeman, LC student, “Modern Eunuchs and Body Modification”
Dorinda Welle, LC ‘85 and Director, Youth & Community Development Research, National Development & Research Institutes, Inc., “‘My Ego’s Sayin’ Gotta Grow Your Butt!’: Self-Body Dialogues of Development Among LGBTQ Youth”
Chelsea Lincoln, co-founder, Queen Size Revolution

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Workshop with Kate Bornstein: Introduction to Gender Play (Stamm)
Introduced by Jenny Bornstein, Interlibrary Loan Specialist

Bodies of Law (Thayer)
Moderator: Rima DasGupta LC Assistant Professor of Sociology
Linda Love, partner in the law firm Williams Love O’Leary Craine & Powers, “From Fen-Phen to Breast Implants to Hormone Therapy: Manufactures, Product Liability Law, and Women”
Beth Allen, Adjunct Professor at LC Law School, civil rights attorney, “Sodomy Then and Now: A Legal and Historical Perspective”
Katelyn Oldham, Law Offices of Judy Snyder, “Gender Stereotypes and Employment Discrimination”

12:30-2:00 p.m.

The Modern Working Girl (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Keri Rose, LC ‘05
Elizabeth A. Skewes, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado at Boulder, “The President as Character: The West Wing’s Josiah Bartlet and Commander in Chief’s Mackenzie Allen”
Sassafras Lowrey, student, Portland State University, “Stripping the Binary: Explorations in Female-bodied Transgender Sex Work”
Rita Jones, Director of Women’s Studies, University of Northern Colorado, “From Women to Mothers: Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything, and Contemporary Young Women” THIS PAPER HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN

Women’s Role in Politics and Why It Matters (Thayer)
Moderstor: Cecilia Chessa, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Lindsey Miller, LC student, “The Interest Group Dynamics Behind the Creation of Domestic Violence Courts”
Karen Hooper, LC student, “Gendered Judging: An Analysis of Judicial Decision-Making”
Sonia Ahmad, LC student, “Women’s Movements in Egypt and Turkey”
Maura Megan Ross, LC student, “The Treatment of Women in High School U.S. History Textbooks”

1:30-2:15 p.m.

Performance: Surgemony II: Segue, by The Gyrl Grip (Foyer near Council Chamber)
A durational performance installation, or “install/action,” utilizing butoh-inspired movement and surgical video footage to explore the rediscovery of intimate touch after a physical and hormonal change.

2:15-3:30 p.m.

The Embodiment of Gender in Medicine (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Wendy McLennan, LC Biology Lab Instructor/Coordinator
Sara Becker, family physician who treats transgendered patients
Melissa Herman, neurology student, Oregon Health and Sciences University
Leigh Kochan, naturopathic physician and professor of gynecology at Western States Chiropatric College
Laura Santi, acupuncturist and assistant to the dean of academic affairs, Oregon College of Oriental Medicine
Alivia Thompson, surgery resident, Oregon Health and Sciences University

From “Date Rape” to Domestic Violence: A Look at Sexual Violence on College Campuses, Past, Present, and Future (Stamm)
Moderator: Melissa A. Osmond, LC Coordinator of Student Success and Wellness Programs
Bonnie Klees, Associate Director, LC Counseling Center
David B. Rosengard, LC Resident Director of Residence Life
Katrina Light, LC student and Symposium co-chair

Roundtable: Gender Worldwide (Thayer)
Moderator: Deborah Heath, LC Associate Professor of Anthropology
Katie Cercone, Tiffany Henning, Kristin Robinson, Rhoie Stewart, and Laina Wustner, LC students
A discussion of a range of topics, including mail-order brides, the effects of global economic policy, genital cutting, and sex workers in Brazil.

3:45-5:15 p.m.

Featured Event: Reading by poet and novelist Michelle Tea (Council Chamber)
Followed by a discussion with the author.
Introduced by Becca Norman and Kate Merrill, LC students and Symposium co-chairs

 

MICHELLE TEA is a poet and novelist whose most recent book is Rent Girl, an illustrated novel (with illustrations by Laurenn McCubbin). Tea’s other works include Valencia (winner of the 2000 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction), The Chelsea Whistle, and The Beautiful: Collected Poems. She has also edited several anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica 2004 and Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. Tea is co-founder of the spoken word performance group Sister Spit.

7:30 p.m.

Keynote Address: “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us” (Council Chamber)
Kate Bornstein, transgender activist, performance artist, and playwright
Introduced by Kestryl Lowrey, LC student

 

KATE BORNSTEIN’s books include Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us; My Gender Workbook; and the cyber-romance-action novel, Nearly Roadkill co-authored with Caitlin Sullivan. Bornstein’s many plays and performance pieces include “Hidden: A Gender”, and “The Opposite Sex Is Neither”. Her most recent work, Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Teen Suicide will hit bookstores in May 2006. Bornstein’s numerous speaking appearances and performances mix feminist theory, personal experience, and humorous observation in questioning ideas about gender, sexuality, and identity.

Thursday, March 9, 2006
9:00-10:30 a.m.

Gender Issues in Post-Soviet Central Asia (Council Chamber)
Screening from the documentary film series Gender Montage: Paradigms of Post-Soviet Space
Followed by panel discussion
Moderator: Donna T. Seifer, LC Instructor of Russian Language and Culture
Irina Tabakova, LC IREX exchange student from Turkmenistan
Danil Semenov, LC student from Kazakhstan
Matthew Price, LC student
James Tinker, LC student

Do-It-Yourself Workshop: Make Tampons and Zines (Thayer)
Moderator: Alena Chun, LC student and Symposium co-chair
Megan Shannon, LC student
Katie Cercone, LC student

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Identity Politics and Activism (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Richard Peck, LC Professor of International Affairs
Rebecca Hyman, Director of Women’s and Gender Studies, Oglethorpe University, “Identity Politics and Its Discontents”
Kerry Birnbach, LC student, “Transnational and Women’s Rights: Changing Norms in the Private Sphere”
Sarah Seeborg, LC student, “The Forgotten Fighters: Women in the Guerrilla Movements of El Salvador and Nicaragua”
Ursula Miniszewski, LC ‘00 and participant in Human Rights Delegation to Colombia, “De la Casa a la Plaza: From the Home to the Town Square: Colombian Women Taking the Civil War Personally”

Roundtable: The Language of Liberation in American Theologies (Stamm)
Moderator: Susanna Morrill, LC Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
David Ellenwood, Ellie Glusman, Leah Kubany, Erin Levenick, Kate Merrill, and Stephen Starrett, LC students.
A discussion of topics including Islam/Muslims in the US, Central American Liberation theology, Shakers, spiritualism and free love, and the Promise Keepers.

Body Language(s) in the Classroom: Female Students and Female Teachers (Thayer)
Moderator: Liz Stanhope, LC Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Susan Kirtley, LC ‘95, Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Justine Dymond, Coordinator of Teaching Consultation, Center for Teaching, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Wendy Bergoffen, Department of English and Women’s Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh

12:30-2:00 p.m.

Gender Differences in Perception and Importance of Body Image: Cross-Generational and Cross-Cultural Comparisons (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Yueping Zhang, LC Assistant Professor of Psychology
LC students Kathryn Dennett, Chelsea Heveran, Laura Koch, Arezu Mahjoubi, and Erika Spangler

Women and the Written Word (Stamm)
Moderator: Mary Szybist, LC Assistant Professor of English
Edward Whitley, Assistant Professor of English, Lehigh University, “Elizabeth Porter Gould, Author of Leaves of Grass: Gender, Editing, and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Marketplace”
Kirk Hoppe, Associate Professor of African and World History, University of Illinois at Chicago, “Sex with the Commandant’s Wife: Sexual Degradation and Violence in African Literature”
T.J. Boisseau, Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s History, University of Akron, “’I would rather see you dead’: Sexual Purity and the Question of the Grandmother in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Anita Helle, Associate Professor of English, Oregon State University, “’Acetic Acid in a Sealed Tin’: Plath, Photography and the Archive”

Roundtable: Perspectives on Abortion and Pro-Choice Activism (Thayer)
Moderator: Kate Merrill, LC student and Symposium co-chair
Brianna McMichael, LC student and summer clinic assistant at Planned Parenthood in St. Paul, MN
Lindsay Swanson, Reed College student and intern at Reed College VOX, sponsored by Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette
Sarah Baum, LC student and counseling intern at Lovejoy Surgicenter
Kayla Reich, Administrator and Director, Lovejoy Surgicenter
Treasure Mackley, Political and Field Director, NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon
Todd Hager, Online Health Center, Patient Services Staff, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette

2:15-3:45 p.m.

Witnesses of War: Reacting to Large-Scale Violence (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Linda Angst LC Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Marvin Simmons, co-founder, Northwest Veterans for Peace, veteran of Vietnam War
Bill Bires, president, Northwest Veterans for Peace, veteran of Korean War
Katrina Light, LC student and Symposium co-chair, presenting book and film titled Vivisect

Roundtable: Non-Traditional Parenting and Gender Roles (Stamm)
Moderator: Kelli Roesch, LC student
Melissa A. Lemke, student, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, “A Review of Research Challenging Arguments against LGB Parents and LGB Adoption”
Aubrey Fong, LC student, on being the birth parent of an adopted child
Matt Weatherman, on being raised by a lesbian mom and her partner
Joanne Chun, on raising a disabled daughter
Michael Hunter-Bernstein, on raising two young sons with his partner
Sia Sellu, modern working girl, single mom and “Hip Mama”
Representative from Love Makes a Family

Performing Genders (Thayer)
Moderator: Jennifer Hubbert, LC Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology
David B. Rosengard, LC Resident Director of Residence Life, “Gender Play at Level 60: Identity and Expression in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games”
Laura A. Harris, Professor of English, World Literature and Black Studies, Pitzer College, “Confessions of the Pillow Queen: A Queer Femme-inist History and Theory of Sexuality, Shhh!”
Trudi Peterson, Associate Professor of Communication and Theatre Arts, Monmouth College, “Between Compliance and Resistance: The Narrative Articulation of Women’s Interrelationships with Beauty Discourses”
Anjali Nath and Shannon M. Hewkin, students, California State University, Fullerton, “Veiled by the Orange Curtain: Effects on Body Image of Lesbianism and Class in Orange County”

4:00-5:15 p.m.

Good Work, Sister! (Council Chamber)
Screening of digital update of “Good Work, Sister! Women Shipyard Workers of World War II: An Oral History”
Followed by discussion with Sandy Polishuk, Tina McMahon, Sarah Cook, and Barbara Gundle of the Northwest Women’s History Project
Introduced by Jean Ward, LC Professor of Communication

Disability, Feminism and Sexuality(Thayer)
Moderator: Dale Holloway, LC Coordinator of Student Support Services
Jody Ramey, PSU graduate student, head of PSU Disability Advocacy Cultural Association (DACA)
Susan Blanchard, PSU student
Rev. Elizabeth McNeff PSU graduate student and research scientist at PSU RRI
Emi Koyama, Director, Intersex Initiative

7:30 p.m.

Keynote Address: “Toward Sexual Self-Determination: Historical Perspectives on Female Sexuality” (Council Chamber)

Estelle Freedman, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in U.S. History at Stanford University

Introduced by Lisa Webb, LC Associate Dean and Director of Ethnic Student Services

 

ESTELLE FREEDMAN has taught at Stanford University since 1976 and co-founded the program in Feminist Studies. She is a widely published and influential scholar whose many books include No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, Maternal Justice: Miriam Van Waters and the Female Reform Tradition, and Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, which she co-authored with John D’Emilio. Freedman has received numerous awards for her distinguished teaching, including the Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award, conferred by the American Historical Association. Her research has been supported by a series of grants from such institutions and organizations as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Association of University Women. Professor Freedman holds a BA from Barnard College and a PhD from Columbia University.

Friday, March 10, 2006
9:00-10:30 a.m.

Reading Adolescent Sexuality (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Julie Hastings, LC Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Elaine Gass Hirsch, Reference Librarian and Nikki Williams, Access Services/Technology Specialist, LC Watzek Library, “Rainbow Reading: LGBT Images in Children’s and Young Adult Literature”
Lora Lyn Worden, LC ‘99 and graduate student, Mills College, “Sex and Responsibility in the Young Adult Novel”

Gender Borderlands in U.S.-Mexico Sister Cities: A Case Study of El Paso/Ciudad Juárez (Thayer)
Moderator: Elliott Young, LC Associate Professor of History
Joanna (Gypsy) Swanger, Resident Director, Earlham College Border Studies Program
Emily Webb, and Deborah Schwartz, LC students who participated in Earlham College Border Studies Program

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

(Mis)Representing Gender and Sexuality in the Media (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Christine Linsley, LC Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology
Soniya Deshmukh, LC student, “Gender Portrayal in Television Commercials (A Content Analysis)”
Mark Bernhardt, graduate student, University of California, Riverside, “Details of a Murder: Gender, Homicide, and the Relationship between Picture and Text in the New York Press Coverage of the Lizzie Borden Case”
Kestryl Lowrey, LC student, “Polywhat?: The Western Conflation of Polygyny and Polyamory”

Cascade AIDS Project: Gender Identity, Sexuality, and the Rhetoric of Prevention (Stamm)
Moderator: Brie Soares, LC student
Sydney Linden, LC student
Shelagh Johnson, Cascade AIDS Project
Representatives of Teen to Teen, peer education and prevention group

Bodies and Texts in French Literature (Thayer)
Moderator: Katja Alpeter-Jones, LC Assistant Professor of German
Molly Robinson Kelly, LC Assistant Professor of French, “Writing Incarnation: The Body Secular and Sacred in Old French Narrative”
Sarah Nelson, Assistant Professor of French, University of Idaho, “Wives Errant: Hortense and Marie Mancini, and the Negotiation of Feminine gloire in Seventeenth-Century France”
Isabelle C. DeMarte, LC Assistant Professor of French, “Her Body in Her Text: Olympe de Gouges’ Self-Published Author-Biography”

12:30-2:00 p.m.

Brownbag lunch discussion with Estelle Freedman: “Women’s Studies/Gender Studies/Feminist Studies–Past and Future” (Gray)
Moderator: Jane Hunter, LC Professor of History and Director of Gender Studies program

Performance: The Girl Stories by Danielle McClelland, LC ‘90 (Fir Acres Black Box Theatre)
This solo show explores constructions of gender and sexuality.
Introduced by Stephanie Arnold, LC Professor of Theatre

2:15-3:30 p.m.

Queer Bodies and Queer Spaces (Council Chamber)
Moderator: J.M. Fritzman, LC Associate Professor of Philosophy
Cathy Hannabach, graduate student, University of California, Davis, “Housing Multiplicity: Transgender Geographies of Temporal Embodiment”
Ryka Aoki de la Cruz>, Professor, Santa Monica College, “S/Z/G – An Asian Trans Artist’s Comparison of Barthes, Balzac, and the Murder of Gwen Araujo”THIS PAPER HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN
Ryan D. Fong, graduate student, University of California, Davis, “Touching Times in New Queer Cinema: Temporal Friction and the Historiographic Potential of Erotic Pleasures”

Workshop: Theatre For Social Change (Stamm)
Interactive games and exercises for empowerment and activism. Based on Theatre of the Oppressed.
Facilitated by Tamara Wallace LC ‘01.

Roundtable: From Pioneers to Professionals: Moving Gender Studies from the Academy into Occupational Action (Thayer)
Moderator: Adonica De Vault, LC Director of Career Advising
Kito Alvarez, LC ‘02 and labor organizer for childcare providers, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 925
Meg Daly, LC ‘91, author of Surface Tension: Love, Sex, and Politics Between Lesbians and Straight Women, and co-editor of Letters of Intent: Women Cross the Generations to Talk about Family, Work, Sex, Love and the Future of Feminism
Serena Cruz Walsh, LC ‘89 and Multnomah County commissioner
Stephanie Reynolds, LC ‘89, crime prevention specialist, and former director of WomenStrength

3:45-5:15 p.m.

The Power of Positive Feminism: Jean Ward and Gender Studies at Lewis & Clark College (Council Chamber)
Moderator: Kristi Williams, LC Director of Academic Advising
Jane Atkinson, LC Provost will give a history of the Gender Studies Program and Symposium
Elaine Maveety, former coordinator of LC Gender Studies Symposium
Sylvia Sissel, LC ‘95 and LC Adjunct Assistant Professor of Communication
Deborah Heath, LC Associate Professor of Anthropology
Dinah Dodds, LC Professor of German
Ali Korfin, LC student

Looking Different and Looking Differently (Thayer)
Moderator: Rishona Zimring, LC Associate Professor of English
Maude Hines, Assistant Professor of English, Portland State University, “Reading Bodies/Bodies Reading: Corporeal Semiotics in Literature and the Academy”
Caleb Kay, graduate student, Western Washington University, “Written on the Body: Victorian Taxonomies of Gender Variance”
Liz Montegary, graduate student, Cultural Studies, University of California, Davis, “Queer(ing) Recovery: Individual/Collective Therapy in Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood
Phyllis Betz, Professor of English, La Salle University, “Trans-Formations: Popular Texts and the Representation of Transgendered Characters”

5:30-7:00 p.m.
Alumni Reception (Stamm)
7:30 p.m.

Featured Event: Performance by DIYAA, aka DRED (Council Chamber)
With opening performance by Plasmic Stallion from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls
Introduced by Alena Chun and Katrina Light, LC students and Symposium co-chairs

 

DIYAA aka DRED, is an artist, lecturer, educator, yoga teacher, and healer who has traveled the world using her work as an educational and healing tool. She inspires people to think about, experience, embrace, and appreciate the diversity and freedom of individual expression—not just in others, but also in themselves. Although DIYAA has been called the female Eddie Murphy, and the black Lily Tomlin, she is in a league all her own. She has appeared in feature and independent films, as well as on HBO, MTV, and the Oxygen Network. Website: www.dredking.net Phone: 212-946-4475

For Additional Information:
Kimberly Brodkin, Faculty Director
Gender Studies Program
Lewis & Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd.
Portland, Oregon 97219
Phone: 503-768-7678
email: kbrodkin@lclark.edu

Student Organizers: Alena Chun, Katrina Light, Kate Merrill, Becca Norman

 

Sponsors: Associated Students of Lewis & Clark College and Lewis & Clark’s Gender Studies Program

 

Lewis & Clark College adheres to a nondiscriminatory policy with respect to employment, enrollment, and program. The College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicap or disability, sexual orientation, or marital status and has a firm commitment to promote the letter and the spirit of all equal opportunity and civil rights laws.