EVENTS

New England Women’s Studies Conference
UMass Dartmouth, April 30th-May 1st, 2010

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

Download the CFP (pdf)

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 classroom
  • Impact of service learning and internships for Women’s Studies students
  • Value of service learning for the Women’s Studies curriculum
  • Teaching activism
  • Teaching Praxis through effective blending of feminist theory and practice
  • Feminist pedagogy online
  • Women’s Studies education as the practice of freedom
  • 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 curricular 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 experiences
  • Research projects drawing upon feminist theory
  • Practicing activism on a college campus
  • Defining 3rd 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 22nd.   Panel submissions welcome.

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

Decisions will be made by February 15th

 

NWSA Website