Lessons from the Great Depression: Shifting Contours of Race, Racism and White Privilege Among Working Class Women
Panel discussion

Lois Helmbold, BBRG Scholar, Professor & Chair, Women's Studies Department, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Monica McDermott, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Stanford University
Ula Y. Taylor, Asst. Professor, Dept. of African-American Studies, UCB

Based on interviews with and letters by Black and white working class women during the 1930s, this research analyzes commonalities and differences within class and gender, across race, age, and familial and marital situations in the urban north and Midwest.  Crisis unlocks contradictions.  The harsher experiences of Black women resulted from institutionalized racism, but contributed to white women’s assumption of whiteness, whether they were immigrants or American born

Geballe Room, Stephens Hall
3:00 PM

The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces
Panel discussion

Speakers: Jennifer Heath, Barbara Goldman Carrel, Ashraf Zahedi

The veil, vastly misunderstood, is a multi-layered, multi-situated sign. Veiling of women, of men, and of sacred places and objects has existed in countless cultures and religions through history. Today, veiling is a globally polarizing issue, framed as a locus for the struggle between Islam and the West and between contemporary and traditional interpretations of Islam. But veiling was a practice long before Islam and still extends far beyond the Middle East. This panel will explore and examine some of the cultures, politics and histories of veiling in varying societies.

Speakers:

Jennifer Heath: Revelatio: Behind the Male Veil.
 
Barbara Goldman Carrel: Shattered Vessels: Unveiling Hasidic Women's Dress Code

Ashraf Zahedi: Desexualization of Public Spaces: Taming the Wild Gaze

Sponsored by: Beatrice M. Bain Research Group, Gender and Women's Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Muslim Identities and Cultures Townsend Center Working Group

Geballe Room, Stephens Hall
3:00 PM

Feminism, Sexual Liberation and Contemporary Global Struggles
Film screening & discussion

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Professor Emeritus, Cal State East Bay
Silvia Fererici, Professor Emerita, Teaching Fellow, Hofstra University
Paola Bacchetta, Associate Professor, UCB; Director, Beatrice Bain Research Group
Laura Fantone, Researcher, University of Padua; BBRG Visiting Scholar

What do the issues raised in the 70s by the feminist movement mean for gender struggles today? The legacy of the late '60s and early '70s is often simplified and transmitted as a revolutionary, univocal narration, full of male leaders and workers. But it is important to remember actively how sexual liberation and the feminist movement enriched ideas of freedom, starting to speak publicly not just of politics in an abstract sense, but of everyday life. The idea of freedom and liberation of women needs to be discussed frankly, in its limits and co-opted forms.

Video clips from recent Italian films will be shown to connect 70s feminism in the US and in Europe, bringing three generations of scholars and activists from different backgrounds and generations - North American on the 60s, anti-colonial Marxist on the 70s, transnational contemporary perspectives - to the same table to discuss.

Sponsors: Beatrice M. Bain Research Group, Free Speech Movement Cafe

Free Speech Movement Cafe
6:30 PM to 8:00 PM

Nature, Nurture, Neither: Reconceptualizing Sex, Gender and Sexuality

Anne Fausto Sterling, Professor of Biology and Gender Studies, Brown University

The lecture will be followed immediately by a reception.

 Sponsored by: Gender and Women's Studies, Li Ka Shing, Beatrice Bain Research Group

Lipman Room
4:00 PM

Gender, Migration and African Women

Roundtable 

Dr. Manuh research interests are in women's rights and empowerment issues in Ghana, Africa, African development issues, The State, Gender and Women in Ghana, Contemporary African Migrations and higher education in Africa.

Cosponsor Graduate Program in Performance Studies

190 Barrows Hall
3:30 PM to 5:00 PM

The Meaning of Motherhood in the 21st Century: Changing Reproductive Stakes
Panel discussion

Jacqueline Adams, BBRG Scholar in Residence: What does motherhood mean in the region (Hong Kong) with the lowest fertility rate in the world?

Rene Almeling, Asst. Professor, Sociology, Yale, and Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar: Marketing Genes and Gender in Egg and Sperm Donation

Michele Pridmore-Brown, BBRG Scholar in Residence: Consuming motherhood at 35: How the trend toward older motherhood has changed reproductive stakes in the U.S.

Charis Thompson, Discussant: Co-director of STSC and Associate Professor, Gender and Women's' Studies

Co-sponsors: Near Eastern Studies Department, Center for the Study of Sexual Culture

254 Barrows Hall
3:30 PM to 5:00 PM

Violence and (Self) - Killing Passion: Lethal Biopolitics or a New Formation of Self, or....
Lecture

Speaker: Kazuko Takemura
Introduction by:  Trinh T. Minh-ha

The development of the feminist movement and feminist and gender studies during the past several decades, as well as the recent global economy and the rapid advancement of science and technology, has been instrumental in transforming the modern sexual regime. Paradoxically, however, violence which was before deployed based upon asymmetrical power configurations is now extending across previously existing boundaries. Modern biopolitics is flinging off any pretense of bio-ness and seems to be transforming itself into a “lethal machine.” Referring to injuries and murders committed in Japan, this talk examines a sort of affinity between recent re-definitions of the human/inhuman or the concept of connectedness and what could be called the (self-)killing passion observed specifically in the behavior of younger generations in Japan.

Kazuko Takemura is Professor at Graduate School of Humanities & Sciences at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, Japan, where she teaches Anglophone literature, film studies, feminist & gender studies, and postcolonial studies. Among her publications are: Feminism (2000); On Love: Identity and the Politics of Desire (2003); "Post"-Feminism (ed., 2003); Regimes of Desire and Violence (ed., 2008); and Translations of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Woman, Native, Other, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, etc.

Co-sponsors: Gender and Women's Studies, Beatrice Bain Research Group, Center for the Study of Sexual Culture

602 Barrows Hall - Gender & Women's Studies Conference Room
5:00 PM

Film Screening and Symposium: Maggots and Men

The Townsend Center Working Group in Socialisms and Sexualities Presents:

Film Screening and Symposium: Maggots and Men The film offers a stylized historical account of the Kronstadt Rebellion in revolutionary Russia, and is uniquely “cast with actors from a range of masculine gender expressions.” This provocative conjuncture situates the undoing of normative gender within a broader challenge to the dominant political-economic order.

Speakers: Susan Stryker, Gender Historian, BBRG Affiliated Scholar; Anne Nesbet, Slavist & Film Scholar; Members of the Socialisms and Sexualities Working Group

Co-Sponsored by BBRG

142 Dwinelle (Nestrick Room)
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Women Give and Men Receive? Exploring Gender Issues in Living Organ Transplantation

Speaker: Professor Silke Schicktanz, STSC and BBRG Visiting Scholar and Associate Professor, University of Goettingen, Germany

Organ transplantation is seen as one of the leading technologies in life science and biomedicine. Since the last decade, in many countries the donation of living organs, such as kidneys, has become an important part of the legal and medical practice. This talk will discuss the 'gender imbalance' from various angles. First, the empirical databases as well as its restrictions will be discussed. Second, Schicktanz will explore socio-empirically in how far such differences in moral attitudes can actually be found in European citizens' discussions about organ transplantation by analyzing Focus Group discussions in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. Third, she will discuss the practical and ethical implications of an approach which is more sensitive to gender-roles in organ transplantation.

Organized by Li Ka Shing Program in Gender and Science in the Department of Gender & Women's Studies

Sponsored by Science, Technology and Society Center, Beatrice M. Bain Research Group, Berkeley Center for New Media

BCNM Commons, 340 Moffitt, UC Berkeley
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM

The Legacy of Son Preference and Daughter Dislike: Perspectives from South Asian Communities

Panelist/Discussants: Tulsi Patel, Professor of Sociology, Delhi University; Sunita Puri, MD Candidate, UCSF School of Medicine

Moderator: Paola Bacchetta, Department of Gender and Women's Studies; Director, Beatrice Bain Research Group

A panel exploration of why South Asians seem to prefer male over female children regardless of whether they are in India or in the US. What highlights the contrast between India, especially North India and the immigrant Indian community in the United States of America is that female fetus abortion is illegal in India in contrast to it being free in the US. While freedom of choice and legal offense are attributed to the same act in the two countries, the panel will explore fieldwork based narratives and experiences showing that the "meaning of being a daughter" and raising one remains more or less the same between the two countries. While the nuanced material and contradictory legal experiences may differ, the deep down prejudices and their real consequences are not just skin deep.

 Organized by: Center for South Asia Studies

Co-sponsored by: Department of Gender and Women's Studies, Beatrice Bain Research Group, NARIKA

Stephens Hall, 220, The Townsend Center, UC Berkeley
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

Foreign Bodies: Gendering Transnational Migration in Contemporary Italy & Ireland

Part of the CRG Afternoon Forum Series.

Made in Chitaly
Dr. Laura Fantone, Beatrice Bain Research Group

'Opening Doors': The Domestic Worker's Support Group and Performing Migrant Women's Labor in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland
Charlotte McIver, Performance Studies

Organized by: Center for Race and Gender

Co-sponsored by:  Beatrice Bain Research Group

691 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley
4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

Rejiggering the Scholarly Imagination

Speaker: Tara McPherson, Associate Professor, School of Cinematic Arts
 and Editor of Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic
 Vernacular

This presentation is designed to foment discussion about the future of publishing in electronic formats. While several journals have gone virtual in the past decade, very few have moved beyond the "text with pictures" style of traditional print publishing. McPherson will survey the current state of the digital humanities while also imagining what other forms digital scholarship might take.

Organized by: Department of Gender and Women’s Studies

Co-sponsored by: Beatrice Bain Research Group

BCNM Commons, 340 Moffitt, UC Berkeley
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM

Re-Thinking LGBTTIQ Movements in the U.S.

*****POSTPONED: NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON*****

With Panelists:
Tommi Avicolli-Mecca
Paola Bacchetta
Blackberri
Dagenya
Barbara Ruth
Merle Woo

Panelists will consider: what were some of the most critical analyses and activisms of the period immediately prior to, during and after Stonewall?
How have these been erased or inscribed in history? Where are we today?
What possible futures for lgbttiq analyses and activisms?

This event is conceptualized as an inter-generational discussion with the concerns of students at the center.

The panelists are contributors to the recent book Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, edited by Tommi Avicolli Mecca.

Organized by Free Speech Movement Café

Co-sponsored by Beatrice M. Bain Research Group, Center for Race & Gender, Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, Gender Equity Center , Department of Gender and Women's Studies

Free Speech Movement Café, UC Berkeley
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

BBRG PRESENTS: Muslim Women of Minang

"Muslim Women of Minang" is a twenty-six minute documentary about a young Muslim-American woman, Amna Shiekh from the San Francisco Bay Area who takes a trip to West Sumatra, Indonesia to learn about Minangkabau--the largest matrilineal society (4-6 million people) in the world, which also happens to be Muslim. Shot digitally in high definition, the documentary is a reflective personal narrative in which Amna shares her experience of visiting Minangkabau culture where women are regarded highly for being women, and how this experience changes her perceptions about the social construction of gender.

This film is a "work in progress" and will be introduced by director and producer Irum Shiekh and followed by a panel discussion with Amna Shiekh, Professor Jeffrey Hadler, and others.

View a short clip of the documentary here

Directions to 370 Dwinelle Hall

 Organized by: Beatrice Bain Research Group

Co-sponsored by: Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Townsend Center working group on Muslim Identities and Cultures, Department of Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies Program, Department of Gender and Women's Studies

370 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley
4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

Michael Jackson: Critical Reflection on a Life & a Phenomenon

Scholars & artists reflect on the legacy of Michael Jackson on performance & artistry, racial & sexual politics, and cultural representations. The symposium features the following two panels:

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough: Artistry, Legacy, & Performance
Man in the Mirror: Race, Sexuality, & Representation

Also featuring Blair, an award winning Urban Folk, Afro-Punk, Poet, Singer, Songwriter from Detroit who is completing a collection of poetry reflecting on Michael Jackson.

Co-sponsored by: Department of Rhetoric, Gender & Women's Studies, Beatrice Bain Research Group,  African American Studies, Department of Music, and Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies

For more info, please visit: http://crg.berkeley.edu/mj-symp


Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Berkeley, North Campus
3:00 PM to 6:00 PM

New Media Documentary: Digital Art and Activism

Speakers: Sharon Daniel, Professor of Film and Digital Media and Chair of the Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz

Erik Loyer, an interactive media artist whose internationally-exhibited award-winning work uses tactile and performative interface in the service of audiovisual storytelling
Artist/activist/scholar Sharon Daniel and interactive media designer Erik Loyer will present two database-driven interactive documentaries, Public Secrets and Blood Sugar as case studies of alternative media activism. (see event webpage for more information)

Organized by: Department of Gender and Women’s Studies

Co-sponsored by: Beatrice Bain Research Group

BCNM Commons, 340 Moffitt, UC Berkeley
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM

The Politics of 'Third Space' in Global Videos and Installations

Michelle Dizon, Filipino-American artist from LA, screens her installation "Civil Society", a video comparing the 2005 riots in France and the 1992 riots in LA, illuminating political issues of marginal citizenships, migration and exile, media and the erasure of memories of historical violence. The discussion will be centered around a criticism of the current predominance of video realism/activism as a limited politics and poetics, mimicking mainstream media. By bringing examples of experimental forms of political installations we look for possibilities of reconfiguring political subjects and actions.

Discussants: Dalida Maria Benfield, filmmaker, art educator and scholar, Laura Fantone, visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley, Beatrice Bain Research Group.

Katherine Wallerstein will moderate the discussion.

Co-sponsored by: the Global Commons Foundation and Beatrice Bain Research Group

CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission Street San Francisco, 94103 (at 9th Street in SoMa)
7:30 PM

BBRG Presents: Traces of In-betweenness

presider:

Trinh T. Minh-ha U. C. Berkeley professor in Gender and Women's Studies, filmmaker and visual artist.

panelists:

Dalida Maria Benfield, filmmaker, art educator and coordinator of the "Visuality and Alterity" Townsend Working Group.

Michelle Dizon, artist, filmaker, writer based in L.A. She received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio in 2008.

Laura Fantone, visiting scholar at Beatrice Bain Research Group, U. C. Berkeley.

moderator:

Paola Bacchetta, director of the Beatrice Bain Research Group, U. C. Berkeley, professor in Gender and Women's Studies.

This panel revolves around the work of  post-colonial artists and their use of video. Digital and experimental forms of writing and visualizing diasporas emerged in the seventies as a specific poetics and politics, opening  a third space, connected to post-colonial political positions, and aesthetically responding to the limits of dualism.

The panelists will discuss the gendered dimensions of writing and video as third spaces, in their relationship with colonization, forced migration and global displacements.

Laura Fantone will discuss the role of silence, screens and emptiness in some of Theresa Hak-Kyung Cha’s work, in a dialogue with Michelle Dizon's recent installation Civil Society. Dalida María Benfield will discuss the work of artists Dizon and Cornejo, as a gesture towards memory's insufficiencies, positing other temporal procedures in postcolonial narration.

Organized by: Beatrice Bain Research Group

Co-sponsored by: Department of Gender and Women's Studies, Visuality and Alterity Townsend Center Working Group, Global Commons Foundation

Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, The Townsend Center
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Policing India
A Conversation with India's Supercop, Dr. Kiran Bedi

Kiran Bedi, Ph.D, is India’s first and highest ranking woman police officer. She joined the Indian Police Service in 1972 and retired in 2007. She is renowned for her innovative yet effective approach to law enforcement, through which she achieved extraordinary success in tough environments. She has worked as the Police Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and she has represented India at the United Nations and in numerous international forums.

Since retiring from active police duty, Dr. Bedi has also become an international activist on crime prevention, drug abuse, police and prison reform, women’s issues, and human welfare. She founded and runs two nonprofit organizations: Navjyoti and the India Vision Foundation, which provide education, vocational training, and treatment for drug addiction to women and children living in India’s slums, rural areas, and prisons.

For her work, Dr. Bedi has received dozens of international awards and commendations, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service (also known as the Asian Nobel Prize), the United Nation’s Serge Sotiroff Memorial Award for drug abuse prevention, the Joseph Beuys Award, and the Asia Region Award for Drug Prevention & Control by the International Organization of Good Templars. Dr. Bedi is probably the most decorated police officer in the world. She is consistently voted one of the most admired women in India.

Dr. Bedi’s activities straddle a staggering range of interests. She holds both a law degree and a doctorate, writes columns for leading newspapers and magazines, and anchors several radio and television shows. She has also been the subject of various books and films, including the 2009 film “Yes, Madam, Sir,” which has won accolades at several international film festivals. Dr. Bedi is an active public speaker, addressing social, professional, and leadership issues. She is also an Asian tennis champion.

Organized by: Center for South Asia Studies

Co-sponsored by: Global Fund for Women, Sarah Kailath Chair of India Studies, Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, UC Berkeley Police Department, Beatrice Bain Research Group

220 Stephens Hall, The Townsend Center
12:00 PM to 2:00 PM

Feminisms in Latin America and the Challenges of Diversity in the XXI Century

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED DUE TO UNIVERSITY STRIKE

Virginia Vargas is a Peruvian sociologist, political scientist, and feminist militant. In 1978 she founded the Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristán (The Flora Tristán Center for Peruvian Women), and is still active with the center today.  Vargas has been involved in numerous other feminist and activist networks and initiatives, locally and globally, most recently with the Articulación Feminista Marcosur (The Marcosur Feminist Articulation), a Latin American feminist political network. Vargas was the Latin American and Caribbean NGO Coordinator to the NGO Forum held in September, 1995, on occasion of the Fourth World UN Conference on Women in Beijing, China.  In Beijing, Vargas received a UNIFEM Award.  Vargas is on the Advisory Council for the Democracia y Transformacion Global (Democracy and Globlal Transformation Program) at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, Perú.  Since 2001 Vargas has been actively involved in the processes of the World Social Forum, as a member of its International Committee, and on behalf of the Articulación Feminista Marcosur.

Directions to 370 Dwinelle Hall

Organized by: The Global Commons Foundation

Co-sponsored by: Beatrice Bain Research Group, and Department of Gender and Women's Studies

 

370 Dwinelle Hall
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM