kicking off the 2013 WGHS using an imagined work

"Coffy," a 1973 film starring Pam Grier, traces the experiences of a female vigilante. This motion picture was released in the period known as the blaxploitation period and thus, is fitting as a 2013 WGHS kick-off event. But was this movie and era entirely exploitative? If so, for whom and why, are questions worth exploring. Movie Screening Showtime: 5 pm Where: Activities and Recreation Center (aka the ARC) University of Illinois, 201 East Peabody Drive, Champaign, IL 61820, (217) 333-3806, Free Pizza served. Come see this show before Dr. Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights activist Medger Evers, speaks at 7:30 pm in Foellinger Great Hall of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Her talk is part of the University's Sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation Events. There will also be performances by the University of Illinois Black Choir, Dr. Ollie Watts Davis, conductor; the Women’s Glee Club, Dr. Andrea Solyea, conductor; Dr. Casey Robards, piano; and the University of Illinois Wind Symphony.

Dakota Alcantara-Camacho, WGHS presenter

Here is a sneak peep at the critical spoken word skills of Dakota Alcantara-Camacho, one of the 2013 WGHS presenters. Here, he is speaking at a Seattle youth event.He touched on many issues including identity. "We all speak 'ocean'," he says, asking, "In which one are you drowning?"

deadline to book room at discount rate approaching

The WGHS Executive Committee just learned that the deadline to book a hotel room at a discounted rate ends February 7. If you plan to stay at the I-Hotel and Conference Center, site of the 2013 WGHS, please book soon! Call the hotel directly at 217-819-5000 to make reservations. Thirty-five rooms have been blocked at a special nightly rate of $130. The code is AWS. You may also book online. The rate begins Wednesday, Feb. 27 and ends Monday, March 4. Thanks.

Official flier for the 2013 WGHS

Finally, the official flier for this year's Women's and Gender History Symposium. Up top is the front; below is the back. The WGHS 2013 Executive Committee owes huge thanks to University of Illinois Doctoral Candidate Arnau Roig Mora for a terrific job on this poster.

Official Schedule for the 2013 Women's and Gender History Symposium

Here is the official schedule for the 2013 Women's and Gender Symposium. We welcome everyone including students, faculty and staff from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana community to attend the panels and keynote address, which will be held at I-Hotel and Conference Center,1900 S. First Street, Champaign, Illinois. Registration and select meals for presenters also held at I-Hotel and Conference Center. Wednesday, February 27, 2013,

5:30 pm: “Coffy” film screening at the ARC,201 East Peabody Dr., Champaign, IL 61820. Thursday, February 28, 2013, 7:30pm: Keynote address by Celine Parreñas Shimizu, University of California-Santa Barbara Professor of Film and Performance Studies. Friday, March 1, 2013, 8:30am: Registration and Breakfast. 9-10:15am, Panel 1: (Un)speakable (Dis)junctures: Mike Staudenmier, Sexual Exploitation and Phantom Pheminists: An Alternate Pre-History of the Feminist Sexuality Debates, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Elise Kramer, The “Enemies” of Free Speech: Political Correctness, Feminism, and the Anti-American, University of Chicago, Sonia Brown, Effecting Social Change: Postmodern Categories of “Woman” or Sisters in Solidarity?, DePaul University, Randi Cruz, Deconstructing Misogyny and the Politics of Sexism: Julia Gillard as Case Study of Resistance, University of Arkansas, 10:30-11:45am, Panel 2: Where Ladies Don’t Belong: Sandy Bolzenius, World War II Ft. Devens Strike: African American Women in the Military, Ohio State University, Marc Arenberg, An 'Unkempt Army' of Hobos: Gendered Discourse in the IWW's Spokane Free Speech Fight, 1909-1910, Northeastern Illinois, University, Rebecca Fu, Being Grouped and Articulated: Literate Women in Medieval Chinese Documents, University of Pennsylvania, Stefan Kosovych, Science, Gender, and Nationality in Third Republic France: Press Reactions to Marie Curie, 1903-1904 and 1910-1911 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 12-1pm: Presenter Lunch 1-2:15pm, Panel 3, Mediated Women: Ana Alvarez, Performing Sexuality in Art and Activism, Brown University, Megan Woller, “I Am an American Girl Now:” Representation of Puerto Rican Women in Hollywood’s Adaptation of West Side Story (1961), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Elizabeth Caroll, Love and Lust in the Blood: Female Vampires in Twentieth Century European and American Films, University of Iowa, Mei-Hsuan Chiang, Daughters of Rebellion and Disciplined Bodies: The Representation of Madwoman in Early Taiwanese Cinema, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2:30-3:45pm, Panel 4: Exploiting the Literary Imaginary, Margaret Witzke, Sita, ayana Gonna Say Something?, University of Kansas, Aaron George, The Philosophy That Lived Under A Red Flag: Anticommunist Depiction of Sexual Violence, Ohio State University, Joshua Jones, Surviving the Multiplicity of Chicano/a Identity in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Poetry, Bowling Green State University, Konstantina Karageorgos, Sarah Wright’s Unsung Marxism: An Historically Materialist Reconsideration This Child’s Gonna Live, University of Michigan, 4-5:15, Panel 5: Resistifying, Melissa Ford, “We Know How to Build Bridges:” Claudia Jones and the Transnational Struggle Against Oppression, Saint Louis University, Hilary Scott, “Victoria Woodhull and Citizenship: Employing Antislavery Republican Rhetoric to Promote Women’s Emancipation,” University of Arkansas, Kristi Carter, Abusive Second Husbands Just Don’t Understand: Elizabeth Ashbridge’s Quest for Religious Identity through Her Subconscious Rejection of Patriarchal Influence, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Saturday, March 2, 2013, 8:30am: Registration and Refreshments. 9-10:15am, Panel 6: Corporal Colonialism, Nandini Bhattacharyya Panda, Women in the Legal Tradition: Colonialism, Law and Violence in the Indian Subcontinent, University of Calcutta, Liz Perego, The Veil or a Brother’s Life: French Exploitation of Muslim Women’s Images during the Algerian War of Independence, 1954-1962, Ohio State University, Reeju Ray, Women as Producers of Ethnicity: Two Case studies from North East India, Queens University, Nabaparna Ghosh, Settling Women: Prostitute Neighborhoods in Colonial Calcutta, Princeton University. 10:30-11:45am: Panel 7, Of Bodies and Borders, Kristen Loveland, Impossibilities of Reproductive Self-Determination: The Globalization and Domestication of a Third World Narrative in Germany, 1984 – 2002, Harvard University, Rico Kleinstein Chenyek, Dis-ease Sustains Life: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Coatlicue State and the Physics of Love, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Kyle Pasha & Ponni Arasu, Queer Crossings and Border Erasure, Arizona State University and University of Toronto.

sneak peep at 2013 WGHS Guest Speaker, Celine Parreñas-Shimizu

Check out this short video of Celine Parreñas Shimizu, University of California-Santa Barbara Professor of Film and Performance Studies in the Asian American, Comparative Literature, Feminist and Film and Media Studies Departments. Here, she summarizes papers presented at a student conference last year. Her words concerning the history of representation, especially as it relates to Asian Americans in cinema, but also others, are powerful. She specifically asks provocative questions concerning who gets to tell stories and represent others. She is, among other things, concerned with which doors get opened and which doors get closed when we tell stories via film in innovative ways, among them, on YouTube. We look forward to her keynote address at the 2013 Women's and Gender History Symposium, which will be held Feb. 28-Mar. 2, 2013 at the I-Hotel and Conference Center near the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Please stay tuned for updates on the symposium schedule. We look forward to seeing our presenters, the University and local community, and Dr. Parreñas-Shimizu!

please confirm attendance

Just a quick update. Nearly all of the applicants whose paper proposals were accepted for the 2013 Women's and Gender History Symposium have now confirmed their plans to participate. We look forward to those who are students here at Illinois and those from other universities outside the area, near and far. That said, we are still waiting for a few more folks to confirm their attendance. If you have been accepted to present a paper at this symposium and have not confirmed your plans to indeed attend, we'd love it if you did so immediately. The WGHS Committee is making final preparations to ensure that this will be a great conference. We were intrigued and truly delighted to receive numerous papers reflecting interesting and thoughtful topics and methodologies. We are also very grateful to our many sponsors who have helped make this conference possible. We hope that you will join us Feb. 28-March 2 here in Champaign-Urbana. It's going to be a great meeting and we're so happy to have you. Please do not hesitate to email if you have any questions.