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The Personal Is Still Political: Challenging Marginalization through Theory, Analysis, and Praxis
Location: The Ray and Maria Stata Center
32 Vassar Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
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Conference Dates: March 31st and April 1st, 2017
The graduate students from nine universities of the Boston-area Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies present a biannual interdisciplinary conference entitled "The Personal Is Still Political: Challenging Marginalization through Theory, Analysis, and Praxis" to be held at MIT on March 31st and April 1st, 2017.
In the late 1960s, the statement “the personal is political” emerged as a central rallying cry for feminist activists. While salient before, it has become all the more urgent in light of the 2016 United States election results. Given this, the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality (GCWS) is hosting a graduate student conference, The Personal Is Still Political: Challenging Marginalization through Theory, Analysis, & Praxis, to investigate how this slogan has been, can be, or is now being mobilized as a concept for resistance by marginalized groups theoretically, analytically, and practically.
Thirty years ago, Audre Lorde remarked that “the absence of [race, sexuality, class, and age] weakens any feminist discussion of the personal and the political.” We build upon this inclusive declaration to examine the diverse reach of state oppressions, violence, hegemonic intervention, and marginality in the contemporary moment. We also aim to explore modes of resistance to such repression. Some of the questions this conference seeks to address include (but are not limited to):
- How have intersectional approaches to praxis reshaped this concept as a useful tool for counter-hegemonic struggles?
- How do repressed groups and individuals enact or challenge “the personal as political” in their daily, lived experiences?
- How is this concept relevant to linkages between academia, activism, and practice?
Click here for full schedule, panels, and keynote information.
Click here for the Call for Proposals.
Directions and Parking Information:
For information about how to arrive to MIT from the Logan Airport, via public transit, or driving from I-90, I-93, oe I-95, please see: https://whereis.mit.edu/directions.html
Street parking is available on Ames Street, Main Street, Vassar Street, Mass Avenue and Memorial Drive. Parking in most MIT lots is free on weekends. The closest lots to our symposium are: the Hayward lot, which is located on Hayward Street in Kendall Square between Main Street and Amherst Street; and the Kresge lot, located at the intersection of Amherst Street and Danforth Street, right off of Mass Ave.
NOTE: If you are planning on taking the Red Line to the Kendall/MIT Station please be aware that there will be shuttle buses between the Alewife and Harvard Stations. Please plan accordingly when making your travel plans.
For more information, contact gcws@mit.edu
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Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 14N-211
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-324-2085
