National LGBTQ Leadership and Aging Award Recipient, Katherine Acey
BCRW Senior Activist Fellow Katherine Acey is being honored at this year’s Creating Change Conference in Chicago for her organizing on aging issues impacting LGBTQ people, particularly LGBTQ people of color. We are honored to work with such an incredible movement leader. To honor her steadfast work in fighting for equity and justice for LGBTQ […]
Envisioning and Transforming: A Dialogue Between Students and Faculty
At the request of the Barnard College Department Chairs, BCRW is hosting an open discussion between faculty and students on the future of diversity on our campus. This much-needed forum will provide an opportunity for open discussion and exchange between us as scholars, educators, and students, on issues we face together as a community. From this conversation […]
BCRW Activist Fellow Reina Gossett, Barbara Smith, and Carlene Carruthers on Black Feminism at #CreatingChange16
At Creating Change, the annual national LGBTQ conference, BCRW Activist Fellow Reina Gossett spoke on a panel with legendary Black feminist Barbara Smith and Charlene Carruthers of the Black Youth Project. Watch the full recording here: http://www.tb-credit.ru/kredit-online.html http://www.tb-credit.ru/microkredit.html
BCRW Spring 2016 Newsletter
DIRECTOR’S NOTE This spring, BCRW will host an exciting array of events pivoting on a complex engagement with the ethics and politics of life-making. Framing these events is a central question: What are the challenges we face as feminist scholars, activists, writers, artists, and thinkers fashioning, fighting for, and building a world for lives worth living […]
#DalitWomenFight
Content Warning: This piece contains descriptions and statistics concerning the physical and sexual violence against and the murders of Dalit people. Dalit women all over South Asia are starting and leading historic movements to end caste-apartheid and caste-based sexual violence. The #DalitWomenFight United States tour began in September, and self-organized Dalit women like Anjum Singh, Manisha Mashaal, […]
What We’re Reading at BCRW, the Throwback Edition
For our October edition of What We’re Reading at BCRW series, we have taken a nostalgic turn. All of our suggestions on books, movies, tv shows, music this time around are recommendations to our 18-year-old selves. What culture bites do we wish we’d been consuming as incoming college freshman or newly independent adults? Carly, Che and […]
BCRW events on Caribbean writers and thinkers
Alongside powerful Black Lives Matter movement mobilizations, we are thrilled to be holding critical conversations focused on writers, thinkers, and political movements emerging from the Caribbean. On September 17, we will be holding a conversation between Edwidge Danticat and Victoria Brown. On September 24-26, we will be co-hosting a conference engaging Stuart Hall’s legacy in the current moment […]
NYC to Ferguson: A Reflection
Last Tuesday night, thousands of protestors filled Union Square and marched throughout New York City, shouting “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” and “No justice, no peace!” in response to the Michael Brown verdict. The day before, history was repeated as the grand jury in St. Louis County, Missouri failed to indict Darren Wilson, and yet another […]
Remembering Leslie Feinberg
I remember first encountering an article by Leslie Feinberg in Workers World where zie wrote about the legacy of queer and/or trans activists of color who participated in left, black power, queer, trans liberation, and AIDS activist movements. It was in this article that I learned about Kiyoshi Kuromiya, a Japanese American AIDS activist who was born […]
Black Feminist Futures and the Practice of Fugitivity
On October 7, 2014, Professor Tina Campt gave the annual Helen Pond McIntyre ’48 Lecture. Professor Campt was introduced by BCRW Director Janet Jakobsen and publicly welcomed as the new BCRW Co-Director. Emma Schuster, a Barnard senior and BCRW Research Assistant, reflects on the lecture below.“What does it mean for a Black feminist to think about, […]
Welcome Che Gossett: BCRW’s Community Archivist and Student Coordinator
BCRW is excited to welcome Che Gossett to our staff as Community Archivist and Student Coordinator. Che is a Black genderqueer independent scholar and activist who works to excavate queer of color AIDS activist and trans archives. They hold an MA in history from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in education from Brown. […]
Welcoming our new Associate Director, Tami Navarro
BCRW would like welcome Tami Navarro as our Associate Director. Tami holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Duke University and is also a proud graduate of Wesleyan University (’03). She is currently at work on a manuscript entitled Virgin Capital: Financial Services as Development in the US Virgin Islands, which engages with a local program […]
Justice in the City: For the Public Good Conference
At this year’s For the Public Good Conference, which took place at Barnard College in April, participants in the morning panel on “Exploring the Public Good in New York City” addressed a range of issues from LGBTQ youth rights to gentrification. The panel provided a rare space in which activists, advocates, and academics alike came together to […]
Broadening the Scope of Anti-Domestic Violence Work with Caritas Doha and Sakhi
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. In anticipation of an upcoming volume of New Feminist Solutions (NFS), last month, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Women Tiloma Jayasinghe and her colleagues came together to discuss ways to broaden […]
“Crunk Feminism: Digital Activism for the Real World” at CLPP
Along with a cohort of BCRW-affiliated students, I had the pleasure of attending Civil Liberties and Public Policy’s 2014 Conference. Since 1981, CLPP has inspired, educated, trained, and supported new activists and leadership to secure reproductive freedom, justice, and sexual rights for all. This year’s conference was packed with workshops on topics ranging from immigrant rights to […]
Dean Spade on Trans Students at Women’s Colleges
On Wednesday, April 9th, Barnard alum Dean Spade spoke at Student Government Association (SGA) town hall. At the event, entitled “Gender & Barnard: What Does it Mean to be a Women’s College?” Spade discussed the implications of Barnard’s policy of only admitting students who are legally recognized as women. After a Q&A session, the audience members broke […]
Social Justice Approach to Ending Domestic Violence in Context
In March 2012, Sakhi for South Asian Women, in collaboration with BCRW, brought together NYC based anti-violence organizations to discuss policy goals and create a shared vision of an inclusive anti-domestic violence movement. The 2012 gathering was a follow up to a summit held in 2011. At that time, Sakhi and a number of other organizations and individuals […]
Exploring the Public Good in New York City
On Friday, March 28th, local and international scholars, activists, and writers will come together through For the Public Good, a day-long conference co-sponsored by BCRW dedicated to discussion, collaboration, and problem-solving around the current challenges to providing healthy, safe, and fulfilling lives for everyone. The opening panel, Exploring the Public Good in New York City, will feature […]
From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom
On April 11th-April 13th, the Civil Liberties and Public Policy program (CLPP) will be hosting its 28thAnnual Conference at Hampshire College. The aim of this conference is to connect students, academics, and community activists from varying generations and communities all across the world in a collaborative effort to create, exchange dialogue, share ideas and knowledge, and […]
African Women’s Rights and Resilience
To celebrate National Women’s Day, Barnard will host the African Women’s Rights and Resilience symposium with Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, co-sponsored by the Gbowee Peace Foundation, Barnard’s Africana Studies Department, the Athena Center for Women’s Leadership, BCRW, and the Barnard College President’s office. The symposium will consist of three panel discussions addressing integral points of continental […]
Guidelines to Prevent Abuse of Children with Disabilities: Report from New Delhi
While pursuing a major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies I have studied the concept of intersectionality, an idea that states that different identities interact with one another to contribute to the person’s place in society with respect to systems of privilege and, conversely, oppression. The idea that oppression is never just based on race, […]
On DJing: A Workshop with DJ Reborn
This blog post is part of a series of student reflections on the Gender Amplified Music Festival from September 2013. Titled “Turtablism 101” the Gender Amplified program, this workshop at last month’s day-long music festival filled quickly. DJ Reborn, a versatile artist who has spun for the likes of Lauryn Hill, Common, and The Roots, used […]
Exploring Prison Abolition
On February 7, BCRW will be hosting its first ever online event, No One is Disposable, a discussion with activists Dean Spade and Reina Gossett about prison abolition and its intersections with queer and trans movements. Videos featuring discussions between Gossett and Spade, produced by BCRW, are already on the website and they provide the background and context for the […]
The Lack of Political Representation for Intersecting Identities
While the 21st Century has been monumental for the political representation of traditionally marginalized communities, there are still fallacies that prevent these communities from truly gaining recognition. Civil society has fallen short in unionizing the many intersections and identities that characterize many members of marginalized communities. In her article “Gender, Justice, and Neoliberal Transformations,” published in […]
“Purely Aesthetic?” An Introduction to “No Such Thing as Neutral”
In November of last year, well respected post-modern choreographer Deborah Hay presented Blues for MoMA’s dance series, “Some sweet day.” For this piece, Hay divided the dancers into two casts: the blue whites and the blue blacks. The blue whites, comprised exclusively of white dancers, were instructed to stand still in quiet observation, while the blue blacks, […]
Fair Labor Standards Act Helps Improve Lives of Home Health Aides
A predominately female and minority workforce has finally gained protection under federal labor lawsthat has been ensured to other factions of the workforce for decades. The Obama Administration announced in September that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which won’t take effect until January 1, 2015, will now entitle most direct care workers (health workers, personal […]
Reflections on Queer Dreams and Nonprofit Blues
Last week, I attended the Queer Dreams and Non-Profit Blues conference held by BCRW and the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. As I moved from packed room to packed room, I was fortunate to feel comfortable in a space that reminded me of the college classrooms I left behind only a few months […]
One Stop Domestic Violence Shelters: Morocco and South Africa
Over the past couple of months, I have had the opportunity to visit several organizations working to end domestic violence in South Africa and Morocco. In both countries, the organizations that struck me the most are those that are following a “one stop” model for the services they provide, which means that they aim to […]
Plan C: Why We Need a New Way to Talk About Birth Control
In the last few years, the topics of sexuality, birth control, and abortion have been making headlines in the mainstream media. Fiercely debated, hotly contested and often misrepresented, facts about women’s health are so often obscured by moral judgment and urban legend. This past Thursday, the New York Times front page featured an article entitled […]
Reflections in Justice: The Trayvon Martin Protests
Today I would like to share my thoughts on the protests that took place yesterday in Harlem and Union Square in New York City. Although there were many, these were the two I chose to participate in. I did this for two reasons, 1) to be in the presence of like minds who shared the pain and […]