Graduate Consortium of Women's Studies

News & Events

Feminist Pedagogies

Saturday, April 12th, 12 – 6:30 PM
Asean Auditorium, Cabot Hall and Olin Hall
Tufts University

This half-day symposium and workshop is for graduate students developing a professional teaching profile in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and for faculty wishing to explore teaching and syllabus development strategies with colleagues.

Join us to:

· Workshop a syllabus that you are developing or revising;
· Participate in discussions on how to incorporate Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies concepts and topics into your teaching from experienced and award-winning feminist faculty;
· Discuss the state of WGSS and explore critiques and reflections on university and feminist teaching;
· Engage with feminist theoretical perspectives on the practice and objectives of university teaching;
· Network with students and faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the Boston area.

This event is free and open to graduate students and faculty from the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies member institutions (BC, BU, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Simmons, Tufts and UMass Boston).

**Space is limited and RSVP is required!**

Please RSVP to gcws@mit.edu by the March 12th deadline.

RSVP requirements for graduate students:
By March 12th: Name, Institution, Discipline, Degree Program, Email address;
By March 26th: Send an electronic copy of a recent and full syllabus by email that covers WGSS topics or themes in some form. Syllabi for upcoming or future courses will be accepted.

RSVP requirements for faculty:
By March 12th: Name, Institution, Discipline, Email address;
By March 26th: Send an electronic copy of a recent and full syllabus by email that covers WGSS topics or themes in some form. Syllabi for upcoming or future courses will be accepted.

**There will be a limited number of students accepted to the symposium who are at the MA level or who are not yet starting to teach. Students who will not be submitting a syllabus must indicate this in their registration email and send it to gcws@mit.edu by the March 12th deadline.

Co-sponsored by the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies, the Tufts Department of Education, the Tufts Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, the office of the Tufts University Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the Tufts Women's Center.

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
Saturday, April 12th, 2014

11:30 – 12:00 PM: Registration

12:00 – 1:20 PM: Lunch and Keynote Presentation by Lisa Coleman, Ph.D.
Looking Forward, Looking Back: Women's Studies, feminist pedagogies, and the U.S. university

Lisa M. Coleman, Ph.D. is currently the Chief Diversity Officer and Special Assistant to the President at Harvard University.

Dr. Coleman is an expert in the field of higher education, leadership, diversity and inclusion. She has dedicated her professional and scholarly career to working in the fields of gender, race, ethnic, dis/ability, and sexuality studies. Her most recent work is focused on the intersections of gender, race, and leadership in higher education.

Dr. Coleman received her Ph.D. from New York University's (NYU) Department of Social and Cultural Analysis in American Studies, where her research focused on the intersections of psychoanalysis, race, gender and sexuality. She holds two Master of Arts degrees: one in African and African American Studies, and the other in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies from the Ohio State University.

Prior to her work with Harvard, Dr. Coleman worked for ten years with Tufts University in the Office of Institutional Diversity and with the Africana Center. During this time, she also taught in American Studies and Women's Studies. Before joining Tufts she taught and worked with numerous institutions and organizations including the City University of New York (CUNY), Vassar College, and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

1:30 – 2:45 PM: Plenary Panel

The Feminist Futures of Women’s Studies
This moderated plenary panel brings together 5 distinguished feminist scholars to reflect on where Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies has come and where it is going as a field. Panelists will engage questions of race and power in the classroom, transnational scholar-activism, the queering of Women’s Studies, and the dilemmas and possibilities of online learning, among others.
Panel moderated by: Lisa M. Coleman, Ph.D., Chief Diversity Officer and Special Assistant to the President at Harvard University

Panelists:
Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman,Associate Professor of English and African and Afro-American Studies, Brandeis University
Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman's research interests include 19th to 21st-century American and African American literature and culture, gender studies and multiethnic feminisms, and theories of race and racial formation. She is the author of Against the Closet: Black Political Longing and the Erotics of Race (Duke UP, 2012). Considering genres from the slave narrative to science fiction, Against the Closet analyzes African American literary depictions of transgressive sexualities in order to illuminate the ways in which race, politics, and sexuality intersect in the social/racial ordering of United States culture and in the making of African American literature.

Elora Halim Chowdhury, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, UMass Boston
Elora Halim Chowdhury’s research interests include transnational feminisms, critical development studies, gender violence and human rights advocacy with an emphasis on South Asia. She is the author of Transnationalism Reversed: Women Organizing Against Gendered Violence in Bangladesh (SUNY Press, 2011). This book was awarded the Gloria E. Anzaldua Book Prize by the National Women’s Studies Association in 2012. Her current projects include an edited volume on dissident cross-cultural feminist alliances, and a manuscript exploring representations of violence, trauma, agency and justice in nationalist film and fiction in Bangladesh.

Amani El-Jack, Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, UMass Boston
Amani El Jack's research, teaching and policy engagement traverse socio-economic, political and cultural interrogation of the gendered fields of globalization; forced migration; militarized femininities and masculinities; post-conflict reconstruction processes; and human security. Some of her most recent publications include a book manuscript, under contract by Ashgate entitled, Militarized Commerce: Gender Dimensions of Transnational Migration in South Sudan; "Protracted Sudanese Refugees: Why Gender Matters?" 2012, In Transatlantic Cooperation on Protracted Displacement: Urgent Needs and Unique Opportunity. J. Calabrese and J. Marret. (ed.) Middle East Institute; and "Education is My Mother and Father," 2011, Refuge Journal, vol. 27, no. 2.

Janie Ward, Professor and Department Chair of the Departments of Education, and Africana Studies at Simmons College
Janie Ward's professional work and research interests center on the developmental issues facing African American adolescents, focusing on identity and moral development in African American girls and boys. Her current work examines processes in racial socialization among white mothers of adopted Chinese daughters. Along with her teaching responsibilities Professor Ward continues to work with youth counselors, secondary school educators and other practitioners in a variety of school-based and out-of-school settings.

2:45 – 3:15 PM: Coffee Break

3:15 – 4:25: Breakout Sessions

1. Syllabus and Course Design 101
Facilitated by Shannon Weber, PhD Candidate in Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Discuss course development and syllabus design. *For students interested in exploring syllabus development strategies and ways of teaching but who are not yet at the course development or teaching stage.

2. Breakout Sessions with Faculty
Facilitated by faculty from various disciplines and GCWS member institutions
Workshop your syllabus-in-progress in small groups with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty experts.

3. Breakout Sessions among Faculty:
Facilitated by faculty from various disciplines and GCWS member institutions Workshop your syllabus and discuss pedagogy strategies among faculty peers.

4:40 – 6 PM: Coffee, Dessert, and Closing Presentation

Closing Presentation: Nancy Bauer, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences, Tufts University

Title: On Audience, Authority, Progress, and the Real World: Four Challenges to Feminist Pedagogy

Nancy Bauer is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. She is interested in thinking about what philosophy is and what role it plays, or should or might play, in everyday human life. Her writing explores these issues, especially as they arise in reflection about gender and philosophy, the history of philosophy, and philosophy and film. Her book on Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex was published by Columbia University Press in 2001, and she is currently finishing up a new book called How to Do Things With Pornography. Bauer received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard after majoring in social science as an undergraduate, working as a reporter and a medical writer, and attending divinity school. She enjoys hanging out with her children; wrestling with the Sunday NYT crossword puzzle, listening to all things rock and roll, and watching, playing, and coaching baseball. She's also never without her knitting.

Lunch provided with registration.

*Students interested in participating in this workshop must submit a draft syllabus beforehand. To participate, submit your draft by March 26th to gcws@mit.edu.

Directions and Parking Information:

Download a campus parking map here.

Link to Google Map directions from Davis Square and via the parking lot here. According to Tufts Website, the address of the Cabot Intercultural Center is 170 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155. However, google locates the building at 160 Packard Ave, Medford, MA 02155 (which is reflected in this map).

Arriving by Car

If you plan on arriving by car the best place to park is the Fletcher Parking Lot located on Curtis Street between Chetwynd Road and Upland Road (directly across from Sunset Road).

Parking will be free for all visitors on Saturday April 12th from 7 am until 7 pm.

Once you have parked in Fletcher Parking Lot follow the path to your right (between the Fletcher Field and Mugar Hall) until you arrive on Packard Avenue. Turn left and you will see the Fletcher School and Cabot Intercultural Center. Enter on the first floor and walk up the stairs to reach the mezzanine level and the event registration tables. The Asean Auditorium is also on the mezzanine level.

Arriving by MBTA

If you plan on arriving by the T take the Red Line to Davis Square. Once you arrive at the Davis Square T Stop exit to the right on to Holland Street.

**Please note: There is construction on the Red Line this weekend that causes slight delays. The Red Line will go as far as Harvard Square, and then there is a shuttle bus that will stop at all Red Line stops between here and Alewife. Exit at Davis Square.

On Holland Street there is a sign for the Tufts Davis Square Shuttle also known as the Joey. There is a Citizens Bank ATM, JP Licks, Tedeschi as well as Boston Burger Company on this side of the street. The Shuttle stops at Davis Square, the rear of the Campus Center, Carmichael Hall, Olin Hall and then the front of The Campus Center before returning to Davis Square. Take the Shuttle to Olin Hall (the third stop).

Once you arrive at Olin Hall the first building immediately to its left is The Fletcher School and the Cabot Intercultural Center.

The Tufts Davis Square Shuttle is scheduled to arrive in Davis at the following times on Saturday morning: 10:40 am, 11:10 am and 11:40 am.

Because of the train delays, please give yourself a bit of extra time for your commute out to Tufts.

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