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Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies

Events and Publications

 

Fall 2007 and Spring 2008

GCWS Conferences

 

Fall 2007

Gender, Geography, and Women in Muslim Countries
an informal discussion and curriculum dialogue event with Simmons College visiting Fulbright scholar, Dr. Shahnaz Hussain.

When: Friday, September 28th
2 - 4 PM
Where: Building E51-275
MIT Campus

The GCWS is pleased to feature feminist geographer Dr. Shahnaz Hussain. Dr. Hussain is a visiting Fulbright scholar at Simmons College from September 16th to October 5th and comes from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her research focuses on the field of feminist geography, a scholarly practice that applies theories, methods, and critiques of feminism to the study of the human environment, society, and geographical space. We are excited for the opportunity to host a faculty discussion with Dr. Hussain and invite faculty to join her in conversation around topics of gender and geography from 2-4 PM on Friday, September 28th at MIT. There is limited space available for this event and an RSVP is required.

Dr. Shahnaz Hussain is Professor in the department of Geography and Environment at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. Her areas of scholarly interest include gender, work and the environment, Women and Islam, migration and development and urbanization and poverty. She was a team member in a project between Virginia Tech-UCDavis-University of Dhaka/Women's Studies on curriculum development and the production of a gender project on Bangladesh. Her long list of publications include /Female Migrant's Adaptation in Dhaka/ and /The Invisible Resource: Women and Work in Bangladesh.

Feminist Intellectuals Dinner

When: Tuesday, 10/16/07

Where: MIT Campus, building E51-095

This is an event for faculty at our member institutions that provides the exciting (and fun!) opportunity for vision sharing, networking, and energizing intellectual exchange among feminist scholars at our member institutions and beyond. It's a chance to meet women's and gender studies colleagues at other GCWS schools, to learn more about on-going projects, and to network and discuss ideas for future team-teaching collaborations and projects related to GCWS.

To facilitate meeting people and exchanging ideas, especially for those who
are new or somewhat out of the scene, we will supplement the regular
cocktail hour with a networking experiment based on... speed dating! Eager
to exercise our faculty matchmaking chops, we're trying this new and fun
strategy to promote community building and course topic brainstorming across our member institutions and beyond.

 

Spring 2008

Graduate Student Conference 2008

Who's Laughing? The Power of Humor

• April 4-5, 2008 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Graduate Consoortium in Women's Studies is pleased to announce it's 2008 conference: WHO'S LAUGHING? The Power of Humor. This conference is organized by graduate students and is for students, faculty, and the public to gather and discuss contemporary issues in Women's and Gender Studies. The event seeks to showcase contemporary and cutting-edge work, spark dynamic conversration, promote new thinking, share knowledge, and build community accross disciplines and institutions.

The conference is *Free* and registration is required

Click HERE to visit the conference home page.

We are now accepting presentation proposals. Read our Call for Proposals for more about our submission requirements.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Gender, Food Politics, and Social Justice - a faculty course development workshop

When: First weekend in May, date TBA

Where: MIT Campus

This course development workshop will address questions pertaining to the intersection of gender, food, culture and social justice.   Exploration into the topic of food and society (food in society) might be directed toward a multitude of arenas:  production and consumption, art and literature, international development, culture and context, health and wellness, and more. And within each of these broad areas, looking through a gendered lens provides a complex and rich perspective.  

This workshop seeks to bring together scholars working on or interested in these issues to discuss their work and perspectives on each of these topics.   We will invite individual presenters to speak on their work in four different areas of gender and food studies:

  1. food, social justice, and inequality;
  2. food in socio-cultural contexts;
  3. food and gender in art and literature; and gender,
  4. Gender, food and body image

These short presentations will set the stage for small group discussions among event participants.   

Our goal is to spark dialogue and strategic networking among local faculty interested in exploring these issues in a research and interdisciplinary teaching environment.  We hope that the conversations that occur at this event will inspire new research directions, reinforce existing explorations, and even lead to GCWS seminar topics and cross-institutional teaching teams.

 

Information About Past Conferences

 

On March 23-24, 2007, GCWS hosted it's 2nd annual conference in women's and gender studies: BEYOND REVOLUTION OR BEHIND IT? The Politics and Practice of Contemporary Feminism Across Academic and Activist Communities. Click on the link for more information!

(Click on the link for more information about this conference.)

On March 30 - 31, 2006, GCWS hosted its first annual graduate student conference: Shifting Gender Identities in the Face of War, Globalization, and Natural Disaster. (Click on the link for more information about this conference.)

 

Publications by or about the Graduate Consortium

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"This class has given me a critical lens through which to evaluate the work within my own field. This class has been incredibly useful and important within the context of my graduate training."

— comment by a Consortium student