Podcasts
Activism and the Academy: Expanding Feminism – Collaborations for Social Justice
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
BCRW’s commitment to bringing feminist scholars and activists together in conversation and collaboration has been at the center of our work for the past 40 years. Representatives from three organizations with whom we have recently partnered—the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Queers for Economic Justice, and the New York Women’s Foundation— discuss the unique models of feminist action and knowledge that have been produced through BCRW’s scholar-activist partnerships. Panelists include Ai-jen Poo (National Domestic Workers Alliance), Sydnie L. Mosley ’07 (dancer, choreographer and teacher), Amber Hollibaugh (Queers for Economic Justice), and Ana Oliveira (New York Women’s Foundation) in this plenary, moderated by Janet Jakobsen (BCRW).
ListenActivism and the Academy: Transnational Feminisms Across the Americas
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
Feminist scholars, activists, and practitioners across the Americas are challenging gendered hierarchies in their communities, nations, and region. Whether or not they explicitly identify as feminists, their work is transforming contemporary politics and cultural relations. Through the stories of Latin American feminist networks, women-led grassroots organizations, and lesbian collectives, this panel examines the transnational strategies employed by activists across the Americas. Panelists include Ximena García Bustamante (New School for Social Research), Ariella Rotramel (Rutgers), Anahi Russo Garrido (Rutgers), and Sasha Taner (Rutgers) in this discussion moderated by Temma Kaplan (Rutgers).
ListenActivism and the Academy: Archives and Activism – The Contemporary Turn
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
Over the past two decades, the archive has emerged as a central site of feminist knowledge production and activism. Feminist archives and special collections have been able to document activist movements and make previously obscured forms of knowledge visible. This panel brings together a group of feminist librarians, archivists, scholars, and activists to explore this "archival turn" in contemporary feminism. Panelists include Jenna Freedman (Barnard College), Alana Kumbier (Wellesley College) and Kate Eichhorn (The New School) in this discussion moderated by Emily Drabinski (Long Island University).
ListenActivism and the Academy: Women’s Literature and Feminist Learning
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
Continuing education in the humanities is an extremely important, yet often overlooked subset of higher education. Over the years, BCRW has sought to support continued opportunities for feminist learning through a diverse series of course offerings. Current and past BCRW instructors, along with scholars of feminist literature, will discuss the value of intergenerational feminist education. Panelists include Leslie Calman, Heather Hewett and Stephanie Staal in this discussion, moderated by Lori Rotskoff.
ListenActivism and the Academy: Living and Working in the Borderlands
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
Gloria Anzaldua’s groundbreaking volume Borderlands/La frontera juxtaposes poetry and prose, and research and personal narrative, forming a bridge between activism and scholarship. This panel looks at Anzaldua’s work, along with the work of two border poets, Margaret Randall and Ruth Irupé Sanabria, to explore what poetry and other creative engagements can bring to activist practices. Panelists include Margaret Randall (poet, photographer, and activist), Ruth Irupé Sanabria (poet and activist), and Michelle Gonzalez (Bard College at Simon’s Rock) in this discussion, moderated by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez (Bard College at Simon’s Rock).
ListenActivism and the Academy: Writing, New Media, and Feminist Activism
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
Writing, blogging, social networking, and other forms of media are vital channels of communication for feminist activists. Panelists Mandy Van Deven (activist and writer), Ileana Jiménez (blogger at FeministTeacher.com), Veronica Pinto (Hollaback!), and Susanna Horng (Girls Write Now) discuss their own media projects and how they have used new forms of communications to support and build their movements in this discussion moderated by Courtney Martin (writer and editor at Feministing.com).
ListenActivism and the Academy: The Multiple Futures of Gender and Sexuality Studies
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
Women's and gender studies programs have been an integral part of the feminist movement for the past four decades. Over the years, the field has grown and expanded—and so has the proliferation of other disciplines devoted to the study of intersectionality, including queer studies, ethnic studies, and postcolonial studies. What are the challenges currently facing the fields of gender and sexuality studies? Panelists Kandice Chuh, Ann Pellegrini and Sarita See reflect on the history and futures of the field in this discussion moderated by Lisa Duggan.
ListenActivism and the Academy: Sonia Alvarez
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
In her keynote lecture at Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action, Alvarez discusses her latest intellectual and political project, the forthcoming co-edited anthology Translocalities/Translocalidades: Feminist Politics of Translation in the Latin/a Americas.
ListenActivism and the Academy: Opening Remarks by Janet Jakobsen
Recorded Sep 23, 2011
BCRW Director Janet Jakobsen delivers opening remarks at Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action, a two-day conference held in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.
ListenPublic Feelings Salon with Lauren Berlant
Recorded Apr 12, 2011
The inaugural event in BCRW's Salon series, this engaged dialogue brings together several prominent and influential scholars whose work explores how affect and emotion influence public life. Just as feminism has sought to identify the ways in which the personal and the political are linked, the study of "public feelings" draws our attention to how and why feelings and emotion (assumed to be a private, personal experience) influence politics and notions of social belonging and intimacy. This conversation, moderated by BCRW Director and Professor of Women's Studies, Janet Jakobsen, focuses on how perceptions of citizenship and solidarity are often bound up in emotions—like optimism, rage, and disgust—and how feelings can govern policy and political debates. Panelists include Jose Munoz, Ann Pellegrini, Tavia Nyong'o, and Lauren Berlant.
ListenRabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster: Intersections of Judaism, Gender, and Human Rights
Recorded Apr 6, 2011
In this year's Rennert Forum lecture, Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster '01 reflects on her work as a human rights activist, mobilizing the Jewish community on campaigns against US-sponsored torture and modern slavery. Rabbi Kahn-Troster has worked tirelessly to bring about change in US foreign and domestic policy and to educate the public about the reality of torture and detainee treatment as a moral issue. In organizing across lines of faith and politics, she explores questions of how Judaism reacts to extreme violations of human dignity, what it means to recognize the sacredness of the Other, and the imperative to remember the real faces lost behind headlines. Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster is Director of Education and Outreach for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, where she directs campaigns against state-sponsored torture and modern slavery.
ListenThe New Woman International: Representations in Photography and Film
Recorded Mar 28, 2011
During the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, a range of iconic female forms emerged to dominate the global pictorial landscape. Female athletes and adventurers, chorine stars, flappers, garçonnes, Modern Girls, neue Frauen, suffragettes, and trampky were all facets of the dazzling and urbane New Woman who came to epitomize modern femininity in photographs and on film. This construct existed as a set of abstract ideals, even as it varied when translated across national contexts and through a range of key historical moments including First Wave feminism, colonialism, the First and Second World Wars, political revolutions, and the rise of modernism. This panel, moderated by art historian Linda Nochlin, examines the nuances of visual representations of this transgressive and border-crossing figure from her inception in the later nineteenth century to her full development in the interwar period and beyond. Panelists include Elizabeth Otto, Clare Rogan, Vanessa Rocco, and Kristine Harris.
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