Gender: A Dialogue Between the Sciences and Humanities
Ideas about gender have changed in complex ways in the 125 years since Barnard was founded. How have the natural sciences and humanities each contributed to these transformations? How have scientific and humanistic ways of thinking interacted to produce innovative, critical, and potentially transformative knowledge about the nature and meaning of human difference? What does […]
Why Sex? Why Gender?: Activist Research for Social Justice
At BCRW’s “Activism and the Academy” conference in 2011, Ai-jen Poo, Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, pointed out that if those who are dedicated to human rights and social justice continue to organize their efforts in silos “we will never have the power… to achieve even the demands that exist inside of those silos.”
A History of the Ugly
In medieval and Renaissance literature, ugliness often serves as an outward mark of a character’s internal depravity. Such a character is self-condemned, destroyed from within. But there are also cases of ugly characters who stand up for their ugliness, as though in protest against the moral code constructed by the larger society—or even by the […]
Love and Flames: Legacies of Black Queer and Prison Abolitionist Solidarity with Palestinian Struggle
In this paper, Community Activist and Student Coordinator Che Gossett examines the legacies of Black queer solidarity with Palestinian struggle by excavating June Jordan and James Baldwin’s archives for what Jose Muñoz called the performative force of the past and its import for current prison abolitionist, Palestinian solidarity and anti-pinkwashing movements. Looking as well at […]
Caribbean Feminisms on the Page
Distinguished writer Jamaica Kincaid, originally from Antigua, and debut novelist Tiphanie Yanique, who grew up in St. Thomas, come together with Barnard Associate Professor Kaiama L. Glover to discuss their experiences as women of color from the Caribbean, their thoughts on writing about the Caribbean region, and their engagement with gender and feminism in their […]
Without Cover of the Law: Writing the History of Enslaved Women
Drawing on her work about slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, luminary legal historian Annette Gordon-Reed will discuss the way law influences the portrayal of enslaved women and their families. Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law […]
Body Undone: A Salon in Honor of Christina Crosby
“Body Undone” focuses on Christina Crosby’s forthcoming memoir of living with disability, A Body, Undone: Living on After Great Pain. In 2003 Professor Crosby broke her neck in a bicycle accident. She writes, “Spinal cord injury has cast me into a surreal neurological wasteland that I traverse day and night. This account is an effort […]
Action on Education
REGISTER DESCRIPTION PROGRAM SPEAKERS Description—#sfedu Speakers include Ujju Aggarwal, Lalaie Ameeriar, Abigail Boggs, The Black Youth Project, Nuala Cabral, Natalia Cecire, Jaz Choi, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Kandice Chuh, Antonia Darder, Dána-Ain Davis, Ejeris Dixon, Tadashi Dozono, Melanie Duch, Rod Ferguson, Cindy Gao, Jamaica Gilmer, Dana Goldstein, Che Gossett, Karen Gregory, Zareena Grewal, Ileana Jiménez, Shenila […]
How Does It Feel to Be Stateless?
In September 2013, the Dominican Republic passed TC168/13, a law that permanently annulled the citizenship of children born to “undocumented parents,” going back to 1929. This law directly impacted the children of Haitian immigrants who have been brought into to the Dominican Republic as laborers for the past 80 years, a practice initiated by the […]
Censorship and Self-Censorship in India or: How Many Penguins Can Stand On a Book Before It Sinks?
Since Penguin India, under legal attack by Dina Nath Batra, agreed, in February of this year, to cease publication of Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, much has happened in the world of letters in India (not to mention the election of Narenda Modi, in the world of politics). There have been massive […]
Invisible Lives, Targeted Bodies: Impacts of Economic Injustice on LGBTQ Communities
As part of the ongoing Queer Survival Economies project spearheaded by Amber Hollibaugh, this conference works to make visible queer economic realities and survival strategies. Tracks and sessions will include queer perspectives within poor and low-income communities, immigration, the state, and transnational flows of labor; the invisibility of the many queer people working in industries […]
Natural Product Synthesis : A Platform for Discovery in Chemistry and Biology
The chemical synthesis of natural products provides an exciting platform from which to conduct fundamental research in chemistry and biology. Dr. Reisman’s laboratory has ongoing research programs targeting the chemical syntheses of several natural products. The densely packed arrays of heteroatoms and stereogenic centers that constitute these polycyclic targets challenge the limits of current technology […]
No Such Thing as Neutral
Countless forms of dance created and performed in public spaces are bundled under the umbrella of “vernacular” or “street.” These diverse methods have been widely recognized for their emphasis on improvisation, “informal” teaching methods, and the central role of marginalized communities of color in their production, yet they are often figured primarily in opposition to […]
Are the Gods Afraid of Black Sexuality? Religion and the Burdens of Black Sexual Politics
Registration and full schedule available here. We are living through a moment of tremendous change at the intersection of race, religion, and sexuality, which has significant implications both for those who study and practice religion alike. This conference will bring scholars, activists, and religious leaders together to explore a range of historical and contemporary phenomena […]
Birthright Crisis: The Power and Paradoxes of Media Advocacy
After a September 2013 court ruling stripped citizenship from thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent, long-term efforts to critique human rights conditions in the Dominican Republic gained traction while existing tensions between Dominican and Haitian diaspora groups also increased. Miriam Neptune will discuss the experience of screening her award-winning documentary Birthright Crisis as both an […]
Black Feminist Futures and the Practice of Fugitivity
What kinds of ‘practice’ create possibilities for new feminist futures? How do our everyday engagements with power complicate how we understand feminist struggle? This talk uses a black feminist conception of practice to think beyond conventional notions of resistance as the primary model for understanding the relationship of marginalized subjects to power. Focusing on archival […]
The Closet
Henry Abelove, Willbur Fisk Osborne Emeritus Professor of English at Wesleyan University, will ask and try to answer this question: How and why and in what specific circumstances did the term “the closet”–as connoting a hidden life–first come into use among gay and lesbian Americans? Professor Abelove is the co-editor of The Lesbian and Gay […]
Dance Workshop with Lite Feet legend Chrybaby Cozie
BCRW Alumnae Fellow Ali Rosa-Salas ’13 hosts Lite Feet legend Chrybaby Cozie at Barnard College for a dance class and discussion about this Harlem-founded dance form. For those who want to learn how to do the real Harlem Shake, this workshop is for you. The workshop will be held from 3 PM – 5 PM. This workshop is […]
Justice in the Home: Domestic Work Past, Present, and Future
DESCRIPTION PROGRAM REGISTER Description Link to Justice in the Home Wikispaces Click here to register online. Research about domestic work, domestic workers, and domestic worker organizing is an abundant and growing field. The attention garnered by organizing efforts by and on behalf of domestic workers, both nationally and internationally, has served as a spur to […]
“I Use My Love to Guide Me”: Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Impossible Situations
EVENT INFORMATION VIDEOS ASK A QUESTION RESOURCES Event Informaton In 2011, CeCe McDonald was a fashion design student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College when while walking to a grocery store, she and her friends were attacked by a group of white people shouting racist and transphobic slurs. When CeCe fatally stabbed one of their […]
Gender, Justice, and Activisms in New York City: A Special Pre-Conference Panel
How do contemporary social conditions affect activism on behalf of gender and sexual justice in New York City? Have economic shifts since the financial crisis of 2008 changed possibilities for activist undertakings? How can we support efforts for social justice under these new conditions? What kind of new work is being undertaken? In Fall 2013, […]
Remembering José Esteban Muñoz
Please join Tisch School of the Arts and the NYU Department of Performance Studies in remembering the life and work of José Esteban Muñoz. Memorial begins at 11 am. Reception to follow from 1 pm – 2 pm in Kimmel Center Rooms 405 and 406. Please RSVP on the Facebook event page. Co-sponsored by the […]
For the Public Good Conference
DESCRIPTION PROGRAM VIDEOS Description Register online. Special pre-conference panel on Thursday, March 27: Gender, Justice, and Activisms in New York City. Education. Healthcare. Policing. The environment. The primary facets of public life are often segmented into separate issues. While powerful social movements have developed around each of these topics, many structural forces cut across such […]
Women and Community in the Ancien Régime: Traditional and New Media
REGISTER EVENT INFORMATION Event Informaton Click here to register. This three-day conference investigates how women participated in and contributed to different kinds of community in medieval and early modern Europe. Featuring presentations based on texts and images in traditional manuscript and print format, as well as work that employs new technology and media projects, the […]
Redefining Realness: A Salon in honor of Janet Mock
This year’s salon focuses on a new memoir by writer Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, which relates the author’s experience as a young trans woman of color working in mainstream media. In 2012, Mock, who served as a Staff Editor for People.com for five years, launched […]
Historical Perspectives on Domestic Worker Organizing
The history of domestic worker organizing illustrates how domestic workers have mobilized to transform their working lives and, in the process, have built a movement with a distinctive approach to labor organizing. In this conversation, historians Elizabeth Hutchison (University of New Mexico) and Premilla Nadasen (Barnard College) explore the contours of this history in the […]
New Feminist Solutions: Social Justice Approaches to Ending Domestic Violence
Between 2011-2012, Sakhi for South Asian Women convened two meetings of grassroots organizers to address the challenges of building a broader anti-violence movement. These events explored the intersections between domestic violence and issues like immigration, transphobia, incarceration, and reproductive justice. While communities of color have always been disproportionately affected by such kinds of violence, they […]
Gender, Labor, Healing: Irish Immigrant Experiences in 19th Century NYC
Meredith Linn, assistant professor of urban studies, shares her research into the experiences of illness, injury, and healing among 19th-century Irish immigrants in New York City. In particular, Linn explores the different kinds of injuries (and sometimes permanent scars and disabilities) that male and female Irish immigrants suffered in New York as a result of […]
African Women’s Rights and Resilience
REGISTER DESCRIPTION PROGRAM Description In celebration of International Women’s Day, Barnard College hosts a daylong symposium with Barnard Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice Leymah Gbowee. Leading academics and activists discuss women’s rights movements in Africa and explore the successes achieved, and challenges still facing, women and men involved in African women’s social justice movements. In […]
Women and Religion
By looking at historical material from 19th century France, Joan Scott shows that secularization was not synonymous with women’s emancipation, but with the articulation of new justifications for their exclusion from male public worlds. This is an important point to make these days because the word secularism is bandied about loosely in public debate, with […]