Making Room: Practicing Feminisms Today

Saturday, February 25, 9 AM-1:30 PM

808 Gallery

Making Room: Practicing Feminisms Today will engage an intergenerational group of women across disciplines in discussion around how feminisms are constructed and employed today. By creating spaces for women’s voices and visibilities, the symposium will address current discourses, debates, and contestations around interpretations of feminisms; conversations often initiated among and between women. Making Room will provide a much-needed platform for women’s advocacy and agency within our contested political climate. The panels will be followed by a community lunch open to all attendees.

Sponsored by the BU Center for the Humanities and the Department of History of Art & Architecture

The event is free and open to the public, but please RSVP as space is limited.

Program Outline:
8:30-9:15 / Registration and Coffee
9:15-10:15  / Roundtable – Gender and Equity in Higher Education

This interdisciplinary roundtable discussion explores the advances made by women in academia as well as the challenges they continue to face. Co-presented by Boston University’s Graduate Women in Science and Engineering (GWISE) and Graduate Student History of Art and Architecture Association (GSHAAA).

Participants:

Alice Y. Tseng, Chair ad interim and Associate Professor, Department of History of Art & Architecture, Boston University

Jenna Tonn, Lecturer, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University

Elisa Germán, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History of Art & Architecture, Boston University

Divya Israni, Doctoral Candidate, Biomedical Engineering, Boston University

Jean Fan, Doctoral Student, Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics, Harvard University

10:30-11:30 / The Archival Body and the Feminist Voice

This panel addresses how ideas of the radical archive and uses of counter-cultural archival material can create embodied sites where women’s activism and agency are given form and visibility.

Participants:

Interference Archive (Louise Barry and Jen Hoyer), volunteer community archive that emphasizes the relationship between cultural production and social movements.

Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reference Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society and Diversity Coordinator, New England Archivists

Dell M. Hamilton, Interdisciplinary artist, writer, lecturer and participant in Occupancies

11:45-12:45 / Intersectional Feminism

This panel addresses current ideas and applications of theories of intersectionality as pertinent to feminist and antiracist discourses today. Engaging with both the productivity and limitations of intersectional practices, this panel explores the application of these ideas via creative, professional, and activist channels.

Participants:

Zahra Khan, co-founder of Feminist Islamic Troublemakers of North America

Chitra Ganesh, Brooklyn-based visual artist and participant in Occupancies.

Aisha Shillingford, artist, community organizer, and member of Intelligent Mischief, participant in Occupancies.

1:00 / Community Lunch

 

Image: Chitra Ganesh, Protest Fantasy, 2015. Image courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco