We are pleased to announce the keynotes and plenaries for the FREE AND FULLY VIRTUAL 2023 Univ of WI System WGS Consortium Conference, "Sustaining Hope: Feminisms, Freedom, and the Future," being held April 13-15, 2023.
- Thu, April 13 at 10am CDT: "Silence" and "Absence" as Imprints in Women's Stories of Migration and Human Trafficking, with 4W-STREETS, Dr. Araceli Alonso and Esperanza Jorge Barbuzano
- Thu, April 13 at 6pm CDT: Weathering: Slow Arts of Trans Endurance, with Dr. Hil Malatino
- Fri, April 14 at 11am CDT: Cite Black Women: Race, Gender, Justice and Citational Politics in the Feminist Classroom, with Christen A. Smith, Jenn M. Jackson, Erica L. Williams, Imani A. Wadud, Michaela Machicote, Whitney N. Laster Pirtle, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, Zakiya Carr Johnson, Alysia Mann Carey, Daisy Guzman, and Ozichi Okorom
- Fri, April 14 at 3pm CDT: Hopeful Art and Artful Hope, artists roundtable, panelists TBA
- Sat, April 15 at 9am CDT: Tender Gender Restorative Yoga: A Praxis of Feminist, Queer, and Decolonial Somatics, with Dr. Chloe Diamond-Lenow
- Sat, April 15 at 1015am CDT: Equitable Breast Cancer Prevention and Treatment, with the African American Health Network
- Sat, April 15 at 130pm CDT: Black Erotic Sovereignty: An Intersectional Outlook on Sex Work, Decrim, and Communal Liberation, with Nicole Nawaz, Cruel Valentine, Shakti Bliss, and Goddess KoCo Meow
This year's theme invites participants to occupy spaces of hope alongside uncertainty as we shift our collective gaze towards an unknowable and improvable future. Drawing on the foundational work of feminist abolitionist Mariame Kaba and other proponents of radical hope, we investigate how grief and sadness hold the seeds to our own survival and freedom. We position hope as intersectional concept grounded in solutions we have yet to fully understand and map out. We invite proposals which foreground an intersectional-feminist lens to map out inclusive societal structures, equitable institutional frameworks, cross-movement solidarities, and collective approaches to social change. We ask scholars, students, activists, artists, civil society leaders, and all members of the community to reflect on strategies for harnessing joy and hope in tandem with anger, frustration, and rage. How do we support a society that offers improved conditions for all, particularly Black, Indigenous, and people of color? How do we retain hope and remain joyful in the face of ongoing inequities, injustice, and the pandemic? What does it mean to chart a future that is difficult to discern? How do we slowly and systematically develop new solutions to systemic change? What does it mean to utilize hope as a strategy for change?
This conference is co-convened by UW System Women's and Gender Studies Consortium and UW System Office of the Gender and Women's Studies Librarian. Please see the website for more information:
https://consortium.gws.wisc.edu/conference/conference-2023/. Registration will open in the new year.
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Dr. Karla Strand
Gender and Women's Studies Librarian
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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