WSC Annual Conference - 2007

Wisconsin Women's Studies Conference,
UW System LGBTQ Spring Conference, and
Outstanding Women of Color In Education
Awards and Luncheon

April 20-22, 2007

Combined Preliminary Program

WSC | WOC | LGBTQ

31ST ANNUAL
WISCONSIN WOMEN'S STUDIES CONFERENCE
INTERSECTIONALITIES
In Women's Studies: Research, Teaching, and Activism

Sponsored by the UW System
Women's Studies Consortium and Inclusivity Initiative
 

SESSION 1
Friday, April 20th, 8:30 - 9:45 am

Textiles and Domestic Pastimes:  An Entry Point into Women’s Lives
This panel explores historical and methodological approaches to the study of textile-making and domestic pastimes. These often-undervalued aspects of women lives are elements of what Mary Daly called the background, the realm of experience characterized by everyday, often repetitive activities where relationship and creative satisfaction, not achievement, is what counts.  The panel examines the importance of such activities and objects, looking at what they have to tell us about the female experience. It presents both specific case studies and general ways to approach them, and introduces resources at UW-Madison for studying such topics.  Gordon will present material from her recently published book, The Saturated World:  Aesthetic Meaning, Intimate Objects, Women’s Lives, 1890-1940.  Marcinkus will examine nineteenth century nature fancywork and Kasemeyer will discuss the UW-Madison’s Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection as a resource for studying these women-made objects and the people who made and maintained and collected them.

• Rebecca Kasemeyer, Curator, Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, UW-Madison.
• Andrea Kolasinski Marcinkus, Instructor, Mount Mary College and Ph.D. candidate, Environment, Textiles and Design (ETD), UW-Madison.

Creating Lifelong Learners and Lifelong Givers
Although they come from two very different disciplines (Engineering and Women's Studies) the presenters believe that service learning can work with any age, any community, any discipline. This workshop will help participants design service-learning projects for their courses that include a plan incorporating assessment.

Rea Kirk, professor of Education and Lisa Riedle, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW-Platteville.

Defining Feminist Knowledge:  Shaping Global Realities

• Puerto Rican teenage single mothers: A case for feminist inquiry.  This paper is a feminist exploration of the complex world of Puerto Rican teenage single mothers’ self-perceptions including factors influencing how their parenting practice are shaped by gender and women’s issues.  Betzaida Vera-Heredia, Graduate Student and Project Assistant, UW-Madison.
• Complicating a Global Feminism: A Case Study of Ousmane Sembene’s Moolaade.  This paper will consider the feminist issues that Sembene presents in Moolaade, searching for ways that the film enriches and expands our understandings of multicultural feminism. Amy Noell, MA Student, Department of Art History, UW-Madison.

Moderator:  Laura Wendorff, Chair, Women’s Studies, UW-Platteville.

Locating Gender

• “I Wear it on My Sleeve:”  The Performance of Woman-ness in Soheir Khashoggi’s ‘Mirage’.  This presentation will examine the novel in which a fictitious Arab nation manifests strict binary extremes.  The presentation focuses on the way in which the novel’s exaggerated performances of Muslim woman-ness play into an American audience’s constricted understanding of women in Islam, promoting these exaggerations in order to highlight the larger binary of Us (East) and West (Them) via the performance of woman-ness.  Presented by Samaa Abdurraqib, a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature, UW-Madison.
• Dreams of Patriarchy:  Gender and Utopia, This presentation seeks to locate gender in time rather than in space.  The presenter will examine the configurations of gender in utopian/dystopian fiction, including Oryx and Crake and the Children of Men.  Elizabeth Zanichkowsky, Professor of English and Women’s Studies, UW-Waukesha.

From Campus to the Larger Community: Preparing Student Activists for Community Leadership 

Campuses are the training grounds for women’s leadership, and it is imperative to train the young feminists of today so that they are well equipped to become the leaders of tomorrow, whether it be in a communal, national, or global setting. In this workshop Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) staff will present methods of transforming the feminist student activists of today into the feminist community leaders of tomorrow.

Samantha Sewell, and Janel Quarless Midwest & South Central Campus Organizer, Feminist Majority Foundation.

Women of the Land – Connecting rural women with the land they live and work on.
The presentation describes research and workshops conducted through the Becoming an Outdoors-Woman (BOW) program that address the needs of women who own rural land.  It describes a process of learning outdoor skills and land stewardship concepts, such plant identification, enhancing backyard wildlife habitat, casting a fly rod, gun safety, animal biology activities and more. Session attendees will participate in a hands-on activity where they will learn to identify animals common to rural Wisconsin areas, along with learning about the habits and habitats of many of these animals. 

Peggy Farrell, Outreach Education Specialist, UW-Stevens Point.

WELCOME AND CONFERENCE KEYNOTE
Friday, April 20th, 10:00 - 11:00 am

INTERSECTIONALITIES: The Feminist in Art as Activism 
How has feminist art contributed to the last thirty five years of the women's movement and why does it continue to be important to Women's Studies academic and activist work today?  Dr. Ferris Olin will share her thoughts and efforts underway to make the aesthetic and intellectual impact of the feminist art movement visible and consider how it embodies contemporary feminism theory on action and activist visual praxis.

Dr. Ferris Olin: is a feminist art historian, a librarian and a curator.  She is the head of the Margery Somers Foster Center, Rutgers University Libraries (www.libraries.rutgers.edu/msfoster), and long-time curator of the Mary H. Dana Women Artist Series at the Mabel Smith Douglass Library, and Co-Director of the Institute for Women and Art with artist Judith Brodsky.  Together they are principle investigators of WAAND: Women Artists Archives National Directory -- an innovative Web directory under development by Rutgers University Libraries and on the Web at http://waand.rutgers.edu. WAAND is designed as a research tool for scholars, artists, curators, students, and collecting institutions around the world, as well as researchers in cultural and intellectual history, American studies, material culture, and women's and gender studies. It directs users to primary source materials of and about contemporary women visual artists active in the U.S.

Ferris Olin is also a moving force in The Feminist Art Project (feministartproject.rutgers.edu).  The Feminist Art Project is a national initiative celebrating the Feminist Art Movement and its impact on art history and contemporary art practice. Its purpose is to bring public attention to the significant and continuing impact of women and their art on all aspects of contemporary art practice, highlighting their international influence, and guaranteeing their inclusion in the cultural record, past, present, and future.  The Project seeks to join forces with feminist artists, curators, teachers, and writers across the nation to bring attention to the important achievements of the last 35 years of the Feminist Art Movement and share information about the continuing impact and vital presence of feminist art as an underpinning of contemporary art practice.

Dr. Olin is the former Executive Officer of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers and the Laurie NJ Chair in Women's Studies at Douglass College. Olin is also the Project Director for the New Jersey Women's History Website (www.scc.rutgers.edu/njwomenshistory), a nationally recognized website that continues the work of the Women's Project of New Jersey, on whose Board she sits, to publish information and develop K-12 curriculum on local women's history. In addition, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of the College Art Association and served as the organization's Vice President, as well as chair of its Committee on Women in the Arts.

SESSION 2
Friday, April 20th, 11:15 am - 12:30 pm

Pink: Engendering Anxieties

Three artists present their feminist art included in the exhibition Pink.  Representing women and women's lives in paint and sculpture, their work moves from portraits of women characters from romance novels to archetypal early American furniture forms associated with women (such as dowry chests, sewing tables, tea tables), and women's fashions that become furniture forms.

BA Harrington, Emily Bennett Beck, Stephanie Liner are all 3rd Year MFA Students, UW-Madison Art Department.

Student Experiences With and Key Learning From Abilities-based ‘Story Telling’ at the Intersection of their Development as Women Leaders and as Active Global Citizens
This faculty/student presentation and interactive discussion will focus on the teaching and learning experiences of participants in Alverno’s abilities-based and assessment-based curriculum.  Students will demonstrate how their lives and leadership skills have been enriched via the articulation and analysis of personal ‘leadership stories’ and developmental action plans.
 
Moderator:  Jim Henderson, Assistant Professor of International Business and Women’s Leadership - School of Business, Alverno College.  Student/Alumnae panelists include:  Debra Amesqua, Fire Chief, City of Madison; Erica Case, Senior HR Analyst, Kraft Foods, North America and Owner/operator - The Alchemist Theatre, dinner theater, Bay View, WI; Hamidah Lalani, Nurse Educator, Diabetes Department, Children’s Hospital of WI, and enrolled in Master’s of Science in Nursing, Alverno College; Darlene Jonas, Administrative Captain – Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office; Chantè Schultz, Operations Team Leader - UMB Investor Services.

Constructions and Crossings:  Defining Realities I

• Problematizing Protection: Women, Gender, and the U.S. Security State, Ellie Schemenauer, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, UW-Whitewater.
• "Grandma's Stories" and The Farm Part II, The Puotinen Women: Teaching Feminist Theory through Autobiographical Documentary Films, Sara Puotinen, Lecturer and Visiting Scholar, Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies Department, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
• Perceived as "White" and Erasing "Indian": Creating Race in the 19th Century Great Lakes Region, Kate Thomas, Co-Chair of Women’s Studies, Assistant Professor of History, UW-Stout.

Key Issues and Resources in Teaching Violence Against Women
Longtime violence-against- women activists/teachers will share and discuss some of their favorite ideas and resources for teaching effective ways to understand and work to end violence against women.

Moderator:  Nancy Worcester, Women’s Studies UW-Madison.  Susan Turell, UW-Eau Claire; Sandra Krajewski, UW-LaCrosse; Rea Kirk and Dianne Evans, UW-Platteville.

Performing Woman-ness:  Searching for Subjectivity
This panel attempts to answer what it means to perform “woman.”  It will explore some of the ways women’s roles and their performances of femininity are constricted and constructed by the nation-state and its socio-political environment.  The presenters consider where female subjectivity lies when it is mediated by and interpreted by the state and masculinity.

• Gender Performance: Finding the Self in Other, Christina Steele, Graduate Student in Women's Studies, UW-Madison
• Performing Self: Undocumented Immigrant Fictions, Lauren Vedal, Ph.D. candidate/English Literature, UW-Madison
• (cancelled) Throwing Their Weight Around: Portrayals of Women’s Weight in Spain, JoAnn Debo, Ph.D. Candidate in Spanish & Portuguese, UW-Madison
• Where Did the New Women Go?  Nazi Regulation of Weimar Womanhood, Regina McConaghy, Ph.D. Candidate in German, UW-Madison

Moderator:  Samaa Abdurraqib, Ph.D. candidate/English Literature, UW-Madison.

Decriminalization or Bust!
In this presentation participants will engage in an active discussion on the decriminalization of prostitution shared through statistical analysis, personal tales, governmental and United Nations declarations, documentary footage, performance and visual art. 

Kathryn Kelnhofer, recent graduate of the University of Manchester.

• Dianna Hunter writes fiction and creative nonfiction, teaches Women’s Studies classes, and coordinates the multidisciplinary Women’s Studies Program at UW-Superior.
• Yvonne Rutford writes poetry and creative nonfiction. She is a senior lecturer in the Language & Literature Department at UW-Superior, teaching freshman composition and business/professional writing.
• Deborah Schlacks is a Professor of English at UW-Superior.
• Barbara Werner is Women’s Studies Coordinator at UW-River Falls.

Moderator:  Susan Messer, Professor of Art, UW-Whitewater, Co-coordinator of Wisconsin Feminist Art Project.

LUNCH
Friday, April 20th, 12:30 - 1:30 PM

NOON SPECIAL EVENT
Friday, April 20th, 12:30 - 1:30 pm

Poster and Presentation: Mentoring the Mentors
The poster is a display showing the progress of the UW-Milwaukee Classified Mentoring Program over the last two years. It includes:  the original proposal, website information, FAQ information, and current mentor training information.  Informational sheets and brochures will be available for participants to take with them.  The panelists will be available to discuss all aspects of the program and answer any questions participants have.
UW-Madison Classified Staff have a special invitation to attend this session.
 
Roberta Stanton, Margaret Cushinery, and the UW-Milwaukee Classified Staff Mentoring Team.

SESSION 3
Friday, April 20th, 1:45 - 2:45 pm

Transdiasporic Feminist Art Practice
This presentation is associated with an exhibit on display during the conference in room 220.

• Transdiasporic Art practices: A Curatorial Framework. This presentation critiques traditional definitions of Diaspora and the mono-ethnic lens of traditional Diaspora art exhibits such as South Asian Diaspora Art and African American Diaspora Art. A rigorous definition for the term "Transdiaspora" is constructed and a strategic curatorial framework titled "Transdiasporic Art Practices" is presented. This framework re-invents and re-presents Diaspora as a permeable and experimental concept, exploring its myriad forms in 21st century America. Examples of artworks will be shown. Pritika Chowdhry, 2nd Year MFA in Visual Art Graduate Student, UW-Madison, and panel organizer.
• (cancelled) Traditional/Contemporary Native American Art: Working Towards a Different Center, Danielle Megan Majors, UW-Madison Art Education graduate student, member of the Brothertown Indian Nation.
• Performing Art as a Transformative Tool: A vehicle for political and personal empowerment, Carrie Hoelzer, MFA student, UW-Milwaukee.
• (cancelled) Transcending bodies: Displacement in the works of Robert Gober, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Rachel Whiteread, Cedar Marie, recent MFA Graduate, UW-Madison and lecturer at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
• New: "Hadley Chests and the Ordering of the Feminine", B.A. Harrington, MFA student, UW-Madison.
• New: "Local infusions and Global Flow of Desire", Megan A Katz, MFA student, UW-Madison.

 Panel discussant, Paul Baker Prindle, MFA student, UW-Madison.

Visions of the Apocalypse in Women’s Literature
The presenters discuss visions of the apocalypse in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” Andrzej Bursa’s “Dragon”, and Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake.” 

Dr. Stephanie Branson, Professor of English, UW-Platteville, and Dr. Elizabeth Harry, Professor of History, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Using Research as a Tool to Recruit and Elect Women to Public Office
The panel will include Wisconsin women at various levels of local government talking about barriers and opportunities, a member of a regional consortium looking to increase women's political participation in their community, and an overview of the Women's Council current and future research in this area including discussion of how to better partner with the Women's Studies community in this work. 

Liberating Act as Third Wave’s Everyday Activism
Presenter will discuss her experiences teaching a Women’s Studies course on “Culture of Third Wave Feminism” in which she requires students to complete a “Liberating Act” and a research paper based on that act.  In the spirit of Gloria Steinem’s Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, students perform a positive act that represents something that challenges the way they see the world or how the world sees them.  Former students will be available to talk about their projects.  This session will also include an open discussion with participants on how they promote “everyday activism” for their students and themselves.

Interdisciplinary Assignments:  Making the Most of Expertise
Technology makes it possible to experiment with the pedagogies behind interdisciplinary learning.  The presenter will discuss a OPID grant supported campus project that explores linking and sharing discrete segments of separate courses that interrelate logically around a concept, issue, problem, question, or idea covered in the courses.  Using online teaching technologies faculty can share “Interdisciplinary Assignments.” Participants will learn the process of constructing an interdisciplinary assignment.

The Construction of Gendered Subjects: Feminist Analysis of Transnational Discourses
This panel examines the gendered impact of transnational discourses in the constitution of marginal subjects.  This panel seeks to illuminates how gender, race, class, and sexuality interplay in the construction of nation, morality, and citizenship through transnational discourses.

• Mothers of a New People:  US-Korean interracial and international adoption, Kori A. Graves, Program in Gender and Women's History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Untouchability of the Untouchable Women:  Punjabi Christian women in Pakistan, Ayesha Khurshid, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Transnational Sexual Citizenship?: Framing Teenage Homosexuality in South Korean Print Media 1990-2005, Hae Yeon Choo Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Discussant/Moderator: Myra Marx Ferree, Professor in Sociology, UW-Madison.

Feminists Face the Future: Redefining Active Retirement
This facilitated discussion will focus on how feminists have been creating different possibilities for self-expression post-retirement, through activism, scholarship, and personal growth activities. A group of Women's Studies scholars and teachers who have "graduated" to this next phase of life in recent years will share their insights.

SESSION 4
Friday, April 20th, 3:00 - 4:00 pm

Feminist Art as Visual Narrative

• From the Feminist Heart of a West Texas Artist:  The Evolution /De-evolution of Feminism in My Home Town As Seen Through My Art and Stories. In this presentation the artist discusses feminist art practice and how art functions as a visual form of communication; telling stories, recording memories, examining relationships and/or challenging the status quo.  A film on the artist’s art and its documentation of her life as a radical figure in a conservative community is also showing at the conference.  Future Akins, artist and Assistant Professor of Art Education, Texas Tech University. (See Session 6G for a film on this artist's life and work.)
• Sisters of Spirit ‑ Intersecting in the Margins with Love and Honor.
  The artist shares her process creating an artist's book that examines and celebrates that which is important to women who live their lives with honor and with spirit. She will discuss her creative process and research collecting the women’s stories and photos at the beginning of this long term project of documentation and connection to those who choose to walk this world in meaningful ways.  Karen Goulet, artist, poet, and educator. Member of White Earth Band of Ojibwe. (See an artist’s book by this artist in the Intersectionalities: The Feminist in Art Exhibition.)

Moderator:  Helen Klebesadel, Director, UW System Women’s Studies Consortium.

Rhetoric and Social Struggle
How can we more astutely analyze our own and others’ communication and increase our ability to make critical, self-reflective choices when participating in shared decisions?  The purpose of this panel is to demonstrate and critique specific textual roles and rhetorical strategies in contemporary controversies, including Wisconsin’s 2006 referendum on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages and the ongoing struggle over popular representations of whiteness and race.

• Social Order and Communicative Constructions of Marriage and Sexuality:  The Struggle over a Gay Marriage Constitutional Amendment in Wisconsin, Chad Gobert, Koa Kopacz, and Robin Scholz, Communication, UW-Milwaukee.
• Confronting Catharsis and Guilt Transfer in Standup Comedians' Discourse on White Privilege
  James Draeger, Rachael Hill, Kelly Knutson, Brian Rothgery, and Edward Wills, Communication, UW-Milwaukee.
• Rhetorical Leadership through Strategies of Enactment, Embodiment, and Evocation, Kathryn M. Olson, Professor of Communication and Director of Rhetorical Leadership Graduate Certificate/Concentration Program, UW-Milwaukee, and panel organizer.

Feminist Pedagogy: Challenges and Opportunities within the Inter- and Multi- Disciplinarity of Women’s Studies
Women’s Studies programs work to be interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, and this inclusivity can create some challenges for programs regarding feminist pedagogy. The presentation will share how the women’s studies program at UW-EC has begun to develop a process by which to improve their feminist pedagogical processes and how a senior capstone project examined feminist pedagogy through the lens of students’ voices.  Formatted for discussion, this presentation will include an overview of the observations and then engage the participants in a discussion of opportunities and challenges regarding feminist pedagogy.

Voice and Activism

• It's Your World: Explorations of Hip Hop Feminist Activism.  The presenter examines the emergence of hip hop feminism as a site of struggle over representations and meanings attached to women in hip hop culture and young women's involvement with feminist activism.  Caryn Murphy is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication Arts at UW-Madison.  Her dissertation is about contemporary feminism and teen girls' popular culture.
• Me and Patti Smith, My Action and Her Voice, The presenter examines the work of the poet and punk musician Patti Smith through feminist lenses that include examining questions raised on the ethics of representation and moral philosophy by the humanist philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.  Jenni Veitch-Olson, is a Ph.D. Candidate in Musicology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Challenging the traditional mode of teaching dance in higher education: Using the Language of Dance® to transform pedagogical practice in the field.  In this interactive workshop presentation participants will be taken through a slice of Language of Dance student-centered pedagogical practice aimed at transforming a three centuries old instructor-centered mode of teaching into a more student-centered model. 

Forging Junctions, Forcing Ruptures: Women and Intersectional Identities in Japan

• Distance Relationships: The “Closed Country” Era in Japan and the Crackdown on Mixed Marriages, Michael Laver, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.
• Ethnicized Difference, Nationalized Bodies: Okinawan Women and Intersectional Identities in Postwar Japan Valerie Barske, Panel Organizer, and Ph.D. Candidate University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Associate Lecturer of Women’s Studies University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.
• Transforming Identities in Tawada Yoko's Fiction, Tomoko Kuribayashi, Professor of English and Literature, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.

Feminism and Visual Culture Studies:

• In the Classroom:  Two Working Examples from Mexico - Sor Juana and Frida Kahlo, Catherine Bryan is an Associate Professor of Spanish in the Dept of Foreign Languages and Literatures at UW-Oshkosh.
• Feminist Theology and the Visual Dimension of Religion, Alice Keefe is Chair of Women’s Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at UW-Steven’s Point.

Moderator:  Jane Schulenberg, History Outreach and Women’s Studies, UW-Madison.

SESSION 5
Friday, April 20th, 4:15 - 5:15 pm

Feminist Art Project - Roundtable II:  Art and Artists
This session will bring together visual artists to discuss the impact of the feminist art movement on their work. Artists include: Blanche Brown, Carol Morgan, Kathleen D’Angelo, Judy Goldsmith, Isadora Gabrielle Leidenfrost and others TBA.
           
Moderator:  Leslee Nelson, Professor of Art, and Coordinator of Art Outreach, UW-Madison, and Co-curator of the “INTERSECTIONALITIES:  The Feminist in Art” exhibition.

Teaching from a Social Justice Feminist Perspective
Social justice feminism centers on women most affected by the intersection of gender, class, race and sexual orientation in order to explore root causes of oppression and the need for systemic change. This panel will discuss the significance of social justice feminism for Women’s Studies and across the disciplines.

• Taking on the Big Boys, or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Businesses and the Nation.  Talking about her new book, "Taking on the Big Boys, or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Businesses and the Nation," and sharing her experience working with a multiracial group of national leaders to develop social justice feminism as the underpinning of a revitalized women's movement, Ellen Bravo, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Women Studies at UW-Milwaukee and former executive director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women.  Student participant TBA.
• Putting Women in the Center of Economic Analysis Is a way of redefining the issues and concerns of economics.  Infusing what women in their diversity deal with on a daily basis into the analysis helps students become activists and develop a vision for how society should be organized. Zohreh Emami, Professor of Economics at Alverno College.  Student participant TBA.

Searching for a Future:  Hmong Women in Higher Education
This presentation includes a 30 minute documentary on the roles of Hmong women and how they have changed over the past 35 years since the Hmong have been in the United States.  The video follows the footsteps of the Hmong people as they migrate from China to Laos, Laos to Thailand, and then Thailand to the United States.  The documentary focuses on female gender roles within the Hmong culture and also looks at who are the role models for the younger generation of Hmong women.  The video highlights Hmong women who have made accomplishments in the Hmong community and the community at large and look at issues that Hmong women in higher education are currently facing.  Within the documentary are interviews of several Hmong women at UW-Stevens Point who are currently students or have graduated.  The documentary looks at how Hmong culture plays into these women’s decisions as they choose which career to go into and where they stand within their own culture.  Mazie Maichoua Moua is a senior at UW-Stevens Point majoring in English Education with minors in ESL, Women’s Studies, and Political Science.

Moderator: TBA.

Re-examining Our Change Makers

• Women’s Ways of Leading
  This presentation is an introduction to the leadership of three women - Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Mamphela Ramphele, women who changed the world and lived to tell of it.  What defined them as leaders then and now?  Elisebeth VanderWeil, Doctoral student in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University.
• Social Work and Alice Paul: Claiming Our History, Redefining Our Mission
  Alice Paul, advocate for woman’s rights, was one of the first social workers in the U.S.  A brief discussion of Paul’s advocacy activities in both the suffrage and Equal Right’s movements, as well as discussion of the importance of her inclusion to a social work curriculum.  Sylvia Hawranick, Ed. D., MSW, Ohio University.

Moderator:  Rea Kirk, professor of Education, UW-Platteville.

Providing Enrichment Opportunities for Girls in STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
This presentation will focus on two projects aimed at having an impact on awareness, education and empowerment for the middle school girls to encourage them to take classes in STEM areas.  GEMS: Girls Engaged in Math & Science club for middle school girls was started with a grant from NSF facilitated by the WI Girls Collaborative Project, and a college student organization, WOMAC: Women in Mathematics & Computing plans to host a day-long math & computing camp for 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls.  Sharing the tremendous success these types of projects can be for middle school girls to continue believing that they are capable of “doing math and science.

Susan Talarico, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Advisor for WOMAC: Women in Mathematics and Computing, UW-Stevens Point. Students TBA.

Dance, Nature and Spirit: Arts and Women in the Criminal Justice System
A DanceCircus GIVING VOICE Series performances grow from storycircles.  They are creative movement workshops exploring life stories. This workshop will illustrate the development of two dances developed from a three month long series of storycircle workshops conducted in the Spring of 2006 at the Benedict Center.  From group sessions through rehearsals to performance, conference participants will experience a shortened version of the process to create a group “performance event.”

Betty Salamun, Artistic Director DanceCircus and facilitator of group at The Benedict Center with Angelina Fields, Benedict Center intern and graduate of Alverno College.

Power, Identity, and Literary Voice

• (cancelled) Women Writers in Northern Nigeria As Agents Of Patriarchy:  A Study Of 'When The Wall Cracks' and 'Rabiat', Halima A-Sekula, University Lecturer, Nasarawa State University.
• “It Takes Just a Single Voice to Break the Silence”:  Social Justice in the Poetry and Prose of Lisa Suhair Majaj, Laura Wendorff, Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies.
• Women, Identity and the Power of Community:  The Magical Realism of Allende and Morrison, Anna Hensley, Undergraduate Student of English and Philosophy at UW-Stevens Point.

Moderator: Lauren Smith, Chair of Women’s Studies.

Research Dialogues as Ethical Inquiry in Feminist Research
Feminist research methodology, as informed by feminist discourse across disciplines, has become increasingly persuasive in ethnographic projects and rhetorical studies.  This presentation will define and explore "research dialogues” and reveal ethical issues such as the ‘politics of location’ in research”, and developing processes that are self-reflexive, critical, collaborative, reciprocal, and ethical in the representations of their projects.  The presenter(s) advocate for the inclusion research dialogue in the training of novice researchers, whether in graduate courses on research methods and undergraduate courses.

PLENARY WORKSHOP
Friday, April 20th, 5:30 - 6:30 pm

Refocusing the Gaze:  Interrogating Gender and Sexuality through the Lens of Visual Representation
Melanie Herzog, Professor of Art History and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies, Edgewood College, Madison, Wisconsin.

Visual representation offers an effective lens through which diverse feminisms’ analysis of gender and sexuality can be viewed in the Women’s Studies classroom. This workshop will offer ways to facilitate students’ examination of the role of art and visual culture in reflecting, shaping, complicating, and subverting social constructions of gender and sexuality. Its purpose will be to facilitate thinking about how, since the birth of the feminist art movement during the early 1970s, various understandings of gender and sexuality, emerging from a range of feminist perspectives, have been manifested in artists’ exploration of these themes, and in feminist production of and responses to visual culture. Interrogating gender and sexuality through the lens of the visual offers ways to think about how power, privilege, and oppression are enacted, maintained, and challenged through visual representation, and ways that invisibility and visibility – seeing oneself represented – has an impact on one’s sense of oneself and of others.

This presentation is structured as an interactive workshop in which participants can explore ways to incorporate art and visual culture into their teaching of Women’s and Gender Studies, relative to the disciplinary perspective(s) they bring to their work.

Presenter:  Melanie Herzog, Professor of Art History and Women Studies, Edgewood College, and Wisconsin Co-coordinator of the Feminist Art Project.

CONFERENCE AND ARTISTS' RECEPTION
Friday, April 20th, 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Conference and art exhibition participants are invited to a reception to visit with each other and ‘meet the artists’ who have work displayed in the Pyle Center in the Intersectionalities: The Feminist in Art exhibition.

SESSION 6
Saturday, April 21st, 8:30 - 9:45 am

Fabrications:  An Artists’ Collaboration on Women’s History - a Celebration of Madison's Sesquicentennial (150th birthday) - in cloth and poetry.  "Fabrications" is an art exhibition, a booklet and a collaborative social history project documenting the lives and perspectives of everyday men and women from Madison as a part of the city’s sesquicentennial. It includes a poem written in honor of the project and incorporated.  This slide and performance presentation will describe the making of the collaborative social history and examine how art made from feminist collaborative impulses can expand our idea of history and who contributes to the making of a city.

Sharon Kilfoy – Community Artist and Director of the Williamson Street Art Center and Andrea Musher – Poet Laureate of Madison, and Professor of English and Women’s Studies, UW-Whitewater.

Feminist Art Project - Roundtable III:  Curatorial Work as Activism
This roundtable will be a discussion of feminist curatorial practices past and future. 
Participants:  Pritika Chowdhry, artist and independent curator, Andrea Skyberg, curator, UW-Milwaukee Art Gallery, Ferris Olin, art historian and curator, Rutgers University (see keynote), Melanie Herzog, artist, art historian and curator, Edgewood College, Leslee Nelson, artist and art outreach coordinator, UW-Madison, others TBA.

Moderator:  Evelyn Kain, Professor of Art and Art History, Rippon College, Rippon WI, and Co-coordinator of Wisconsin Feminist Art Project.

Roundtable: Infusing Women and Gender into a Special Mission University (UW-Stout)
UW-Stout is a special mission campus in the UW System (soon to adopt the designation “polytechnic university”).  This means that they offer primarily applied degrees with a strong liberal arts foundation.  This roundtable will discuss the various pedagogical approaches to teaching about women and gender at Stout given its special mission.  They invite questions and ideas from the audience as they creatively explore various options to infuse women and gender studies in applied degree programs.

Kari Dahl, Associate Lecturer and Coordinator, People Process Culture Center, Department of Communications, Education and Training; Renee Howarton, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology; Jerry Kapus, Professor, Department of Philosophy; Hollace Anne Teuber, Assistant Professor, Department of Speech Communication, Foreign Languages, Theatre and Music; Susan Wolfgram, Assistant Professor of Family Studies in the Department of Human Development & Family Studies.

Moderator:  Kate Thomas, Assistant Professor of History and Co-chair, Women’s Studies, UW-Stout.

Performance Slam!-Let’s Throw Down Some Theater
TAPIT/new works Ensemble Theater is a women-run organization that creates and performs original theater works. They offer a participatory preview of their arts residency work with Women’s Studies students.  Combining performance excerpts with sample workshop activities, this session show how Company artists help students explore artistic expression as a form of cultural analysis, fusing the political and the personal.

TAPIT/new works Ensemble Company Artists, Donna Peckett, choreographer and Danielle Dresden, playwright.

Activating Gender in a Writing Classroom:  Locating Students, Revising Power
In this participatory workshop participants will discuss findings from the research question: How can students be encouraged to think and write about gender in useful and complex ways?  Findings demonstrate intersections between individual and authority based communication, personal and academic interests, emergent and assigned topics, silence as response and repression.  The presentation introduces writing assignments that allow for scaffolding student awareness of gender as a construct.

Women's Studies Students Reflect on Experiences of Women's Studies' Internships/Service Learning
A panel of past and present Women's Studies students will reflect on their experiences of Women's Studies' internships and service learning opportunities. Each panelist will be asked to briefly share the specifics of their internship/service learning experiences, answer several key questions, and offer suggestions on how Women's Studies Programs can maximize on internships/service learning.

Student Panelists: Lacey Felmlee, UW River Falls; Kristen Jacobus and Laura Gapske, UW Superior; Katie Kelnhofer, past WS intern, and Nina Valeo, past WS intern, UW Madison; Jessica Woods, and Sylvia O'Brien UW-La Crosse, Jenna Johnson and Mara Muccio, UW-Milwaukee.

SESSION 7
Saturday, April 21st, 10:00 - 11:15 am

Life’s A Drag (Show):  Sex and Tough Grrrrls of the 3rd Wave
Neo-burlesque, Roller Derby, Suicide Girls...how are strong young (and older) women being sexy these days in new (and old) ways, and why do I have such mixed feelings about it? Why do women do that kind of stuff like strip in public? What significance does it have when women kick some ass in short skirts? Power, play, and sex in 2007...welcome to the drag show. Talk about and experience gender performance with people actually involved in alternative “sex work” (or drag play). Guaranteed to give you some things to think about...but beware, you might actually be laughing along the way too...and maybe even feeling good about yourself.  This panel will involve a combination of live burlesque performance, performance video & photos, life stories, critical analysis and Q&A..Dr. Cherie D’Amour, Olive Talique et al from Cherry Pop Burlesque, plus members of the Mad Rollin’ Dolls.  Facilitator:  Amy Bethel, Madison, WI.  Additional panelists/performers: Angela Richardson, Performer and visual artist; Nancy Selfridge, MD, Chief, Complementary Medicine GHC.

Constructions and Crossings:  Defining Realities II

• Hijab in France, Zohreh Ghavamshahidi, Professor of International Studies and Women’s Studies, UW-Whitewater
• Constructing the Long-Haired Warriors in Vietnam, Natalie Porter, third year PhD student in cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin Madison. 

Moderator:  Ellie Schemenauer, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, UW-Whitewater.

Creating Safe Learning Spaces for Survivors of Sexual Assault: A Roundtable Discussion with Faculty and Students
This faculty and student round table will explore ways survivors of violence can be re-traumatized in the classroom and will brainstorm about ways of teaching undergraduates about violence while maintaining a reliable climate of safety in the classroom.  Lauren Smith, Chair of Women’s Studies, and students:  Rebecca Groves, Ann Feutz, Jane McCauley, UW-Whitewater.

Crossing Cultures, Living Change

• Role Reversal and Standing Together: From Learner to Mentor and Community Advocate
  This presentation shares the personal experience of a young Hmong woman learning from her elder about how to balance Hmong traditional norms while living within the U.S mainstream society.  It is a unique story of two different generations with the same battle for equal rights.  The presenter shares how she became the learner, mentor, and community advocate for her elder in a Women’s Studies Service Learning Project.  Mai Nhia Moua, is a senior majoring in Family and Consumer Sciences Education (K-12) with double minors in Human Development and Family Studies and Women Studies at UW-Stout.
• Cross Cultural Reflections of Indian Women Settled in America
  This presentation traces the cultural and social interactions of Indian women who have settled in United States of America since the 1960s.  Exploring the multi cultural interaction of Indian women settled in America and their efforts to establish positive and constructive cultural and social transactions.  Dr. Muthiah Bhuvaneswari, Reader in History, Presidency College, Chennai, India, Executive committee member of Joint Action Council For Women (A NGO women organization) Executive Committee member of FASA (Feminist association for social action).

Moderator:  Carmen Faymonville, Academic Planner, UW System.

Intersectionalities through Women's Studies' Internships/Service Learning
A panel of people working in and with Women's Studies Programs will share experiences of developing, organizing, implementing, and sustaining Women's Studies internship and service learning courses or class components. Carmen Heider, UW-Oshkosh, Mary McManis, UW-Stout Ally Center, Sandi Krajewski, UW-La Crosse, Barbara Werner, UW-River Falls, Kathy Miller-Dillon, Ellen Bravo, and Cheryl Kadde, UW-Milwaukee, Pamela M. Proulx-Curry, Wisconsin Campus Compact.  

Moderator:  Nancy Worcester, UW-Madison.

Poster:  Feminist Christology and Popular Representation
This poster seeks to expand the possibilities of feminist theologies that seek to disrupt views of Jesus’s masculinity as central to his divinity and humanity, thereby limiting the divine to the masculine and rendering women non-normative.  The presenter suggests an alternative that conceives gender in terms of process and becoming with the goal of safeguarding the category of woman, while disrupting those discursive articulations that shape public sphere debates and mobilize meanings that deem certain configurations of gender, sexuality, marriage, and family normative while marginalizing others as non-normative, indeed sinful.

Luciana Ugrina, Program Assistant, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

POSTERS ON DISPLAY
THROUGHOUT CONFERENCE

• Mentoring the Mentors
  This display outlines the progress of the UW-Milwaukee Classified Mentoring Program over the last two years.  It includes:  the original proposal, website information, FAQ information, and current mentor training information.  Informational sheets and brochures will be available for participants to take with them. The mentor team will be available to answer questions in a special Friday lunch time event. Roberta Stanton and the UW-Milwaukee Classified Staff Mentoring Team.
   
• Feminist Christology and Popular Representation
  This poster seeks to expand the possibilities of feminist theologies that seek to disrupt views of Jesus’ masculinity as central to his divinity and humanity, thereby limiting the divine to the masculine and rendering women non-normative.  The presenter suggests an alternative that conceives gender in terms of process and becoming with the goal of safeguarding the category of woman, while disrupting those discursive articulations that shape public sphere debates and mobilize meanings that deem certain configurations of gender, sexuality, marriage, and family normative while marginalizing others as non-normative, indeed sinful.  Luciana Ugrina, Program Assistant, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

SPECIAL EVENT
Saturday, April 21st, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm

Outstanding Women of Color in Education
Awards Ceremony and Luncheon

University of Wisconsin System recognizes sixteen women from around the state for their extensive contributions to their campus and communities.  Co-sponsored by the UW System Office of Diversity and Development and the Women’s Studies Consortium.

Speaker:  Cora B. Marrett, former UW System senior vice president for academic affairs and current assistant director of Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

2nd Annual LGBTQ Spring Conference
SCHOLARSHIP. COMMUNITY. ADVOCACY.

Sponsored by the UW System Inclusivity Initiative
for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning People,
UW System Women's Studies Consortium,
and the UW-Madison LGBTQ Center
 

CONFERENCE WELCOME
Saturday, April 21st, 1:15 - 1:30 pm

SESSION 8
Saturday, April 21st, 1:40 - 2:40 pm

Representations of Homoeroticism and Theories of Queer Writing from William Shakespeare to Dorothy Allison

• “Sisters? We’re Close.” Celia and Rosalind: the Coziest of Cousins, Kate Worzala, Undergraduate Student, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
• Into the Wild:  The Makeover of Nature in Queer Writing. This presentation explores trans and lesbian writers’ quest to transform understandings of the human, particularly the body and sexuality, by challenging contemporary perceptions of the natural world.  H. Jordan Landry, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Moderator:  Lisa Kornetsky, Senior Academic Planner & Director of the Office of Professional and Instructional Development, UW System.

Developing and Teaching LGBT Curricula and Programs at the High School and College Level

• Teaching LGBT literature in a High School English Classroom, Jessica Manfrin, Graduate Student, Women’s Studies/Gender Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Developing LGBT Curricula in a University Setting, Mariamne Whatley, Associate Dean, School of Education, Professor of Women’s Studies and Curriculum & Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Current Teaching Practices in LGBT Studies at UW-Milwaukee, Sarah Morgan, Coordinator, LGBT Studies Certificate Program and Clinical Assistant Professor – College of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Moderator:  Lisa Beckstrand, Academic Planner and Director of Inclusivity Initiative, UW System.

Betrayal and Vengeance:  Even the Best Ones Fall:  Chicana Lesbiana Perspective on What to Do When Love Goes Bad
A PowerPoint presentation on the graphic novel designed as a spoof of a 1960s romance comic of a Chicana Lesbiana affair through the lens of their child, Citlali La Chicana Superhero.  Deborah Kuetzpalin Vasquez, Artist, San Antonio, Texas.

SESSION 9
Saturday, April 21st, 2:50 - 3:50 pm

Defining Identity in Visual Culture

• (re)Negotiating Gender:  Trans-bodies and the Masculine Domain.  Visual examples of Japanese comic book protagonists and their gender identity conflicts in light of psychoanalytic theories of mind/body.  Kathryn Kelnhofer, Recent Masters’ Graduate, University of Manchester (UK).
• Shame, Pornography, and Experimental Lesbian Fiction, Or, Taking Seriously the Dorothy Allison Theory of Porn
  This analysis uses Dorothy Allison’s essay “Skin,” to argue that pro-lesbian fiction has productively problematized and subverted the dense entanglement of pornography and lesbianism in post-1945 U.S.  Yvonne Keller, Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, American Studies, Miami University of Ohio.

Lesbian Feminist Organizing in a Midwest Context
This presentation traces the intersections between self-definitions, radical feminism, women-identification, collective identity, and the political experience of creating a public discourse about identity and community through a newsletter (Amazon, 1972-84).

• Melinda Brennan, Undergraduate Student, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
• Tracy Johnson, Undergraduate Student, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Moderator:  Denise Clark, Director of Inclusivity Initiative, UW System and Associate Professor of Education, UW-Oshkosh.

PLENARY ADDRESS
Saturday, April 21st, 4:00 - 5:00 pm

RECEPTION
Cash Bar and hors-d'oeuvres
Saturday, April 21st, 5:15 - 7:00 pm

DINNER ON YOUR OWN
Saturday, April 21st, 7:00 pm

SESSION 10
Sunday, April 22nd, 9:00 - 10:00 am

Tools for Building Effective Campus Response to LGBTQ Bias and Hate Crime Incidents
Training presents types of LGBTQ bias incidents that occur on campuses, victim responses, effective institutional prevention & intervention responses, and legal tools for addressing inadequate institutional responses (Title IX, Office of Civil Rights, EEOC).

• Ann Malain, Ph.D., Counseling Center Associate Director/EAP Director, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
• Daña Alder, Team Manager, Campus Community Partnerships University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• PB Poorman, Ph.D., Associate Professor/Psychology, University of Wisconsin Whitewater.
• Chris Daniels, UW-Madison senior, staff at the LGBT Campus Center, and on staff at Sex Out Loud, an independent student organization dedicated to sexual health.

Moderator:  Catherine Pittman, Clinical Psychologist & Professor of Psychology, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana.

The Constitutional Amendment:  Where do we go from here?  A presentation by Fair Wisconsin.

Tamara Packard, President, Fair Wisconsin Education Fund.

MID-MORNING BREAK
Coffee and Muffins
Sunday, April 22nd, 10:00 - 10:20 am

SESSION 11
Sunday, April 22nd, 10:30 - 11:30 am

How to establish an LGBTQ Campus Center/Resource Center
Roundtable discussion with LGBTQ resource center staff & directors to explore strategies for establishing an LGBTQ resource center on your campus.  Discussion will include:  developing the proposal, cultivating support, mission/vision, funding, staffing, critical resources, programs, events & services to offer.

• Will Van Roosenbeck, Director, Pride Center, University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse.
• A.J. Clauss, Advisor, Pride Center, University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse.
• Jen Murray, Assistant Director, LGBT Resource Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Facilitator:  Erik Trekell, Director, LGBT Campus Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Best Practices in Teaching
This roundtable will consist of faculty and instructors from the UW System sharing best practices in teaching LGBT subjects and issues.

• Dejan Kuzmanovic, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
• P.B. Poorman, Associate Professor/Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
• Jordan Landry, Associate Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Facilitator:  John Pruitt, Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Rock County.

SESSION 12
Sunday, April 22nd, 11:40 am - 12:40 pm

How to create & foster LGBTQ student groups/GSAs
Roundtable discussion with LGBT student services personnel on how to assist students in creating and fostering LGBTQ student organizations.  Discussion will include leadership training, purposes/goals of the organization, campus climate and other issues.

• Will Van Roosenbeck, Director, Pride Center, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.
• A.J. Clauss, Advisor, Pride Center, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.
• Jen Murray, Assistant Director, LGBT Resource Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Facilitator:  Erik Trekell, Director, LGBT Campus Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Queer in Academia
This roundtable will consist of LGBT members of the UW System sharing their experiences regarding tenure, departmental politics, and other issues.

• Dejan Kuzmanovic, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
• P.B. Poorman, Associate Professor/Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
• Jordan Landry, Associate Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Facilitator:  John Pruitt, Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Rock County.

LUNCH
Sunday, April 22nd, 12:45 - 1:45 pm

SESSION 13
Sunday, April 22nd, 1:45 - 2:45 pm

The Culture of Queerness:  Public Perceptions and Private Practices

• Same-Sex Intimate Relationships:  Public Perception and Legal Recognition.  Presenting results of research investigating the possible connection between public perceptions and legal status of same-sex couples.  Meagan Hubbard, Alumna, Miami University of Ohio.
• “And that too”:  Experiences of Bisexuality in and Beyond Patriarchal, Monogamous Culture. An exploration of the intersecting oppressions experienced by bisexuals in heterosexist culture which holds monogamy as “normal” and preferred.  Elisebeth Vander Weil, Doctoral Candidate in Leadership Studies, Gonzaga University.
• Including the Straight White Guy in Dialogues on Diversity.  This presentation will explore some possible strategies for communicating with our straight white male students, who have actually announced that they feel outnumbered and are uncomfortable speaking out.  John Pruitt, Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Rock County.

Moderator:  Eric Trekell, Director, LGBT Campus Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Alum and Student Panel Discussions:  Breaking the Silence about the LGBT Experience on Campus
Promote LGBTQ awareness with Intergenerational LGBT Alum/Student Panels.  Current and former LGBT students share their campus experiences with coming out, and discuss experiences of discrimination, acceptance and personal identity formation.

• Catherine Pittman, Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Psychology, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana.
• Elizabeth Karle, Librarian, Librarian, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Moderator:  Ann Malain, Counseling Center Associate Director / EAP Director, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

CLOSING REMARKS
Sunday, April 22nd, 2:50 - 3:00 pm