Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies (GWSS) faculty present at the annual National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Conference

GWSS faculty organized sessions, presented papers, and celebrated their new book at the annual NWSA conference in Atlanta, Georgia. GWSS faculty coordinator Julie Shayne organized a session called “The Permanence of the Feminist Classroom: Murals, Archives, and Films.” On this panel she presented a paper called “Feminist Pedagogy + Feminist Knowledge Production = Feminist Archives” about the Feminist Community Archive of WA (FCA-WA) project she co-created and grows through her class “Histories and Movements of Gender and Sexuality” (BISGWS 302), offered this winter. Alka Kurian was also on this panel and presented a paper called “Gender, Culture, and Human Rights” about a film festival her students organized in her class “Gender and Human Rights” (BIS 339). Kurian presented another paper called “Pinjra Tod: Break the Cage Movement in India” and moderated a roundtable on “#MeToo, Cyberfeminism and the Rise of Fourth Wave Feminism.” Kurian is now writing a book-length manuscript on global fourth wave feminism. Shayne also presented a second paper, this one called “Working Around Anti-Feminist Publishing Hierarchies” where she discussed her book Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas, and how leaving the tenure track created the freedom to pursue what she considers feminist-activist scholarship. Lauren Berliner was there to celebrate the publication of her new book Producing Queer Youth: The Paradox of Digital Media Empowerment (Routledge, 2018) and present a paper called “Are we the ones we’ve been waiting for? Finding care and community through medical crowdfunding.” Kari Lerum presented on a roundtable discussion titled “Sex Work after the Future: Demand the Impossible.” The panel engaged questions such as why it is important for feminists to study sexual labors and economies, and whether or not there will be sex industries after the (post capitalist) future. Karisa Butler-Wall presented a paper called “‘Picturing Possibilities’: AIDS Activism, Disability, and the Politics of Belonging” based on earlier work published in Disability Studies Quarterly. Finally, Lee Ann Wang participated in a round table called “Law, Sexual Violence and the Racial, Settler State.”