Friday, March 17, 2024
Cabral Center at the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute
40 Leon Street
Boston, MA 02115
Each year, the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program puts on a day-long symposium to celebrate Women’s History Month through the lens of a particular theme that resonates with the feminist community. Join us March 17, 2024 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the journal Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, the premier feminist academic journal. The day will bring together panelists who have published in the journal or through its off-shoot, the Feminist Public Intellectuals Project (FPIP) to reflect on the history of women’s studies as a field and where we are now as well as to imagine possibilities for feminist futures. This year, speakers include: Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Lorna Bracewell, Breanne Fahs, Chandra Mohanty, Jane Ward, Treva Lindsey, Sophie Lewis, Soraya Chemaly, and Andi Zeisler.
Signs was founded in 1975 as part of an emergent tradition of feminist scholarship and has been publishing continuously ever since, establishing itself as a preeminent journal in the field of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. At the time of the journal’s founding, its editorial staff sought to raise consciousness and develop theories about women’s oppression in both academic disciplines and society more broadly. The journal has consistently strived for intellectual nuance and robust interdisciplinarity, engaging with questions of concern to academics and activists. To honor half a century of publication, our fiftieth anniversary celebration aims to think big. This symposium addresses persistent conundrums and theoretical throughlines that have shaped our field for over half a century. Over the course of four roundtables (emphasizing discussion and dialogue), panelists will engage the continuing power of feminist theory, always cognizant of our own contested histories and imagined futures. Panels include: “Our Histories, Ourselves”, “Feminist Praxis in Perilous Times”, “Thinking Feminism for the Future”, and “Public Feminism and the Place of Provocation.”
This will be the 10th annual WGSS Women’s History Month Symposium. The event is free and open to the public. Registration will be required. Watch this page for details as the date approaches.
