Archive
2013
Maya Krishna Rao
Maya Krishna Rao performs Ravanama, an excerpt from her solo piece on an actor in search of a character, Ravana, and The Walk, an applied theatre piece made in response to the December bus rape case in Delhi.
Read MoreAt the Intersection of Queer Studies and Religion
As part of a broader research project, “Interdisciplinary Innovations in the Study of Religion and Gender: Postcolonial, Post-Secular and Queer Perspectives,” hosted by Utrecht University, the Barnard Center for Research on Women and the Barnard Department of Religion present a discussion on the intersections of queer and religious studies. How has queer studies in religion […]
Read MoreMathematics and Beauty
Mina Teicher
Does beauty have a mathematical foundation? If so, can machines learn to identify it? Mina Teicher, professor of mathematics and neural computation at Bar-Ilan University, traces the mathematics behind beauty from the Golden Age in Spain to the 21st century, from the essence of visual experience to machine “vision,” in order to explore what beauty […]
Read MoreSexual Difference in a Time of Terror
Ellen Mortensen
On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people and wounded many others in a bombing and mass shooting in Norway motivated by his extreme right-wing ideology. In his manifesto, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” Breivik identified cultural Marxism, Islam, and feminism as the main causes of Europe’s decay. Arguing for the superiority […]
Read MoreFaustilla the Pawnbroker and Other Tales of Gender and Finance in the Early Roman Empire
Kristina Milnor
This lecture discusses female involvement in the public management of money during the first century of the Roman Empire. An ideology of gendered “separate spheres” was prevalent in the ancient world, emphasizing the importance of women’s place in the private, domestic realm, while assigning the space of business and finance to male citizens. Yet significant […]
Read MoreFrontiers in Jewish Studies: The Clever Ox, the Escaping Elephant, and Other Talmudic Animals
Beth Berkowitz
Is Judaism good or bad for animals? Beth Berkowitz hopes to bring us beyond this reductive question, with its frequent focus on the first two chapters of Genesis and Jewish dietary laws, to offer instead a more complex approach to the animal in Judaism and to spotlight some less predictable Jewish texts. Professor Berkowitz, newly […]
Read MoreHabitual New Media: Exposing Empowerment
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
New media technologies provoke both anxiety and hope: anxiety over surveillance and hope for empowerment. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun reveals that these two reactions complement rather than oppose each other by emphasizing how exposure is necessary in order for networks to work. Addressing the key ways that gender plays—and has historically played—into negotiating media exposure, […]
Read MoreQueer Dreams and Nonprofit Blues: Dilemmas of the Nonprofit Tradition in LGBT Politics
Over the last four decades, the formal, non-profit institutional structure has come to dominate social justice work in the US, replacing prior traditions of volunteer-led organizations, membership-based organizing and other more horizontal and participatory mechanisms of civic engagement. Nonprofit organizations have grown in part because of their designation by governments as sub-contractors for the delivery […]
Read MoreRedefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation
Estelle B. Freedman ’69
In her new book, Redefining Rape, Estelle Freedman ’69, professor of history at Stanford University and longtime friend of BCRW, explores not only the ways in which rape has defined citizenship throughout American history, but also how aspiring citizens have tried, repeatedly, to redefine rape. Long before second-wave feminists adopted an anti-rape platform, generations of […]
Read MoreFeminist Constellations: Intercultural Paradigms in the Americas
The main objective of this participatory conference is to provide a platform for feminist scholars and activists to engage in a meaningful dialogue about their struggles from their positions at the forefront of contemporary debates on democracy, economic, cultural and racial justice. By inviting scholars and activists who bridge Latin American, Africana, Native American, Latino, […]
Read MoreThe Fully Functional Cabaret
Star Amerasu, Ryka Aoki, Annie Danger, Red Durkin, Bryn Kelly, and Shawna Virago
Collectively written, produced by, and starring an all trans women cast, The Fully Functional Cabaret: Trans Women’s Secrets… REVEALED! is a self-described “love letter to and from trans womanhood.” Facilitated by Annie Danger and featuring the performances of Star Amerasu, Ryka Aoki, Annie Danger, Red Durkin, Bryn Kelly, and Shawna Virago, this vaudevillian style cabaret […]
Read MoreBacktalk/Crosstalk: Gendered Stories, Colonial Archives and Sexualized Subjects
Marisa J. Fuentes, Jennifer Morgan, and Yvette Christiansë
Backtalk/Crosstalk is a series of dialogues initiated by the Africana Studies Program to set members of the Africana faculty in conversation with diasporic scholars, artists and activists. The series highlights the gains of institutional recognition for Diaspora Studies, while encouraging and insisting on the impertinent, insolent and disruptive work that achieved such recognition. Backtalk/Crosstalk stages […]
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