Ninth Biennial ACS Women’s and Gender Studies Conference

“Emancipatory Knowledge:  Women’s and Gender Studies NOW.” 

April 1-2, 2011
University of Richmond

The Associated Colleges of the South and the University of Richmond hosted the ninth biennial ACS Women’s and Gender Studies Conference on April 1-2, 2011.  The conference explored the theme, “Emancipatory Knowledge: Women’s and Gender Studies NOW.”  This theme encouraged participants to consider the following questions: 

• How do women's and gender studies programs offer emancipatory ways of education? 
• How do women's and gender studies classrooms bridge theory and practice? 
• How do women's and gender studies programs teach and develop activists for the 21st century? 
• How do feminist and queer theories potentially challenge other curriculum?

This year’s theme was inspired by the work of Dr. Patricia Hill Collins, sociologist, feminist scholar, and author of the iconic Black Feminist Thought, who was the keynote speaker. Dr. Collins is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. She is a social theorist whose research and scholarship have examined issues of race, gender, social class, sexuality and nation. Her second book, Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, is widely used in undergraduate classrooms in over 200 colleges and universities. She lectures widely in the U.S. and abroad.

The conference also featured a plenary session on Feminist Media led by Courtney E. Martin and Samhita Mukhopadhyay. Martin is a writer, teacher, and speaker. She recently co-edited Click: When We Became Feminists.  Her next book, Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists is going to press. Mukhopadhyay is an activist, writer and technologist and the executive editor of Feministing.com.  She has written and spoken extensively on race, media, technology and gender, with a specific focus on the intersection of race and gender, whether in popular culture or politics. It will also include focused panels based on student papers.

Contact Holly Blake, hblake@richmond.edu or Melissa Ooten, mooten@richmond.edu, conference chairs, for further information.