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Writing from our collaborators
Queering Utopia: Circus Amok! at the S&F Conference
“Stay cool, stay calm, you have the right to remain silent. / Don’t run, don’t resist, and get that badge number.” So goes the catchy and campy tune performed by Circus Amok! that teaches people what to do when they are stopped and frisked by police. A “New York-based, one ring, no animal, queerly-situated, political circus spectacular,” Circus Amok! has […]
Read MoreSafe Spaces, Queer Spaces & Public Spaces
This post is part of a series of reflections on the interdisciplinary winter seminar, “Mumbai At Home and in the World: Gender, Sexuality and the Postcolonial City.” BCRW Associate Director Catherine Sameh introduced the seminar in part 1, and BCRW Research Assistant Nicci Yin reflected on occupying space in an urban environment in part 2. Growing up […]
Read MoreArt with intention: visions of newness and reform
What do a quilt, a scarf, and a vision of a feminist Utopia all have in common? They are all at work changing the realities of our world. In the morning keynotes opening up this year’s 38th annual Scholar and Feminist conference “Utopia” we heard from several feminists at work changing the material realities of […]
Read MoreStrategic Scrapbooks: Media Sharing in the 19th Century
How do you save and share media? Do you have a Pinterest page for pinning images you like? Perhaps a Tumblr for reblogging others’ posts? Maybe you just add links to articles you found particularly poignant to your Bookmarks on Google Chrome. Indeed, with today’s technology, there are myriad ways to experience, share and hold on to media, be […]
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Caribbean Men on Gender-based Violence
Originally published by International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region at http://www.ippfwhr.org/en/blog/open-letter-caribbean-men-gender-based-violence Dear Caribbean Men, We do not have to smile for you. Our smiles are our own. Our lips are our own and our smiles are a celebration of our happiness. We do not have to smile on command. We are not pretty, little, Black dolls […]
Read MoreThe Wild, Wild West
When I offer the introduction: “I’m from North Dakota,” the usual answer is a snarky/incredulous, “People live there?” Well, I am standing before you, and I wasn’t exactly raised by buffalo, although that would be fun. I understand the reaction, and I don’t begrudge the occasional comparison to Siberia, because, in the scheme of the lives […]
Read MoreOccupying Space: A Transnational Feminist Dialogue
As a student of gender studies, a feminist, and someone who spent most of her life outside of the US, I wanted to be a part of the Mumbai seminar for the ways in which it brought my academic interests–feminism, postcolonialism, performance, transnationalism, etc.–into the context of a global South Asian city, somewhere that is “not-US”. I […]
Read MoreGender-based Violence and Sexual Rights: Intersecting Forces in Women’s Lives
Originally published by International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region at http://www.ippfwhr.org/en/blog/gender-based-violence-and-sexual-rights-intersecting-forces-women%E2%80%99s-lives The 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women kicked off last week in New York. Its focus is on the elimination of violence against women and girls. Nine of the 45 countries that comprise the commission, tasked with negotiating an agreed conclusion document, hail from Latin America […]
Read MoreMumbai At Home and in the World: Gender, Sexuality and the Postcolonial City
From January 9 to 16, 2013, faculty affiliated with the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative and the Barnard Global Symposia held an interdisciplinary Winter Seminar, “Mumbai At Home and in the World: Gender, Sexuality and the Postcolonial City,” at Sophia College in Mumbai, India. The seminar reflected Barnard’s investment in innovative and collaborative engagements with […]
Read MoreI Am a Complicated Feminist Latina, Ending Violence
Originally published by International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region at http://www.ippfwhr.org/en/blog/i-am-complicated-latina-feminist-ending-violence Last month after a dinner, I was sitting in my friend’s car, and for the first time in our two-year relationship, we discussed our shared experience of growing up with abusive fathers and abused mothers who did nothing to save us. Recently, I’ve been making […]
Read More“Strategies of Reparation, Rather Than Retribution”
Try imagining a world without prisons, or punishment for what governments and societies deem “crimes” and “criminals,” for that matter. My Critical Approaches in Social and Cultural Theory class last semester tried doing so when we read Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete? to extract the functions of prisons and punishment in contemporary time-spaces. Funnily enough, our reading of Davis […]
Read MoreMore Contributors for The Scholar and Feminist 2013: Utopia
In one week, the BCRW conference The Scholar and Feminist 2013: Utopia will be showcasing a diverse and accomplished range of contributers presenting and leading workshops on topics that range from community design and remix culture to open education and feminist parenting. This is our third round of introductions (read earlier posts here and here) highlighting the work of six Utopia contributors who educate, organize, […]
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