Conference Program (PDF, 636 KB)
This year, in honor of the 30th anniversary of The Scholar & the Feminist, we will revisit the themes of several landmark conferences-including The Future of Difference (1979), Class, Race, and Sex (1980), Women in Resistance (1984), and Women as Change Makers: Building and Using Political Power (1992). By returning to the fundamental debates of ten, twenty, thirty years ago, we’ll trace the evolution of feminism’s most pressing concerns and productive strategies, and consider how those concerns and strategies are articulated today. Leaders of second wave feminist movements will join their third wave counterparts in a daylong conversation aimed at reaching a multi-generational understanding of where we, as feminists committed to securing sexual, racial, and economic justice, have been, where we are now, and where we might yet go.
Welcome and Greeting
Judith Shapiro, President, Barnard College
Janet Jakobsen, Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women
Jane Gould, Former Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women
Screening
Past, Present, and Future Feminisms
A Film by Rebecca Haimowitz
Morning Panels
Building and Using Political Power: Women Making Change
The Scholar & the Feminist XIX: Women as Change Makers: Building and Using Political Power brought together over 50 prominent women in political life to explore the relationship between women and the state, analyzing how they gain power, what they do with it once they’ve got it, and what they should do with it. Former BCRW director Leslie Calman returns to continue the conversation with progressive voices from the academy, philanthropy, the media, and political consultation groups.
Amrita Basu, Amherst College
Alison Bernstein, Ford Foundation
Terry O’Neill, National Organization for Women
Rachel Maddow, Air America Radio
Faye Wattleton, Center for the Advancement of Women
Moderator: Leslie Calman, Legal Momentum
Class, Race, and Sex: The Future of Difference
In 1979, The Scholar & the Feminist VI: The Future of Difference showcased formative theories of gender difference across a range of disciplines, from psychoanalytic, linguistic and literary criticism to history and political science. The following year’s conference, Class, Race, and Sex: Exploring Contradictions, Affirming Connections, set out to understand how economic, political, and cultural institutions divide women by class, race, and sexual preference. This panel will explore how notions of “difference” have evolved over the last thirty years, and how strategies for securing economic, racial, and sexual justice have contributed to contemporary feminist movements.
Siobbhan Brooks, sex worker organizer
Leslie Feinberg, transgender activist
Amber Hollibaugh, author and activist
Surina Khan, Political Consultant
Moderator: Elizabeth Bernstein, Barnard College
Afternoon Panels
Women and Resistance: From Grassroots to Global Activism
Hosted in 1984, the eleventh Scholar & the Feminist conference-Women and Resistance-examined how women were confronting and countering oppressive power structures on a number of fronts, from South African apartheid and Italian militancy to domestic abuse and degrading representations of women in popular culture. Temma Kaplan, former BCRW director who organized that historic gathering, leads a conversation with scholar and activists committed to continuing the ever-changing struggle toward a more just and peaceful world.
Jennifer Kern, disability rights activist
Minnie Bruce Pratt, poet and activist
Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois, Chicago
Heisoo Shin, The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Kumkum Sangari, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
Lateefah Simon, Center for Young Women’s Development
Moderator: Temma Kaplan, Rutgers University
Women’s Culture: Media, Art, and Modes of Cultural Production
From the fifth Scholar & the Feminist conference-Creating Feminist Works-through the twenty-third-Women in Film: Images and Image Makers-to the twenty-ninth-Power and Representation in a Media-Saturated Age-the Center has been vitally interested in how feminist artists, performers, and media-makers both inspire and answer the call for social change. This panel brings together a remarkable lineup of feminist writers and media-makers to discuss the necessity, importance, and endless possibilities of feminist cultural production.
Meena Alexander, poet
Dorothy Allison, author
Tammy Rae Carland, video artist
Staceyann Chin, spoken word poet
Elaine Kim, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Gretchen Gerzina, Barnard College
