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Brunch: Gender and Sexuality Studies Networking

Sat, November 11, 11:00am to 1:00pm, Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency D, Ballroom Level West Tower

Session Submission Type: Special Events: Luncheon

Abstract

The Gender and Sexuality Studies Committee’s 2017 Networking Brunch will feature a dynamic conversation between Professor Barbara Ransby, Professor of History, African-American Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago and Professor Cathy Cohen, David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Professors Ransby and Cohen will discuss their scholarship, service, and activism, engaging in an organic dialogue about the ways gender and sexuality studies has developed through, or exceeded, pedagogies of dissent.

Ransby’s and Cohen’s scholarship, service, and activism immediately came to mind as exemplary models of the conference theme, “Pedagogies of Dissent.” In addition to thematic resonance, the luncheon responds to the ASA’s call for events and panels to promote dialogues between scholar-activists who renew our thinking about traditions and sites of dissent. We believe that our keynote speakers’ work extends our effort to shift citational habits within American Studies scholarship and teaching. Professor Ransby’s groundbreaking monographs on Ella Baker and Eslanda Robeson, editorial work for SOULS, and directorship of the UIC Social Justice Initiative, has inspired many in our association to foreground African American women’s history as a resource for models of dissent and cultural activism. Professor Cohen’s groundbreaking scholarly work on the limits and opportunities of black politics, black LGBT and youth organizing, combined with leadership of BYP100 and the Mobilization, Change and Political and Civic Engagement Project; and directorship of the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, models an integrated and ambitious approach to politics and dissent. Their work together embodies what the ASA describes as “the conjuncture of education, politics, and intellectual work that has long been and remains central to the vibrancy of American studies.”

During the first 45 minutes of the brunch we will invite attendees to serve themselves at a vegan-friendly buffet and network among themselves. We will encourage people to sit at tables with people they do not know well in order to build community within the ASA. During the second half of the brunch we will have the conversation between the two scholars with a Q & A session moderated by committee member Jeannette Eileen Jones.

The cost is as follows: senior scholars $20.00, junior scholars $15.00, and graduate students $10.00.

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