New England Women’s Studies Conference

I’m pleased to let you know that the New England Women’s Studies Conference will be held at UMass Dartmouth April 30-May 1, 2010. The conference theme is Teaching Activism: Women’s Studies in the 21st Century.
The conference will include an embedded track for undergraduate presentations. We encourage faculty to create panel submissions and present with their students. In addition, we have secured Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner, who are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, who will facilitate an interactive workshop (free to all conference attendees, both faculty and students) on activism and how to incorporate activism into our everyday lives and teaching. We are also working to secure a keynote speaker who will address activism and global issues in Women’s Studies.
Please see the CFP fulltext below and please share with colleagues. I hope you join us for this exciting event. If you’d like a PDF version of the CFP to post in your department or share with colleagues, please email me off the list at jen.riley@umassd.edu.
Best regards to all,
Jen Riley
—-
Director, New England Women’s Studies Association
Associate Professor, English & Women’s Studies
UMass Dartmouth
285 Old Westport Road
N. Dartmouth, MA 02747
508.999.8279 (office)
508.999.9235 (fax)
jen.riley@umassd.edu
New England Women’s Studies Conference
UMass Dartmouth, April 30 th -May 1 st , 2010

Teaching Activism: Women’s Studies in the 21 st Century

The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.

­bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1999, p. 207
 
This year’s New England Women’s Studies (NEWSA) conference invites presentations focused on feminist pedagogy and ideas for teaching women’s studies, gender studies, and/or feminist approaches in the university classroom. Possible topics include:

        • Student-faculty collaborations inside and outside the claassroom
        • Impact of service learning and internships for Women’s Studies students
        • Value of service learning for the Women’s Studiess curriculum
        • Teaching activism
        • Teaching Praxis through effective blending of feminist thheory and practice
        • Feminist pedagogy online
        • Women’s Studies education as the practice of freeedom
        • Contradictions of feminist pedagogy
        • Locating feminism in pedagogy
        • Teaching local and global engagement
        • Feminist teaching and learning methods
        • Cross-listed courses and assuring connections to WMS currricular goals (what curricular concerns do WMS faculty and programs have about crosslisting courses? Gaining new resources?)
The conference includes an embedded undergraduate student conference that includes a workshop on feminism and a track for presentations of undergraduate research and experiences in the discipline of Women’s Studies. We invite proposals from undergraduate students; faculty and undergraduate panels are especially welcome. Possible topics here include:
        • Lessons learned from service learning and internship expeeriences
        • Research projects drawing upon feminist theory
        • Practicing activism on a college campus
        • Defining 3 rd Wave feminism
        • Claiming your feminist identity
        • Why major in Women’s and/or Gender Studies?
        • Experiencing the feminist classroom
        • Engaging in feminist research
        • Learning local and global engagement
500-word abstracts due by January 29th. Panel submissions welcome.

Submit electronically as .RTF, .DOC, or PDF attachment to: newsa@umassd.edu

Decisions will be made by February 15th

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