Call for Papers
“Social Justice Feminism”
University of Cincinnati College of Law
October 26-27, 2012
Keynote Speakers
Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland; Charles Phelps Taft Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Cincinnati
Anika Rahman, President and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women
The University of Cincinnati College of Law’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice seeks submissions for its upcoming 2012 conference “Social Justice Feminism.” For more information about the conference, please click here.
What is Social Justice Feminism? It is the type of work feminist activists on the ground say that they want to do. This desire for “social justice feminism” (SJF) emerged from a three-years’ long conversation among women leaders from national groups, grassroots organizations, academia, and beyond (the New Women’s Movement Initiative) who gathered to address dissonance in the women’s movement, particularly dissatisfaction with the movement’s emphasis on women privileged on account of their race, class, or sexuality. In 2010, Kristin Kalsem and Verna L. Williams of the University of Cincinnati College of Law published an article, “Social Justice Feminism,” that takes initial steps at broadly defining SJF as that which is productive, constructive, and healing. Moving from practice to theory, it suggests a new way of articulating and understanding the feminist work that is being done in this current stage of feminist jurisprudence, after the path-breaking interventions of anti-essentialism and intersectionality. The article also sets forth methodological tools for “doing social justice feminism.”
“Social Justice Feminism” was written to advance the conversation that has already begun, both in the world of practice as evidenced by the work of the New Women’s Movement Initiative, as well as the world of feminist legal theory. The upcoming conference is intended to continue and expand the conversation. We are seeking papers from academics who are interested in practice and activists who are interested in theory. Possible panels include:
- A social justice feminist approach to women and prison
- Critical Race Feminism and SJF
- The intersections of SJF and environmental justice
- History and reproductive justice
- New approaches to domestic violence activism
- SJF and criminal justice
Deadline: April 1, 2012. We invite submissions of abstracts for individual papers, as well as complete panels. Send paper abstracts of no more that 500 words and a short biographical statement to lawsonmn@ucmail.uc.edu. In the subject or “re” line of your submission, please type: SJF conference submission. Include your full contact information, including an email, phone number, and mailing address where you can be reached. We will notify presenters of selected papers by June 1, 2012.
If you have any questions, please contact Professor Kristin Kalsem at kristin.kalsem@uc.edu.
-Bridget Crawford
The HBI (Hadassah-Brandeis Institute) at Brandeis University is accepting applications for our spring 2013 seminar focusing on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law. Scholars working on exploring conflicts between women’s claims to gender equality and legal norms justified in terms of religious and cultural traditions, and those examining the status of women under religious law, either within a single tradition, or using cross-cultural or interdisciplinary approaches are invited to apply for this semester long residency.
A man admits that, when drunk, he tried to have sex with an eighteen-year-old girl; she is arrested and denies they had intercourse, but finally begs God’s forgiveness. Then she is publicly hanged alongside her attacker. These events took place in 1644, in Boston, where today they would be viewed with horror. How–and when–did such a complete transformation of our culture’s attitudes toward sex occur?
Via The (UK) Telegraph, this story of vandalism to a billboard outside an Anglican church in Auckland, New Zealand:
Born in Boston on September 30, 1946, the oldest of Sydney and Ida Tatelman Hyman’s three daughters, Paula attended public schools and supplementary Hebrew schools. She enrolled simultaneously at Radcliffe College and Hebrew Teachers College of Boston, earning undergraduate degrees at both institutions. She went on to Columbia University, where she studied alongside such scholars as Gerson Cohen and Ismar Schorsch, and where she received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Jewish history.
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women accepted remains very low. At Alternative Reproductive Resources, [president and founder Robin] von Halle says that although she receives up to 40 or 50 inquiries a day, perhaps five percent of those women go on to donate (“You have to be accepted and you also have to follow through” with the estimated three month process, she says.) Part of the reason the rejection rate is so high is that women may not know what factors will make them ineligible to donate their eggs — clinics don’t necessarily make the information public. “If the secret is out, then no one will tell the truth on their applications,” says [Mary] Fusillo [, founder and director of a Houston surrogacy agency]. [Souad] Dreyfus [director of a Florida surrogacy agency] has another take: “If you put this list out there, a lot of people will disqualify themselves,” as I would have done. But this lack of transparency may cause women to get their hopes up in vain. This is especially troubling given that many women consider egg donation after a life setback –- job loss, unexpected expenses, or a family tragedy might leave them emotionally and fiscally vulnerable. “A lot of young women, when they make that decision, there’s no room for rejection,” Dreyfus says. * * *
From the FLP mailbox, this notice of an upcoming conference at the University of Michigan, May 9-11, 2012:
Over at 