February 16 & 17, Thursday & Friday

For more information: abelove.wordpress.com

March 2 – 4, 2012

NEW EXTENDED DEADLINE: Sunday, January 15 2012

Submit 300 word panel or paper abstracts to:

elijah.edelman(at)american.edu and dklein(at)laverne.edu

For submission and additional conference information please see http://agreaa.org/conference/

Current speakers include:

Formats:

The conference organizing committee is looking for proposals for panels of papers, roundtable discussions, workshops, dialogues, performances, artwork/poster sessions, storytelling, media arts/digital media, or individual papers.

Commitment:

We are looking for work that discusses new movement strategies for gender [...]]]> Proposals Due: 1 February 2012
Conference Date: 5-6 October 2012
Conference Location: Austin, Texas

Formats:

The conference organizing committee is looking for proposals for panels of papers, roundtable discussions, workshops, dialogues, performances, artwork/poster sessions, storytelling, media arts/digital media, or individual papers.

Commitment:

We are looking for work that discusses new movement strategies for gender justice that work at the intersections of citizenship status, ethnicity, gender identity, indigeneity, nationality, race, and sexuality. We are particularly interested in work that engages and reimagines human rights language (addressing the usefulness of grassroots human rights strategies and/or the harm of neoliberal human rights appropriation) regarding the following issues: Incarceration/Immigration Detention, Forced Displacement and Gentrification, and Gender Violence.

We are concerned with organizing in – or in relationship to – the Americas that is grounded in community organizing, and connected with issues and activism at the transnational level. We also warmly welcome applications that focus on regions and societies aside from the Americas as long as the proposal specifically addresses how the given issue relates across these geographic contexts. We prioritize the work of those directly affected by or self-reflectively allied with people affected by these issues.

This is a bilingual conference in Spanish and English.

Topics:

• Topics include, but are not limited to:
• Alliances among Feminists of Color & Indigenous Feminists
• Challenges to Gender Binaries/Support of Transgender Organizing
• Citizenship/Nationality
• Economic & Political Justice
• Education for Liberation
• Gender, Detention, and Justice
• Space/Borders/Land Rights
• Welfare & Healthcare Justice
• Youth Organizing/Intergenerational Empowerment

Proposal Submission:

Send your 1-page proposal and short bio to genderandhumanrights@gmail.com before February 1, 2012.

Organizers:

• This conference is a project of the University of Texas at Austin Center for Women’s & Gender Studies Embrey Women’s Human Rights Initiative.
• This conference work is supported and co-organized by local organizations including:
• Alma de Mujer: tinyurl.com/almademujer
• allgo: Statewide Queer People of Color Organization: www.allgo.org
• Austin Black and Brown Alliance
• Hutto Visitation Program: www.grassrootsleadership.org
• Mamas of Color Rising: mamasofcolorrising.wordpress.com/
• Texas after Violence Project: texasafterviolenceproject.org
• This conference work is co-sponsored by University of Texas at Austin units including:
• Center for Asian American Studies
• Center for Mexican American Studies
• Community Engagement Center
• Department of English
• Gender & Sexuality Center
• Humanities Institute
• Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault
• Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies
• Native American and Indigenous Studies
• University of Texas Libraries

Convocatoria: Re-imaginando el Poder y la Resistencia: Género y Derechos Humanos Desde lo Local Hasta las Américas Transnacionales

Fecha límite para las propuestas: 1o de febrero 2012

Fecha de la conferencia: 5-6 octubre 2012

Lugar de la conferencia: Austin, Texas

Formatos:

El comité de planificación de la conferencia está buscando propuestas para paneles compuestos de papeles, mesas redondas, talleres, diálogos, presentaciones, sesiones de arte / carteles, narración de cuentos, medios de las artes / medios digitales, o papeles individuales.

Compromiso:

Buscamos trabajo que analiza nuevas estrategias de movimiento por la justicia de género que trabajan en la intersección de ciudadanía, etnia, identidad de género, indigenismo, nacionalidad, raza, y sexualidad. Estamos particularmente interesad@s en el trabajo que aborda y re-imagina el discurso de los derechos humanos (hablando a la utilidad de las estrategias de base relacionadas a los derechos humanos y/o el daño de la apropiación neoliberal de los derechos humanos) con respecto a los siguientes temas: Encarcelamiento / Detención de Inmigrantes, Desplazamiento y Aburguesamiento Forzado, y Violencia de Género.

Estamos interesad@s en el trabajo activista que se realiza en – o en relación a – las Américas que se basa en la organización de las comunidades y que está conectado con los problemas y el activismo al nivel transnacional. También aceptaremos las aplicaciones de personas cuyo trabajo se centra en regiones y sociedades fuera de las Américas, siempre y cuando la propuesta se refiere específicamente a cómo el tema dado se relaciona a través de estos contextos geográficos. Damos prioridad a la labor de las personas directamente afectadas por estos temas y de sus aliad@s.

Esta será una conferencia bilingüe en español e inglés.

Temas:

• Los temas incluyen pero no se limiten a:
• Alianzas entre Feministas de Color y Feministas Indígenas
• Desafíos a los Binarios de Género / Apoyo a la Organización de la Comunidad Transexual
• Ciudadanía / Nacionalidad
• Justicia Económica y Política
• Educación Para la Liberación
• Género, Detención, y la Justicia
• Espacio / Fronteras / Derechos a la Tierra
• Justicia de Asistencia Social y de Cuidado de la Salud
• Organización de la Juventud / Empoderamiento Intergeneracional
• Entrega de Propuestas:
• Envíe su propuesta de una página y una breve biografía a genderandhumanrights@gmail.com antes del 1o de febrero 2012
• Organizadores:
• Esta conferencia es un proyecto del Iniciativo Embrey de los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres en el Centro de los Estudios de las Mujeres y el Género en la Universidad de Texas.
• Las organizaciones locales que apoyan – y están ayudando a organizar – esta conferencia incluyen:
• Alma de Mujer: tinyurl.com/almademujer
• allgo: Statewide Queer People of Color Organization: www.allgo.org
• Austin Black and Brown Alliance
• Hutto Visitation Program: www.grassrootsleadership.org
• Mamas of Color Rising: mamasofcolorrising.wordpress.com/
• Texas after Violence Project: texasafterviolenceproject.org
• El trabajo de esta conferencia es co-patrocinado por unidades dentro de la Universidad de Texas en Austin, que incluyen:
• Center for Asian American Studies
• Center for Mexican American Studies
• Community Engagement Center
• Department of English
• Gender & Sexuality Center
• Humanities Institute
• Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault
• Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies
• Native American and Indigenous Studies
• University of Texas Libraries

Pablo Gomez, History & Geography, Texas Christian University

Friday, December 9 2 pm

The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Ave, Room C203 NYC

Please join us to discuss this paper by Pablo Gomez (History & Geography, Texas Christian University) which explores the [...]]]> A Caribbean Epistemologies Seminar presented by the CUNY Center for the Humanities

Pablo Gomez, History & Geography, Texas Christian University

Friday, December 9
2 pm

The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Ave, Room C203
NYC

Please join us to discuss this paper by Pablo Gomez (History & Geography, Texas Christian University) which explores the routes followed by ideas and rites about the body emerging in seventeenth century black Atlantic Caribbean locales like Cartagena de Indias and Havana. Data related to the circulation of bodily knowledge in the Spanish Caribbean evinces a largely ignored process in which black ritual practitioners experimented with new materials and techne they found in the Americas and transmitted a corpus of “bodily knowledge” during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Perambulating and interconnected black health practitioners, using oral tradition, performance, and material culture, functioned as the primordial links for the diffusion of black ideas about corporeality in the Spanish Caribbean. Within their epistemological realms, these healers probed the Caribbean landscape for medical products and explored the particular socio- cultural make up of the places where they would deploy their practices. As their European counterparts, seventeenth century Spanish Caribbean ritual practitioners of African origin –– coming from Europe and Africa or born in the New World –– engaged in procedural, conceptual, material, and social practices that had the specific objective of inquiring about the human body. Through these practices Caribbean black communities entered a larger conversation about the very nature of knowledge in the early modern era.

Our discussant for this paper will be Professor Tamara Walker (History, University of Pennsylvania).

Reading Required. Professor Gomez’s essay is available on the seminar website: http://centerforthehumanities.org/seminars/caribbean-epistemologies

In celebration of the centennial of the birth of LGBT pioneer Harry Hay, CLAGS (the Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies at CUNY) and the Harry Hay Centennial Committee invite proposals for a broad-reaching conference exploring key facets of LGBT life and their evolution over the last six [...]]]> September 27-30, 2012, New York City

In celebration of the centennial of the birth of LGBT pioneer Harry Hay, CLAGS (the Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies at CUNY) and the Harry Hay Centennial Committee invite proposals for a broad-reaching conference exploring key facets of LGBT life and their evolution over the last six decades.

Harry Hay’s life and his impact on LGBT history and culture were extraordinary, and the range of his activities was terrifically diverse. In the 1930s and ’40s, his involvement in progressive politics, avant-garde art, and the Communist Party all shaped and influenced his formulation of the idea that LGBT people were a distinct “cultural minority” who needed to become conscious of themselves as a people and organize for their own liberation. With that insight, he co-founded the Mattachine Society in the 1950s and helped launch the modern LGBT liberation movement. He was an organizer of the first Radical Faerie gathering in 1979 and remained an active participant and inspirational figure in LGBT movements until his death in 2002. In addition, as a gay activist Hay committed himself to a larger progressive agenda, working in the anti-war movement, on behalf of Native Peoples, and within Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. As an intellectual, Hay devoted himself to anthropological and historical research about the origins and meaning of LGBT lives, social roles and consciousness. His research focused particular energy on two-spirit people among Native Americans and matrilineal cultures.

Given this rich array of interests, the conference organizers seek to gather scholars, public intellectuals, activists, students, and artists who will take inspiration from Hay’s life and ideas in order to think together about several strands of LGBT living. In particular, the conference will explore four central themes inspired by and reflective of Hay’s life and times: LGBT arts, political activism, spirituality and sexual identities.

We welcome proposals for full panels, individual research papers, artistic presentations, and “state of the debate” discussions. While some of the conference presentations can focus on Hay himself, we very much encourage proposals that explore and debate how the questions raised and confronted by Hay have continued to evolve. To that end, papers may be historical, theoretical, contemporary or future-oriented and may address, but need not be limited to, any of the following thematic topics:

LGBT POLITICS:

• Significance of Mattachine and homophile political groups, their evolution, and relation to gay liberation activism
• Importance (or not) of homophile and other LGBT political leaders
• Sexuality on the Left
• LGBT radicalism and separatism vs mainstream politics and assimilation
• Coalition-building vs single-issue politics
• Youth as a political constituency
• Assessing LGBT organizing strategies and utopian goals
• Mapping an LGBT agenda for the 21st-century

LGBT SPIRITUALITY

• Historical, cultural, and religious aspects of the Radical Faerie movement
• LGBT perspectives on religion, theology, and spirituality
• LGBT influence on, and conflicts with, mainstream and alternative religions
• Linking the spiritual and the sexual
• Politics of spirituality
• Connections to the natural world
• Queer mysticism, shamanism and spiritual practice
• Ancient roots of queer spirituality
• Native Peoples’ spiritualities

LGBT ARTS

• Harry Hay’s artistic world: John Cage, Will Geer, Lester Horton, Leftist theater, etc.
• Past/present fears of LGBT artistic power (e.g. 1950s “homintern”)
• Representations of LGBT lives in contemporary/historical popular culture
• Past/present uses of art as tool of LGBT political activism (e.g. Gran Fury)
• Role of folk & popular music for political organizing (e.g. People’s Song)
• LGBT contributions to 20th-century avant-garde and popular arts
• Defining a queer aesthetic sensibility
• Studies of specific significant queer artists

LGBT IDENTITIES

• The evolving identities of LGBT/Queer/Questioning/Hetero-flexible/Trans People and others
• The meaning of gender in the LGBT world
• Homophile ­Gay Queer: differences, overlaps, and relations
• Lesbians & Gay men: past/present/future alliances and cleavages
• Class and socioeconomic issues within LGBT organizing
• Transgender inclusions/exclusions
• Queer archetypes
• Meaning of “gay consciousness”
• Identity as “natural,” “historical,” or “learned”
• Two-spirit tradition and alternative gender roles in non-Western cultures
• The future of sexual identities

For each paper proposed, please submit a 300-word abstract and a 2-page CV for the presenter. If you wish to propose a 3 or 4 person panel, please submit a separate abstract & CV for each paper, and an additional abstract of the panel. All proposals should be sent to Daniel Hurewitz at daniel.hurewitz(at)hunter.cuny.edu by January 31, 2012, with “Hay Centennial” in the subject line. You can also visit the conference webpage to submit proposals at: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/clags/pages/hay.html

We may have space to display/screen some artworks and present some performances along the thematic lines above: if that interests you, please email Daniel Hurewitz at the address above and submit a handful of images or performance selections either as a zip file, downloadable file, or DVD by January 31, 2012. If the latter, please send to Daniel Hurewitz, c/o CLAGS, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 7115, New York NY 10016

Co-organized by the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the Poetry Society of America, with the support of the NYU Humanities Initiative.

Free and open to the public

Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts 1 Washington Place

Thursday, 12/1

6-6:45 pm: Seeing Elizabeth Bishop, [...]]]> Thursday and Friday, December 1 and 2

Co-organized by the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the Poetry Society of America, with the support of the NYU Humanities Initiative.

Free and open to the public

Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
1 Washington Place

Thursday, 12/1

6-6:45 pm: Seeing Elizabeth Bishop, by Eric Karpeles

7-8:30 pm: Bishop in Brazil Screening & Discussion, by Helena Blaker, Brett Millier, Barbara Page, and Lloyd Schwartz, with Alice Quinn

Friday, 12/2

1-2:30 pm: Elizabeth Bishop and Modern Art, by William Benton and Peggy Samuels, with Lisa Goldfarb

3-4:30 pm: Editors’ Roundtable, by Joelle Biele, Saskia Hamilton, Lloyd Schwartz and Thomas Travisono, with Jonathan Galassi

5-6pm: Gallatin Poet/Poetry Teacher and Student Poetry Reading, by Emily Fragos, Scott Hightower, and students Jacqueline Allen, Emma Behnke, Stephanie Rodas and Luke Vargas

6:30-8 pm: Celebratory Poetry Reading, by Frank Bidart, John L. Koethe, Yusek Komunyakaa, Maureen McLane, Mark Strand and Jean Valentine

RSVP & questions: WP Coordinator Molly Kleiman, mollykleiman(at)nyu.edu

Cardozo School of Law (55 Fifth Avenue) Institute of French Studies, New York University, at La Maison Française of NYU (16 Washington Mews)

With the co-sponsorship of IRIS (CNRS/EHESS) & Faculty of Law, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, and the support of UMI Transitions (CNRS/NYU)

Co-organized by Éric [...]]]> Thursday & Friday, December 1 & 2

Cardozo School of Law (55 Fifth Avenue)
Institute of French Studies, New York University, at La Maison Française of NYU (16 Washington Mews)

With the co-sponsorship of IRIS (CNRS/EHESS) & Faculty of Law, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, and the support of UMI Transitions (CNRS/NYU)

Co-organized by Éric Fassin, Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez, Julie Suk, Frédéric Viguier

From May 14 to August 23, 2011, from Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest to the day the penal charges against him were dropped by the New York City justice system, the sexual assault indictment initiated by Nafissatou Diallo’s accusation provoked extraordinary public attention throughout the world. While the penal case is now over, and regardless of what becomes of the civil one, or the French lawsuits that followed, this will certainly be an affair to remember: it will remain important in the years to come not only because of what happened, but also for what it has revealed about France and the United States, as well as its potential impact on both societies. Not only is the affair a mirror; it may also turn out to be a catalyst. Thus, it would not be a mere scandal, now behind us; the DSK moment could prove momentous.

This two-day academic conference, co-organized by French and American scholars and institutions, aims at interpreting the transatlantic dimensions of this event. On the one hand, the mutual misunderstandings revealed important differences between France and the United States – not only between the legal systems, but also between the media cultures, as well as the political ones. On the other hand, the political dimensions of the story – in terms of gender, class, and race, and even sexuality – did transcend such national differences. Many feminists were quick to point it out: exceptionalism (whether French or American) is irrelevant in matters of power. As a consequence, the necessary cultural approach must eschew culturalism. In particular, attention will be paid not only to the different languages used within each society (in particular in law, media, and politics), but also to the self-examination this confrontation occasioned, and as a consequence the transformations that may result on both sides.

The conference will be organized around three related panels to draw out the legal, political, cultural, and social implications of the DSK case in the United States and France.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

4 to 6:30 pm – Introduction/Welcome and Panel I Sexual Violence in Public Discourse (Moot Court Room, Cardozo School of Law)

Panelists:

Laure Bereni (CNRS)
Kimberlé Crenshaw (Columbia Law School and UCLA School of Law)
Amy Davidson (The New Yorker)
Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre)
Frédérique Matonti (Université Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Moderator: Julie Suk (Cardozo School of Law)

This panel will address the media treatment on both sides of the Atlantic, not only of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, but more generally of sexual cases and scandals. It will include questions such as what is considered “fit to print,” how, and when, the revelation of names and pictures and the cultures of privacy, the issue of sources and leaks, the coverage of the United States in France (and vice versa), the investigative traditions and the relations between the media and the political class in both countries. To what extent are media practices with regard to rape victims driven by the law of privacy and/or freedom of the press? How is the legal disposition of a sexual assault case influenced by the media’s representations of it? Whose voice gets to be heard in the public when allegations of sexual violence are made against politicians and public officials?

Friday, December 2, 2011

10 am to 12 pm – Panel II Justice for Whom? Rape and Comparative Criminal Procedure (Moot Court Room, Cardozo School of Law)

Panelists:

Taina Bien-Aimé (Lawyer and Consultant to Equality Now)
Pauline Delage (IRIS)
Emmanuel Saint-Martin (France 24)
Julie Suk (Cardozo School of Law)
James Q. Whitman (Yale Law School)

Moderator: Paris Baldacci (Cardozo School of Law)

This panel will be devoted to comparisons of French and U.S. criminal procedure as they were understood throughout the DSK scandal –and how they are actually used by feminist activists in both countries. Discussions will cover such issues as the (infamous) “perp walk,” understandings of “the presumption of innocence,” and the mechanisms by which a rape victim’s credibility is evaluated. How do the victim’s past sexual and immigration history play out in each justice system? Do American “rape shield” laws (and exceptions to them) have French analogues? How did prosecutorial discretion and adversarial fact investigation affect the DSK case? Might a rape victim fare better with judicial investigation of facts and/or limited prosecutorial discretion? How significant was the American “beyond a reasonable doubt” criminal standard in the prosecutors’ decision to dismiss the DSK case? What are the legal problems raised by the prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn initiated by Tristane Banon’s complaint in France? How do the different relationships between civil and criminal complaints in the two legal systems affect the trajectory of a rape case?

1:30 to 4 pm – Panel III The Politics of Seduction: The Role of Sex in Democracy (La Maison Française of NYU)

Panelists:

Delphine Dulong (Université Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Eric Fassin (Ecole normale supérieure and IRIS)
Renée Kaplan (France 24)
Ruth Rubio Marín (European University Institute, Florence)
Joan Scott (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)

Moderator: Frédéric Viguier (NYU)

The DSK scandal is the latest chapter in an ongoing transatlantic debate about the politics of seduction. The French and American political cultures reflect different attitudes about the relevance of a politician’s sexual affairs to their ability to govern. The two legal cultures reflect different understandings of the line between seduction and sexual aggression. The concept of seduction might also inform the different concerns of French and American feminism, which have led to different policies to combat gender inequality. The United States has a robust law of sexual harassment, on the one hand, but France has laws requiring gender parity (known to Americans as “quotas”) in positions of political and social responsibility. Might the DSK moment narrow the gap between French and American understandings of seduction and gender relations in a democracy?

Since 2008, we in the New View Campaign have challenged the growth of a dangerous new industry, female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS), wherein amputations of parts of the vulva (“labiaplasty” “clitoral hood reduction”) are marketed as “enhancement” and “beautification” procedures. On their websites, many FGCS surgeons post [...]]]> Presented by the New View Campaign: http://newviewcampaign.org/default.asp

Since 2008, we in the New View Campaign have challenged the growth of a dangerous new industry, female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS), wherein amputations of parts of the vulva (“labiaplasty” “clitoral hood reduction”) are marketed as “enhancement” and “beautification” procedures. On their websites, many FGCS surgeons post before and after photographs that misinform the public about genital diversity, suggesting that all vulvas should look alike and that there is something wrong with full labia. Check some of them out for yourself here and here. There are dozens of such surgeons’ websites.

Part 1 of the New View FGCS VULVANOMICS activism for November, 2011 is an online petition directed to the American College of OB-Gyn and the Federal Trade Commission Division of Consumer Affairs calling for oversight, research, monitoring.

I hope you ALL take the time to sign the petition NOW, post it on your FB page, send it to your colleagues, friends, and family. As of today, we have 289 signatures, and we are aiming much higher!!

Part 2 of VULVANOMICS is an international day of FLASH ACTIVISM

On Saturday, November 19th, 2011, activists all over the US and Canada will converge on the offices of surgeons who perform FGCS. We will specifically target surgeons who have these appalling websites with before and after photos. We believe that surgeons’ informed consent process for these procedures must include information about the range of genital diversity. On November 19 we will target surgeons who make false claims and create self-consciousness and anxiety.

On November 19th, we will be taking (and then uploading) photos of ourselves holding up protest signs in front of these surgeons’ offices that send a very specific message: we support genital diversity!

For more information about the event, how to participate, and a list of FGCS surgeons near you, please e-mail vulvanomicsactivism(at)gmail.com and indicate that you want information about provider locations, options for signs, and instructions for Flash Activism Day.

I urge you to forward and share this announcement with individuals and lists of people who might like to join us, and stay tuned to hear our plans for the many photos we expect to collect.

Thanks,
Leonore Tiefer and the Vulvanomics team in US, Canada and New Zealand.

Megan Comfort, Senior Research Sociologist, RTI International

November 11, Friday 2 to 4 pm 295 Lafayette St, 4th Floor Conference Room

Megan Comfort is a Senior Research Sociologist in the Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice Research Division at RTI International and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of [...]]]> Presented by the Crime, Law and Deviance Workshop

Megan Comfort, Senior Research Sociologist, RTI International

November 11, Friday
2 to 4 pm
295 Lafayette St, 4th Floor
Conference Room

Megan Comfort is a Senior Research Sociologist in the Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice Research Division at RTI International and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research interests and areas of expertise include families and incarceration, HIV risk and prevention, and health disparities among urban poor populations. She is the author of Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison (University of Chicago Press, 2008), an ethnographic study of women in relationships with incarcerated men. Additionally, she has published articles in Criminal Justice and Behavior, Ethnography, Journal of Sex Research, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, and AIDS & Behavior, among other journals.

Sponsored by the NYU Sociology Department and the NYU Institute for Law and Society