Los Demonios Del Edén: Gender, Violence and Activism in Mexico
With her 2005 book Los Demonios del Edén (Demons of Eden), author and human rights activist Lydia Cacho revealed the existence of organized sexual abuse of minors in Mexico. Following the publication of her book, she was subject to police harassment and became a symbol of a growing movement for greater freedom of the press. […]
Women, Philosophy, and History: A Conference in Celebration of Eileen O’Neill
This two-day conference continues the groundbreaking work of Eileen O’Neill ’75 by examining the standard narrative of the history of philosophy from a feminist perspective. O’Neill’s pioneering scholarship has brought to light the texts and ideas of women in the early modern period, and demonstrated the substantial contributions they made to philosophy. Her work has […]
New Feminist Activism
BCRW has long been interested in supporting social justice movements that reach beyond the limits of traditional feminist activism. In past semesters, we have hosted programs that have taken up a variety of intersectional projects that join feminist activism and analysis with other progressive movements, including reproductive justice, workplace rights across the economic spectrum, and […]
Women and Work: Building Solidarity with America’s Vulnerable Workers
Last year, BCRW hosted the first National Domestic Workers Alliance conference, bringing together domestic workers from across the country to develop a national agenda, and to discuss how best to educate the public and strategize to achieve fair labor standards for domestic workers, including a living wage, basic benefits, and health care. This year, we […]
Prose, Poetry and the Art of the Political
For many decades, Antjie Krog and Adrienne Rich have been at the forefront of the dissident tradition within their respective language worlds, writing poetry and prose that pushes the limits of form while questioning the structures of political violence in which they live. Both are among the most lauded writers of their generation, receiving acclaim […]
Muybridge’s Guatemalan Laundresses: Gender, Labor, and Aesthetics on a Coffee Plantation
In 1875, the Anglo-American landscape photographer Eadweard Muybridge traveled to Central America as a guest of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. The trip resulted in an album of luxurious views that document the impact of U.S. involvement in the politics and economics of the region. In addition to producing picturesque views of the shady plantations […]
Boys and Girls in Post-Conflict Societies
Long after formal peace treaties have been signed, war continues to shape social institutions and interactions. Young people who have grown up amid violent conflict often experience its lingering effects through the loss of family, estrangement from local communities, destruction of the physical environment, or the instability of the government. This panel takes an interdisciplinary […]
The State of Feminism: Post-Election Race and Gender Analysis
BCRW’s 2008 “Scholar and Feminist” Conference examined the state of democracy, and now that the election results are in and a new President has just been inaugurated, we turn to the state of feminism in the aftermath of the election. There is no question that the results of the 2008 U.S. presidential election were monumental. […]
Off-Ramps and On-Ramps
Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett (top image, left) and news anchor and correspondent Elizabeth Vargas (second image, left) will engage in a discussion on the specific challenges facing professional women as they juggle work and family commitments. In her recent book, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, Sylvia Ann Hewlett takes a critical look at how companies can attract […]
Small Talk: Cell-to-Cell Communication in Bacteria
Bacteria, primitive single-celled organisms, communicate with chemical languages that allow them to synchronize their behavior and thereby act as enormous multicellular organisms. This process is called quorum sensing and it enables bacteria to successfully infect and cause disease in plants, animals, and humans. Investigations of the molecular mechanisms underlying quorum sensing are leading to the […]
The Political and Social Economy of Care
UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development) Conference: This conference is free and open to the public. All are welcome. Opening Remarks and Keynote Addresses(9:00-11:00) Joan Tronto, Hunter College and City University of New York Elizabeth Jelin, CONICET, University of Buenos Aires Shahra Razavi, UNRISD Session 1: State Responses to Social Change (11:00-12:50) Mary […]
The Politics of Reproduction: New Technologies of Life
Increased demand for assisted reproductive technology (ART) and transnational adoption has been propelled by a number of factors, including the development of new technologies and changes in familial form—such as childrearing in second or third marriages; lesbian, gay, and transgendered families; and delays in childbearing and subsequent difficulties in conception—that make ART helpful. Other relevant […]
Pedagogy of the Dispossessed: Decolonization and the Struggle for Democracy
The post 9-11 deployment of unfettered neoliberalism (i.e. deregulation, privatization, downsizing, outsourcing) has led to a plethora of critiques of the U.S. as ushering in a new rise in empire building, global imperialism, and disaster capitalism. Examining the notion of the “American Empire,” from an indigenous perspective, Sandy Grande, associate professor of education at Connecticut […]
Trans Politics on a Neoliberal Landscape
Transgender, transsexual and other gender non-conforming people face persistent and severe discrimination in employment, education, health care, social and legal services, criminal justice and many other realms. Dean Spade ’97, legal expert on transgender issues and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, will discuss what trans politics can mean in the current political context […]
Women, Power and Politics: A Rising Tide?
From a Senate race in New Hampshire to the Presidential palace in Chile; from a team of high school debaters in New York City competing to participate in the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute’s Citywide Debate Competition to the halls of Parliament in Rwanda, women are becoming empowered. What inspires them, drives them, and keeps them […]
Gender on Ice
Conference kick-off True North Isaac Julien Film screening and discussion: Thursday, 11/20, 7:00 PM 202 Altschul Hall The conference opens Thursday, November 20 with a presentation by award-winning filmmaker Isaac Julien of his short film True North, based on the story of Matthew Henson, the first African-American to explore the Arctic with Robert Peary in […]
‘To recross the Atlantic’: Diasporic Art History and the Dialogic Imagination
Drawing on fresh analytical approaches to diaspora studies, Kobena Mercer, the British theorist and historian, proposes a model that identifies cross-culturality as one of the basic conditions of modernity. Discussing the nineteenth-century landscapes of Robert Scott Duncanson, this inquiry into ‘race,’ representation and visuality foregrounds unexplored aspects of the hermeneutics of the Black Atlantic. Kobena […]
Abolition Democracy and Global Politics
Since well before the publication of the feminist classic, Women, Race, and Class in 1981, this year’s Helen Pond McIntyre ’48 lecturer Angela Y. Davis has been concerned about the interconnections among issues, as well as about connections among peoples around the world. In “Abolition Democracy and Global Politics,” Davis will present a new and […]
The Descent of Men
How is race configured in the practices of genetic anthropology? What, more specifically, are the continuities and discontinuities between the practices of genetic anthropologists today and those of race scientists of old? Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj will analyze the evidentiary logic of research into male-Jewish origins within the broader context of genetic anthropological research into […]
Postcards from Tora Bora
In the summer of 2004, filmmakers Wazhmah Osman and Kelly Dolak set out to make an independent film that explored whether Afghan women’s lives had actually improved as a result of the US military campaign. The documentary that came out of this question, Postcards from Tora Bora, became far more than an exploration of women’s […]
Women for Afghan Women: Two Models for Successful Grassroots Work in Afghanistan
Women for Afghan Women (WAW), founded in April 2001, is a grassroots civil society organization with offices in New York City and Kabul, dedicated to securing the rights of Afghan women. WAW works both in New York and internationally to promote the agency of Afghan women through the creation of safe forums where Afghan women […]
Sex-Typed Interests: Do Early Hormones Create “Empathizers” and “Systemizers”?
There is currently widespread scientific endorsement of the idea that early hormones channel our fundamental interests in masculine or feminine directions. Even before the research leaves the pages of scientific journals, this idea is directly linked to career choices and chances, education, the division of labor in families, and the “drive” to be a leader […]
National Domestic Workers Alliance Conference
This June, BCRW joins Domestic Workers United in their educational efforts on fair labor standards for domestic workers in New York, including a living wage, basic benefits and health care. The first National Domestic Workers Alliance conference brings organizations from across the country together to discuss how best to protect the 200,000 domestic workers in […]
Looking to the Future: A Panel Discussion in Honor of Judith Shapiro
Since the beginning of her time as President of Barnard College Judith Shapiro has made her mark on a number of issues with wide ranging implications: women’s education, to be sure, but also academic integrity and freedom, and women’s leadership. She herself has embodied the best qualities of leadership in her guidance of the College […]
Rethinking Gender in African Universities
This lecture is part of the Virginia C. Gildersleeve lecture series Race, Gender, Community & Rights: Celebrating 15 Years of Africana Studies at Barnard. Amina Mama is Barbara Lee Distinguished Professor at Mills College. Before founding the first Gender Studies Program in Africa at the University of Cape Town, Professor Mama taught social studies and […]
Impossible Homecomings: Women Ethnographers and the Places They Left Behind
In this year’s Rennert Forum on Women in Judaism, Ruth Behar, Jewish Cuban American anthropologist, writer, and noted feminist, will reflect on the recent literature being produced by diasporic women ethnographers, journalists, and writers, addressing their contradictory and often pained relationships to their home countries. Focusing on the work of Latin American and Caribbean women, […]
Africana Studies 15th Anniversary Banquet
This event is part of the Virginia C. Gildersleeve lecture series Race, Gender, Community & Rights: Celebrating 15 Years of Africana Studies at Barnard.
Breaking Down Barriers: Women and Their Experiences in the Sciences
Despite the fact that enrollment of women studying in the sciences has risen to comparable numbers as that of white men in higher education, women of color are still grossly underrepresented in academic and other science professions. This panel will provide students the opportunity to hear from women who have not only beaten the odds, […]
The Biopolitics of Caste
Anupama Rao, Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Barnard, will speak about what she terms the “violence of recognition” through the reading of a recent “caste atrocity” that occurred in 2006, which involved the sexual brutalization and murder of a Dalit family in western India. Her lecture will address the symbology of caste violence […]
Fear of Flying: A Conference on the Work of Erica Jong
The Barnard Center for Research on Women is pleased to co-sponsor the next event in the Columbia Institute for Research on Women and Gender’s Feminist Classics Series. This spring, the Series explores the legacy of Barnard alum Erica Jong’s groundbreaking first novel Fear of Flying. An award-winning writer who has been integral in the creation […]