february 1, 2003 @ brown university
Since the early 1990s, transsexual and transgender identities and discourses have evolved into highly developed identity and language systems that pose inherent challenges to the traditional ways of understanding sex and gender. Despite such disruptions, certain beliefs around historical oppression, power dynamics, and identity formations that rely on a separate and impermeable boundary between "men" and "women"; continue to inform the fields of feminist studies, race and ethnic studies, and queer studies. The aim of this event is to discuss how trans experiences and perspectives might challenge and complicate the understandings of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, class, disability, religion and sexuality across multiple fields of study.
The symposium is organized around three sessions that will address the curriculum taught in feminist studies, race and ethnic studies, and queer studies. Each session will be an hour and forty-five minutes long, and will include several brief (7-10 minute) presentations intended to provoke questions, concerns, and insights into how trans experiences inform the curriculum. The goal of the day is not to showcase a few individuals, but to create a forum for dialogue and discussion among transgender and transsexual people and their allies. Trans experiences from multiple locations and backgrounds in the academy will be represented, including undergraduate students, graduate students, professors, and transsexual and transgender people, from people of color, lower-income, disabled, and first-generation American and/or college educated populations.
pre-registration & links
