Transnational Dialogues:
De-centering the Academic Debate on Global Feminisms
September 26-28, 2008
Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
The internationalization of local feminisms has significantly impacted how, in recent years, research agendas are structured in the U.S. and elsewhere. Feminists from all over the globe are addressing how globalization brings about new forms of gender inequality that, in many cases, are rooted in older histories of colonialism and racism. These transnational approaches move across national boundaries to assess political, economical, and cultural shifts affecting women’s lives, and emphasize connections without necessarily creating similarities. Within the U.S., feminists of color who had experienced first hand race and class biases were the first ones to create a network that included new social movements and transnational alliances. The exclusion that women of color from different racial, ethnic, physical, national, or sexual identities experienced created the conditions that generated novel coalitional movements.
Academic debates have tended to ignore other overarching issues that have produced their internationalization. Local feminisms went global during the 1990s, and produced contentious debates over the goals and strategies of feminist politics. These transnational dialogues resist essentialism and universalism and propose theories and methods that go beyond the exclusive focus on gender to make visible other forms of oppression where issues of race, class, culture, and sexual orientation intersect.
This conference seeks to engage scholars from various areas of the globe in a dialogue to challenge exclusions and omissions of these debates in mainstream academia and college curricula. Papers, panels, and workshops may be on, but are not limited to, any of the following topics:
• Theories, Methods and Challenges of Transnational Feminisms
• The Politics of the Global / Local Dynamic in Women’s Literary and / or Artistic Productions
• Feminist Geographies and Transnational Flows: Globalization, Immigration, and Displacement
• Politics of Sexualities
• Women’s Movements, State Building, and the Growth of Civil Society
• Community Building through Technology
• Building Academic Alliances Within and Beyond Women’s and Gender Studies Programs
All individual papers should be limited to 20 minutes reading time. Proposals for panel discussion and teaching workshops will receive priority. Papers in languages other than English will be considered. Selected proceedings will be considered for publication.
Undergraduate research (papers or poster sessions) encouraged, faculty approval of final paper is required to assure students’ participation. Students must submit an abstract by Feb. 29 and paper by May 30th.
Send a onepage abstract (300 words) submission by February 29, 2008 to:
Prof. Clara Román-Odio and Prof. Marta Sierra at tnr.callforpapers@kenyon.edu.
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