News & Events

Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights upcoming documentary screening. Afterwards, there will be a discussion with the director and guest speaker, Frances Beal. Snacks and refreshments will be served! This event is free and open to the public.

Women across the globe still struggle today to secure leadership positions in organizations and institutions. Yet, stretching back to Antiquity, we can identify a select group of women who, primarily by dint of inheritance, were able to head their nations as ruling queens (or “female kings”).  A panel of five scholars will examine this exceptional form of female power across a range of historical moments, geographical locations and cultural imaginations. Questions to be addressed include: How did ruling queens and their subjects reconcile the power of female sovereigns with the powerlessness of the generality of women? How did such sovereigns exercise their power, and to what ends? What legacies, if any, can be traced to these women’s reigns?

Panelists:

1:10pm   Virginia Sapiro,
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Political Science
Gender, Power, and Strategic Communication: Learning from Queen Elizabeth I

1:50pm   James Winn, Director, Center for the Humanities, Professor of English
“Ev’ry ENGLISH Heart’s entirely yours”: Patronage and Politics in the Life of Queen Anne

2:30pm Arianne Chernock, Assistant Professor of History
Queen Victoria and the “Bloody Mary of Madagascar”

Coffee Break

3:30pm Linda Heywood, Director of African American Studies, Professor of History
Queen Njinga, Catholic Orthodoxy and the Fight for Autonomy

4:10pm Shahla Haeri, Associate Professor of Anthropology
The Queen of Sheba and the Challenge of Authority

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Women’s History Month, March 2012

Past Fall 2011 Events

Spring 2011 April Events

Women’s Studies Program TeamL Carly Pack-Bailey, WGP Administrator & Dean Elmore, Dean of Students and fabulous supporter of Students & Relay 4 Life

Relay for Life

The WGS walked!!!  We raised money and awareness.  We cried for folks we’ve lost (Mom/Nana), survivors (Karen and Dottie) and for all the folks that won’t be affected due to the stellar research that the R4L raises!!!

Special thanks to:

Dean Elmore  – So kind to offer your ear…you helped me honor my Mother. You also honored our fantastic student body!!

Amazing BU Students!!!!! You rock!  Fund raisers, hair coloring, dodge ball, games, food, and thanks to Mike, Scott, Jordan and Sister History for showing me the Texas hold em ropes!

WGS’s amazing team: Michael Bailey, Mikki Tomlinson, Conor Bailey and Joe (Unofficial Terrier Football Boys), Maggie, Lines and Evan

All the folks who supported us with thier $ and or love!!

A special thanks to WGS Director Deborah Belle and her sweet husband Tim!!

Next year we are going to rock this gym!!!!  Kick this disease right out of the park!

Thank you all!!

Carly Pack-Bailey and Charlotte Pack (Nana)  2007      The fiercest and most loved red head there ever was!!  Miss you!

2011 Relay For Life of Boston University

A “New Woman”: the Art and Politics of Anita Willcox Parkhurst (1892-1984).

Panelists:

Patricia Hills, Professor, BU History of Art and Architecture Department
Ann Willcox Seidman, Adjunct Professor, Boston University School of Law, and Anita Parkhurst’s daughter
Katha Seidman, Independent Artist and two-time Emmy award-winning production designer, and
Anita Parkhurt’s granddaughter
Nina Silber, Professor, BU History Department

Thursday
April 21, 2011
4p-6:00

WRC   Women’s Resource Center
775 Commonwealth Ave
George Sherman Union
(lower level)
Boston, MA

3:30pm  Presentation of the SJD Award

We will have books available for purchase at the event, as well.  This event is free and open to the public.  Refreshments will be served. Join us on FACEBOOK  Bu Wgssp

MORE

Kecia Ali book MARRAIGE AND SLAVERY IN EARLY ISLAM party
Thursday,
May 5 at 4pm.
WGS Sitting Room
704 Commonwealth Ave Suite 102

* Faculty and Graduate

End of the year party for Minors      * Surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Past events

Women’s History Month      2011

Sisters and the Status of Women in Afghanistan

2  March
4pm-6pm
KCB 107
Kenmore Classroom Building, 565 Commonwealth Ave.

Corinne Jaber directed Sisters in Kabul and Paris

Sponsored by the Boston University Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and African American Studies Program, Boston University Humanities Foundation, Department of English, and Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations

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5 March
5pm – 7pm
Boston University
STO B50
590 Commonwealth Ave

The role of women in the current uprisings in the Middle East

Panelists:
- Dr. Val Moghadam, Professor of Sociology and Director of Women’s Study at Purdue University
- Mrs. Mehrangiz Kar, Author, Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School
Moderator: Dr. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo

Sponsored by the Boston University Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Iranians Graduate Association, Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, and the Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy Inc.

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Micro finance: Does It Work?

10 March
5:30pm – 7:30pm
Brandeis University
415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02454

Speakers:
Steve Atlas, Voices from the Field (Independent filmmaker and social justice advocate for international non-profits, including ACCION)
Kim Wilson, Problems of Micro Credit (Lecturer at Tufts School for Law and Diplomacy, Fellow with the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University)
Janina Matuszeski, Savings Groups: Advantages and Challenges (Research Coordinator, Community Finance Department, Oxfam America)
Marcia Odell, Beyond Microfinance: The Savings Group as a Social Safety Net (Women’s Empowerment Specialist, Former Director of WORTH—a women’s program launched in 10 countries in Africa and Asia)

Sponsored by the Boston University Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center, Gender Working Group, The Heller School, and Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.

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“thirteen” Screening at Boston University

22 March
6pm – 9pm
Boston University
COM 101

Part of WOMEN TAKE THE REEL. A film festival celebrating Women’s History Month Film with the member institutions of the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies (GCWS).

Please join us for Catherine Hardwicke’s [Twilight] exploration of teen angst. Barbara Gottfried, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program and GCWS Board Member will give a brief introduction. Follow up March 23: Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, author of Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen will discuss Thirteen and other films.

http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/calendar/event.php?id=108788&cid=63
http://web.mit.edu/wgs/filmfest2011/index.html

Sponsored by the Boston University Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies in conjunction with the GCWS.

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Rethinking the Motherline: Mothers and Daughters on Screen

23 March
3pm – 5pm
Boston University
GCB 205

a public talk / lecture by Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, Associate Professor at the University of Oregon and author of THE UNRULY WOMAN: GENDER AND THE GENRES OF LAUGHTER and the new UNRULY GIRLS, UNREPENTANT MOTHERS: REDEFINING FEMINISM ON SCREEN.
http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/calendar/event.php?id=108789&cid=63

Sponsored by the Boston University Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and the Boston Humanities Foundation.

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Reformist Muslim Women Leaders in Kenya

28 March
4pm – 6pm
Boston University
GSU Women’s Resource Center

Rutgers University Professor and Author Ousseina Alidou’s current study explores the ways in which reformist Muslim women leaders engaged in the public negotiation of gender relations and other key issues in the early 21st century. It examines their agency and leadership achievements as transformative social change agents in critical social sectors (e.g., education, health, media, law and politics). This work analyzes their responses to the broad processes that globalization has brought to the local arena in Kenya, such as democratization, neo-liberalism, and globally-circulating ideologies (e.g., Islamism, human rights, gender equality).

Sponsored by the Boston University Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and African American Studies Programs.