Events
Engaging our communities
Coming of Age at Barnard, 1968
Estelle Freedman '69
1968 was a pivotal year in the history of Columbia University, American politics, and youth movements internationally. Estelle Freedman, American historian and a student at Barnard during that tumultuous era, looks back on 1968 from the perspective of subsequent events and historical interpretations. She places her experience of coming of age at Barnard within the […]
Read MoreEpigenetics and the Wiring and Re-wiring of Genomic Information
Laura Landweber
Global DNA rearrangements occur in many cells but are most exaggerated in ciliated protozoa, a type of single-celled organism. During development of the somatic nucleus, these protozoa destroy 95% of their germline genome, severely fragmenting their chromosomes, and then sort and reorder hundreds of thousands of remaining pieces. Professor Landweber’s research shows that RNA molecules […]
Read MoreBlack Youth and Empowerment: Politics and Rap Music
Cathy Cohen
This lecture is part of the Virginia C. Gildersleeve lecture series Race, Gender, Community & Rights: Celebrating 15 Years of Africana Studies at Barnard. Cathy Cohen is Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, University of Chicago. Professor Cohen is a noted scholar of American politics whose research interests include […]
Read MoreThe State of Democracy: Gender and Political Participation
Keynote lecture by Lani Guinier. The state of democracy in the United States is undeniably troubling. In the last Presidential election, only 55.27% of the voting-age American population cast their ballots. Amazingly, a participation rate of less than two-thirds is still the highest turnout since 1968. our representational political system represents few, particularly when we […]
Read MoreA Love During the War
Osvalde Lewat-Hallade
A Love During the War is a docudrama following the experiences of Aziza, a journalist who is separated from her husband when the Democratic Republic of Congo erupts into civil war. Aziza reunites with her husband in Kinshasa, but the memory of the horrors suffered by other women during the war still haunts her. Despite […]
Read MoreThe Prize of the Pole
Lisa Bloom
On a hot summer day in 1897, Robert E. Peary—the most famed explorer of his day—docked in Brooklyn with the outrageous cargo he’d brought for his financiers at the American Museum of Natural History: six living Inuit, including six-year-old Minik. A century later Peary’s great grandchild attempts to rediscover the connections between himself, his great […]
Read MoreChoreographing Women’s History: Aztec Ritual Dance
Paul Scolieri
Choreography memorializes women’s history. In this lecture, Paul Scolieri, Assistant Professor of Dance at Barnard, explores this idea with his interpretations of ancient Aztec women’s ritual dances. He will argue that the configuration of dance, death and femininity in the visual and written descriptions of women’s dances throughout indigenous and colonial discourses uniquely represents the […]
Read MoreShifting the Terrain for Diaspora Studies: Democracy, the Rule of Law, and the ‘New’ Souls of Black Folk
Kamari M. Clarke
This lecture is part of the Virginia C. Gildersleeve lecture series Race, Gender, Community & Rights: Celebrating 15 Years of Africana Studies at Barnard. Professor Clarke is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Yale University. She has degrees in Political Science, Anthropology, and International law. Her research interests in religious and legal movements and the related production […]
Read MoreTowards a Vision of Sexual and Economic Justice
Josephine Ho and Naomi Klein
Sexual oppression and economic oppression are inextricably linked, but the movements that address each of these issues are not similarly intertwined. Contemporary movements for global economic justice, for example, tend to shy away from sexuality issues, while campaigns for sexual rights rarely foreground economic concerns. In some spheres, however, the gap is beginning to close. […]
Read MoreWomen, Minorities, and Interdisciplinarity: Transforming the Research Enterprise
Diana Rhoten and Stephanie Pfirman
In the U.S., amid fears of a shrinking scientific workforce and the dulling competitive edge it brings, universities, as well as federal and local programs, have pushed to expand interdisciplinary research. The reason? To attract to the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering the very people who have, historically, been discouraged from practicing them, namely […]
Read MoreFreedom on Our Terms: A New Agenda for Women and Girls
In 1977, over 20,000 people gathered in Houston, Texas at the National Women’s Conference to evaluate gender discrimination in America and to develop recommendations for reform. Never before had such a diverse group of women gathered in one place to share the realities of their lives, educating each other about the unique challenges they faced […]
Read MoreSexuality, Religion, and Politics
Keynote by Michael Warner
Over the last several decades, conservative, politicized religious movements have proliferated around the world, successfully resisting secularist establishments and “liberal” culture, and mobilizing to re-impose various forms of patriarchal order. The trend is apparent across the globe, from the backlash over feminism and sexual liberation in the United States to the potentially schismatic revolt in […]
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