ONLINE: Centering Resistance: Imaginings of a New Feminist Future

The annual conference hosted by the UW System Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium remains in a virtual space this year, along with being free and open to all participants. There are many threads and themes to explore in the conference's various concurrent presentations over three days, but the overall focus is on what two years of the pandemic and uprisings for social justice have taught us about barriers to equality for all, and how to use that knowledge to build a better society going forward. Along with speakers and panel discussions, there is also a virtual exhibit featuring work by a dozen artists. Find a schedule and registration at consortium.gws.wisc.edu.

media release: April 7-9, 2022

Co-Convened by UW System Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium and UW System Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian

Fully Virtual Event and Free Event! See the full schedule of events here.

Join us April 7-9, 2022 for a fully virtual conference focused on the creation of inclusive societal structures, equitable institutional frameworks, cross-movement solidarities, and radical reimaginings of the future. We invite scholars, students, activists, artists, civil society leaders, and all members of the community to reflect on lessons learned and hopes for the future. Free registration opens in January 2022!

Theme: This year’s theme rests on an urgent line of inquiry: What has the pandemic revealed about the type of world we need to rebuild and reconstruct to foster a new feminist future(s)? What have recent local, national, and global events taught us about empathy, inclusion, and justice as we grapple with the present but turn a hopeful gaze toward the future? We invite scholars, students, activists, artists, civil society leaders, and all members of the community to reflect on lessons learned and hopes for the future. How has the pandemic exposed and exacerbated existing systemic inequalities and everyday barriers? What possibilities have emerged from these same moments for reconceiving what is possible and necessary for the collective good? Which movements for justice already have the tools for mapping these responses? 

Keynotes and Featured Presentations

We are delighted to pair these virtual presentations with an exciting array of keynotes and plenaries.***The full conference schedule including conference sessions, pre-recorded presentations, and art exhibitions will be available in January 2022.***

STREETS Plenary: Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 10:00am CST

What is justice for trafficking survivors?: A panel discussion toward a collective vision of the future  

The 4W-STREETS project is a local to global and research to action initiative to foster social transformations that contribute to ending human trafficking related to sexual exploitation. The initiative was designed as a platform for knowledge exchange between UW-Madison and civil society including service providers, survivors, advocates, and other stakeholders. Through STREETS we have taken an innovative approach to social transformation through education, engagement, and action research grounded in the perspectives and preferences of survivors. Though much of our work focuses on women and girls, we work to end trafficking for people of all genders.

Alice Wong in Conversation with Dr. Sami Schalk: Thursday April 7, 2022 at 7:00pm CST

Alice Wong (she/her) is a disabled activist, writer, media maker, and consultant. She is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture created in 2014.

Alice’s areas of interest are popular culture, media, politics, disability representation, Medicaid policies and programs, storytelling, social media, and activism...

Sami Schalk is an Associate Professor of Gender & Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. She is the author of Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction (Duke UP 2018) and the forthcoming Black Disability Politics (Duke UP 2022).

Voices of Witness: Friday, April 8, 2022 at 11:00am CST

Voice of Witness (VOW) is an oral history nonprofit that advances human rights by amplifying the voices of people impacted by—and fighting against—injustice. VOW’s work is driven by the transformative power of the story, and by a strong belief that an understanding of systemic injustice is incomplete without deep listening and learning from people with firsthand experience. Through an oral history book series and education program, VOW amplifies unheard voices, partners with human rights advocates, and teaches ethics-driven storytelling.

Dr. Kim Nielsen: Friday, April 8, 2022 at 4:00pm CST

Historian and Disability Studies scholar Kim Nielsen is Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Toledo where she teaches courses on disability history, activism, gender, eugenics, and law.  Nielsen is author of the widely used A Disability History of the United States, multiple other books and articles, and co-editor of the award winning Oxford Handbook of Disability History... (Read More)

African American Health Network: Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 10:00am CST

The African American Health Network is a non-profit organization whose mission is to foster networking among African American health professionals and community health advocates and promote health education, healthy lifestyles, self-advocacy, empowerment and well-being among African Americans in Dane County.  

Dr. Ada Cheng: Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 1:00pm CST  

Not Quite: Asian Americans and the "Other" in the Era of the Pandemic and the Uprising  

In this performance, Dr. Ada Cheng uses the term "not quite" to explore several major themes: the meanings of home(land), racial profiling and the construction of the perpetual foreigner, and anti-Asian racism under the pandemic. She intends this performance to be an artistic intervention and an intellectual engagement with current debates on identity, intersectionality, and Asian American experiences. The performance itself is 40 minutes, followed by an audience talkback and discussion.