28th Annual
Gender Studies Symposium
March 11-13, 2009

Saturday, March 7, 7:30 pm, Fir Acres Theatre Main Stage

Performance of David Hare’s The Blue Room
Directed by Michael Olich, LC Associate Professor of Theatre

The Gender Studies Symposium is pleased to collaborate with the Theatre Department by hosting one evening of this year’s Main Stage production.

An insightfully witty meditation on men and women, sex and class, lust and power, this contemporary re-telling of Arthur Schnitzler’s early-20th-century La Ronde takes on the subject of Freudian projection and reinvents it in a bittersweet landscape that is both eternal and completely up-to-date. Its original production became a sensation in London and one of the most sought-after tickets of its Broadway season.

The March 7 performance will feature a special post-show discussion with the cast and director.

Tickets for March 5, 6, 12, 13, and 14 are available at the Fir Acres Theatre. General Admission, $10; LC faculty/staff/alumni, non-LC students, and senior citizens, $7; LC students, $5. Box office hours are Mon-Fri, 1-5 pm, as well as one hour before performances. Phone reservations for off-campus ticket purchasers can be made at 503.768.7495. Contact Joyce Beeny, Box Office Manager, with any questions at 503.768.7491.

Wednesday - Friday, March 11-13, 2009
Art Exhibition
Stamm Dining Room, Templeton Campus Center.

Featuring work by LC contributors as well as by Portland artists, this exhibit displays a variety of approaches to questions of gender and identity in a wide range of different media. The exhibit is open daily throughout the symposium.

Coordinated by LC students Alyssa Larkin and Peter Seilheimer.

Wednesday, March 11

9:15-11:15 am, Thayer
Workshop: Toying with Gender by Creating Dolls with LC student Sarah Mitchel
Advance registration required. Limited seating. Please contact smitchel@lclark.edu to reserve a space. Participants will have the opportunity to express their ideas about gender by assembling, carving, and adorning dolls and action figures.

9:45-11:15 am, Stamm
Movements in Transition: Perspectives on Social Activism
Moderator: Marie Sarita Gaytán, LC Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Latin American Studies
Beverly Yuen Thompson, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, Texas Woman’s University, “Centering ‘Reproductive Justice’: Transitioning from Abortion Rights to Social Justice”
Emma Schmidt, LC student, “A Dispute over Womanhood: Suffragists and the Portland Women’s Crusade of 1874”
Ed Taylor, LC Adjunct Assistant Professor of Political Science, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner—Everyone: How Inclusion Contributed to the Success of the Good Friday Negotiations”
Sudarat Musikawong, Lausanne Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology, Willamette University, “Gendered Casualties: Cold War State Violence in Thailand and the Problem of Representation”

11:30 am-1:00 pm, Stamm
Engendering Germany
Moderator: Maureen Healy, LC Associate Professor of History
Jacqueline Dirks, Cornelia Marvin Pierce Professor of History and Humanities, Reed College, and Devin McGeehan Muchmore, Reed College student, “Mädchen in Uniform: German Girlhood, Lesbian Representation, and Anti-Fascist Politics in Interwar America”
Luke Rodeheffer, LC student, “Female Homosexuality and National Socialism: Policy and Persecution”
Emily Katzman, LC student, “Women in Post-WWII Germany”
Maureen Reed, Adjunct Professor, Portland State University, “Memoirs of a Rabenmutter: What Happened When a New American Mom Went to Old Europe”

11:30 am-1:00 pm, Council Chamber
Gender, Public Space, and Place
Moderator: Reiko Hillyer, LC Visiting Assistant Professor of History
Genevieve Skruodos, Reed College student, “Defenders, Predators, Gentrifiers: Masculinities and Citizenship in Debates over Prostitution and Human Trafficking in Portland, OR”
Andrew Bernstein, LC Associate Professor of History, "Misbehaving Bodies and Meteorological Adventure in the Creation of a Natural (and National) Mount Fuji"
Dawn Odell, LC Assistant Professor of Art History, "Dutch Colonists, Chinese Mechants, and Indonesian Wives: The Visual Culture of Eighteenth-Century Batavia"

1:00, Trail Room
Performance by Alex Ramirez and Erin Dees, LC students

1:45-3:15 pm, Stamm
Out of the Blindspot, Into the Spotlight
Moderator: Linda Angst, LC Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Dusti Thurman, Whitman College student, “Lesbian Community at Whitman College”
Kacie Dalziel, LC student and Symposium co-chair, “Long Live the King: Gender Performance and the Politics of Drag Kings”
Nina Sailer, LC student, "Holding Your Hand: Experiences of Aging Lesbian Women"
Michael Crane, Reed College student, “Drag and the New Feminist Freedom”

Featured Event
3:30-5:00 pm, Trail Room
Poetry Workshop with Salt Lines, featuring Andrea Gibson with Denise Jolly and Tara Hardy.

Introduced by LC student Maisha Foster-O'Neal

Using contemporary poems as prompts for writing and discussion, we'll explore gender queer identities, talk about our experiences, and walk away knowing at least one new thing about the pitfalls of things with lids. Come curious and open to diversity. Bring a pen!

Keynote Lecture:
7:30 pm, Council Chamber, Templeton Campus Center
"Human Rights Challenges to Gender Injustice"
Loretta Ross, reproductive justice activist

Introduced by Melissa Osmond, LC Coordinator of Health Promotion and Wellness

Loretta Ross is a founder and the national coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. She is also the founder and former executive director of the National Center for Human Rights Education, and she directed one of the first rape crisis centers in the United States. Ross is the co-author of Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice (South End Press, 2004) and is currently writing a book about African American women and abortion. In addition, she has testified before the US Congress and United Nations, has written numerous editorials, and has offered commentary on many television and radio programs.

Thursday, March 12

9:45-11:15 am, Stamm
Babies, Bodies, and Our Gendered Health Care System
Moderator: Daena Goldsmith, LC Professor of Communication and Interim Director of Gender Studies program
Angelina Howell, PhD candidate in Anthropology, University of Florida, “The Body of Medicine: Gender Identity and Health Care (A Participatory Documentary)”
Andrew Janeba, LC student, “Modern Medicine and Male Pregnancy
Annika Shore, Youth HIV Education Coordinator, Cascade AIDS Project

11:30 am-1:00 pm, Thayer
Workshop: The (In)sanity of Gender with Sabrina Chapadjiev, editor of Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction
This workshop will invite people to consider the relationship between gender ideology and notions of sanity.

11:30 am -1:00 pm, Stamm
Activist Responses to Police Violence Against Women and Transgendered Individuals
Emi Koyama, activist and writer
Kat Enyeart, organizer at Rosehip Medic Collective, student at Portland State University
Sara Libby and Geoff MacNamara, Rose City Copwatch

1:15-3:15 pm, Council Chamber
Performance: Force of Nature by Carole Groobman
This one-woman show brings to light the social, political, and cultural issues of childbirth.
Followed by post-show dialogue with the performer and a panel discussion featuring the following participants:
Linda Glenn, certified nurse midwife, OHSU
Shafia M. Monroe, certified midwife, founder and president of International Center for Traditional Childbearing (ICTC), the first organization in the US to provide midwifery training and breastfeeding promotion for and by African Americans
Liska Havel, LC student and former intern at Waterbirth International
Sig-Linda Jacobson, MD, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at OHSU

1:45-3:15 pm, Stamm
“One that’s Poor and Low": Gender, Poverty, and Cultural Production in Mary Collier’s The Woman’s Labor (1739)
Moderator: Travis Feldman, LC Visiting Assistant Professor of English
LC students Caroline Hayes and Prachi Jha

3:30-5:00 pm, Council Chamber
A Healthier View of Masculinity: Seeing Boys, and Helping Them See Themselves, as Something Other Than Problems
Peter Mortola, LC Associate Professor of Counseling
Stephen Grant, Portland Public Schools
Howard Hiton, professional counselor

3:30-5:00 pm, Thayer
Consent is Sexy! Creating a Culture of Consent for Your Community
Facilitated by Mary Sackley, LC ’08, and Megan Alpine, LC student

Keynote Lecture:
7:30 pm, Council Chamber
"Fatherhood, Poverty, and Gender Injustice: Which Way Forward for the Obama Administration?"
Anna Marie Smith, Professor of Government, Cornell University

Anna Marie Smith is the author of the award-winning Welfare Regulation and Sexual Reform (Cambridge, 2007), and she recently served as guest co-editor of a special issue of Signs: Journal of Women and Culture with a focus on reproductive and genetic technology. Professor Smith has written numerous other works of feminist political theory examining sexuality, race, and law. She is spending this year as a fellow at the Center for Law and Culture at Columbia Law School.

Friday, March 13

9:45-11:15 am, Stamm
Got Milk?: Lactivists and the Representation of Breastfeeding
Moderator: Rishona Zimring, LC Associate Professor of English
Lynn Makau, Assistant Professor of English, Michigan State University, “Belying the Benignly Bovine: Fugitive Breast-givers’ Declarations of Self”
Alyssa Perry, LC student, “Visualizing Breastfeeding: An Art Historical Reflection”
Louisa Fillmore-Jones, MSSW, La Leche League Leader
Amelia Psmythe, Executive Director, Nursing Mothers Counsel of Oregon, and Director, Breastfeeding Coalition of Oregon THIS PRESENTER CANNOT ATTEND.

9:45-11:15 am, Thayer 2-3
Roundtable: Perspectives on Single-Sex Education
Moderator: Jerry Harp, LC Visiting Assistant Professor of English
LC students Paige Glowacky, Alyssa Larkin, and Alejandro Murillo.

11:30 am-1:00 pm, Council Chamber
Film Screening and Discussion: I Had an Abortion
Facilitated by Sara Calvert, LC ’06, Lilly Hankins, LC ’07, and Emily Webb, LC ’07. All three alumni work in the field of women's reproductive health.

11:30 am-1:00 pm, Gray
Brownbag Lunch Discussion: Careers Related to Gender Studies
Moderator: Rachel Orlansky, LC Educational Specialist, Student Support Services
Bring your lunch and talk with LC alumni and others who have used their interests in Gender Studies in developing their professional lives.

12:30-1:30 pm, Thayer 1
Performance: Surgemony V: seemefeelmetouchmehealme" by the Gyrl grip
This is the fifth installation in this series of performances exploring the nature of intimacy, longing, and the alienation from one's own body that is often experienced within gender dysphoria. Audience members are invited to come and go during the performance.

1:45-3:15 pm, Thayer 2-3
A Global Market of Choice
Moderator: Rima DasGupta, LC Assistant Professor of Sociology
Sandra Reineke, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies, University of Idaho, “Does My Body Belong to Me?: Women’s Rights, Assisted Reproductive Technologies, International Reproductive Tourism, and the Case of German Biomedical Policies”
Annika Burnett, Reed College student, “Free Labor: A Liberal Feminist Defense of Prostitution”
Lovely Umayam, Reed College student, “Espousing Survival and Mobility: International Marriage and the Feminist Lens”
Christine Osborn, Master’s student in Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “A Gendered Union: Fostering Equality in the Economic Reform of Romania and Bulgaria” THIS PAPER HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN.

1:45-3:15 pm, Stamm
Artists Talk Back
Moderator: Alyssa Larkin, LC student and Symposium Art Exhibit co-curator
Emilie Esders, LC student, “Ritualized Sexualities”
Jamie Stewart, Symposium featured performer
Eva Lake, collage artist

Featured Event:
3:30-5:00 pm, Council Chamber
Performance by the welfareQUEENS

The welfareQUEENS is a revolutionary group of mamaz, daughters, and sons struggling with poverty, welfare, racism, and disability. Through their art, storytelling, and poetry, the welfareQUEENS hope to reclaim the term “welfare queen” and resist the racist and classist mythologies about poverty in the United States.

Featured Event:
8:00 pm, Trail Room
Performance by Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu

Opening set by Paz Demente, a three-person band affiliated with the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls.

Introduced by Peter Seilheimer, LC student and Symposium co-chair

Jamie Stewart has been the front person for Xiu Xiu since the trio’s debut album in 2002. He has received critical acclaim for his dramatic, original compositions and his haunting, beautiful lyrics. Stewart has been described by the New York Times as having an “almost androgynous voice” and a style that “savors the contrast between a gentle bit of melody and a lyric about violence or extreme sex.”