21st Annual Maine Women’s Studies Conference
Saturday, November 18, 2006
University of Maine, Donald P. Corbett Business Building
Sponsored by the
Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program
Plenary Sessions
"Global Black Feminisms"
Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Director of the Women's Research and Resource Center
and
Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies
at Spelman College, Atlanta
“Telling Somali Women’s Stories: A Reader’s Theatre”
University of Maine Somali Narrative Project
Mazie Hough, Nasra Mohamed, Safia Nur, Carol Toner
Conference Schedule
8:45 – 9:30 am: Registration, coffee & snacks, networking
9:30 – 9:45 am: Welcome
9:45 – 10:45 am: Plenary: “Telling Somali Women’s Stories”
11:00 – 12:00 am: Breakout Sessions #1
12:15 – 1:15 pm: Lunch at the Marketplace in the Memorial Union (lots of choices)
1:15 – 2:15 pm: Breakout Sessions #2
2:30 – 3:30 pm: Plenary: “Global Black Feminisms”
3:45 – 4:45 pm: Breakout Sessions #3
5:00 pm: Reception
For details check our website the week of the conference: www.umaine.edu/wic
Questions?
Contact Angela Hart, 207-581-1228 or Angela.Hart@umit.maine.edu. Talk to her about CEUs, if you are interested in those.
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Breakout Sessions
Session I (11:00 - 12:00)
Global Perspectives on Violence Against Women
“War is Always Violence Against Women: The Use of Sexual Violence in War in the Former Yugoslavia and What is Being Done About It”
Rape and sexual violence as means of warfare are not new, but recent sexual violence in conflict has forced serious inquiry into the sort of atmosphere that fosters such atrocities. This paper specifically looks at sexual violence in the wars in the former Yugoslavia and at one German organization doing something about it.
*Kati McCarthy, University of Maine
“Ending Violence Against Women: Current Strategies in Europe"
Aspects of borderlands and globalization play out in current European efforts to end violence against women. From a global perspective, intervention strategies aim at a moving target, because the ability to abuse power as well as vulnerability to such abuse arise from shifting constellations of access to cultural, political and economic resources.
*Renate C. A. Klein, University of Maine
Hispanic Women and Their Art
“When Borders Matter: Defining Differences Among Hispanic Women”
Immigration is often discussed in terms of ethnicity or race, or in terms of gender. However, there are other important differences to consider which require different knowledge on the part of the researcher. These differences are especially important when considering the Hispanic women who come to the U. S. Their border crossings vary widely, and the differences are both overlooked and emphasized among them in their residence here. What are these differences and how are they manifested?
*Kathleen March, University of Maine
“Intersections: The Poetics of Claribel Alegria”
"They plant angels and coffee in my country," writes Claribel Alegria, one of the most compelling voices in 20th century Latin American literature. Hers is a poetry that bears witness, holds governments accountable for the deaths of innocent people, and testifies to the extreme human rights violations taking place in Latin America. "When there is so much horror around you, I think you have to look at it," she says. Yet she captures this horror without surrendering to it, and in turn her poetry is filled with hope and inspiration.
*Silvana Costa, University of Maine
Women at Work: Overcoming Barriers to Equity
“The Belief in Meritocracy and the Psychological Justification of Inequality”
Do women participate in the justification of their own inequality? In the current research, I examine the role of America's dominant ideology, "the belief in meritocracy" in women's perception, and justification, of inequality relative to men. My research demonstrates that meritocracy can lead women to minimize sexism and embrace their subordinate status.
*Shannon McCoy, University of Maine
“Organizing Canada’s Call Centres: More Voice for Workers, Less Male Knuckle-Dragging"
Call centres can be unionized when workers are educated to become union activists and encouraged to take ownership of the campaign. Giving workers a central role in organizing forces male unionists to rethink the deeply entrenched (but erroneous) view that women, racialized people, and young workers are harder to organize than white, working-class men.
*Julie Guard, University of Manitoba / University of Southern Maine (Visiting Scholar)
Education Anytime, Anywhere, for Anyone: Radical Teaching and Technology in the 21st Century
This panel discussion/demonstration presents the use of technology, especially online courses and podcasting, to break down barriers in education for women who have disabilities, are geographically remote, or have non-traditional lifestyles. Panelists will demonstrate technology and address the manner in which feminist pedagogy is particularly transferable to this manner of delivery of academic courses.
*Sandra Haggard, University College of Bangor
*Tina Passman, University of Maine
*Yvonne Thibodeau, University of Maine
The Borderland between Academia and Activism: Women's Studies Majors Share their Experience (Roundtable)
Current Women's Studies majors and one graduate, who are all active in political and social justice work, will reflect on the interaction of their lives as students and activists.
*Ashley Burns, University of Maine
*Emily Lord, University of Maine
*Jessica Morgan, Hardy Girls, Healthy Women
*Melanie Rockefeller, University of Maine
A Global Feminization of Teaching: Does it Matter?
Is the global feminization of teaching a sign of progress or regress in women's rights? This roundtable discussion will present a work-in-progress examining the extent, context, causes, and consequences of the feminization of teaching in four regions--Latin America, North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific.
*Maria Lis Baiocchi, College of the Atlantic
*Bonnie Tai, College of the Atlantic
Honoring the Eternal Feminine and the Power of Creativity in Creating a Culture of Peace
This will be a very brief overview of some key historical issues from ancient times to more modern times to illustrate the connection of honoring the eternal feminine (feminine spirituality) and the power of creativity to build a culture of peace. This workshop will include both information and a brief hands-on session to ignite creativity in each attendee.
*Phyllis Brazee, University of Maine
*Sandra Heiman, Artist, Poet, and Medical Intuitive
The Borders of Bad Behavior: Saco Factory Girls, Fictional Girls, and an Idle, Licentious Life
This panel explores the boundaries of acceptable behavior in the lives of Saco, Maine, girls from 1850 to 1906. Appearing in court cases, sensational fiction and newspaper reports, tales of "bad" girls who transgressed expected female norms reveal cultural concerns with and the difficulty of negotiating between the reality of increasing female independence and the persistent ideal of a domestic-centered life.
*Elizabeth DeWolfe, University of New Englan
*Emma Bouthillette, University of New England
*Camille Smalley, University of New England
*Jennifer Tuttle (moderator), University of New England
Ugly Ducklings: The Documentary (Film and Discussion) (DPC 105)
This is a 50-minute film that confronts homophobic harassment of GLBTQ youth, and it is being used to launch a national suicide prevention campaign. The film includes excerpts of Carolyn Gage's play UglyDucklings, about homophobia at a girls' summer camp in Maine, along with interviews of the girls themselves about their real-life sexual orientations and experiences with homophobia.
*Lyn Mikel Brown, Colby College/ Hardy Girls Healthy Women
*Carolyn Gage, Independent Playwright
Session II (1:15 - 2:15)
Literary Borders and the Asian American Experience
“Unsettled Borders and Nervous Bodies: Citizenship and Exclusion in Sui Sin Far’s Chinese California”
Sui Sin Far is conventionally known as the first self-identified Chinese American writer to publish journalism and fiction. This paper explores her invocation of nervousness as a counter-discourse to the technologies of surveillance, medicalization and racialization that underwrote Chinese exclusion from American territory and identity at the turn of the century.
*Jennifer Tuttle, University of New England
“Winnifred Eaton’s Amerasian Geographies”
This paper explores the work of early 20th-century Asian American author Winnifred Eaton. While Eaton performed a familiar and popular sense of American orientalism in her work, I argue that her fictional and personal metamorphoses demonstrate a challenge to the over-determined construction of race and gender in the early 20th century and helped create what may be called Amerasian space.
*Lisa Botshon, University of Maine at Augusta
Words Without Borders: An Experiment in Feminist Pedagogy
The "Words Without Borders" project was conceived in an effort to engage the students in a WST 101 class in activism in response to the feminist theory they were encountering in their textbook. The result is a short agit-prop play you will see today, a mass chant entitled COMMODIFICATION.
*Sandra Hutchison, University of Maine
*Kelly Constantine, University of Maine
*Tiffany Mayhew, University of Maine
*Anthony Arnista, University of Maine
Packaging, Selling, and Selling Out Girls (DPC 105)
In this workshop Lyn Mikel Brown, co-author (with Sharon Lamb) of Packaging Girlhood, will interrogate stereotypes of girlhood perpetuated through media and discuss how "girl power" has been co-opted to create an IMAGE of girl empowered (as a cute, hot shopper) rather than contributing to the real empowerment of girls.
*Lyn Mikel Brown, Colby College / Hardy Girls Healthy Women
From 19th Century Utopian Ideal to 20th Century Practical Necessity: Examining the Work of our Mothers
"On the Margins: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'Birth-Based' Religious Ideal in Herland"
This paper employs theories from Gilman's non-fiction work, His Religion and Hers: A study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of OurMothers, to inform an understanding of her utopian ideal, portrayed in Herland.
*Laurie Pinkert, University of Maine
“We Were Needed in World War II and We Are Needed Now!"
During World War II women were asked to fill the jobs which men once occupied. Now the baby boomer generation makes up 45% of the population nationally. A labor shortage is predicted in the next five years. This will be particularly acute in Maine, which was ranked as the oldest state in the country in 2005. Particular occupations will be critically affected, and employers will need to draw on new resources to confront this problem.
*Kim Lane, Casella University
Crossing the Border between Academia and Social Change Agencies: A Partnership to Address Violence against Women
Women in the academy have long been women in action to foster social change, institutional change, and safety for women affected by abuse in their relationships. Partnerships between University of Maine women and Spruce Run (the domestic violence project serving Penobscot County) have been essential to Spruce Run's organizational strength and the University's development and implementation of an institution-wide policy to address relationship abuse in the University's workplace.
*Naomi Barnum, Spruce Run
*Carey Nason, University of Maine
*Francine Stark, Spruce Run
Feminist Perspectives on Economic, Environmental, and Immigrants’ Rights
Three economists with research and political interests in aspects of social justice, including economic rights, environmental rights, and immigrants' rights, will discuss the positive content of these concepts. In the process they will engage the audience in a discussion of the ways in which feminist perspectives illuminate these concepts.
*Susan Feiner, University of Southern Maine
*Vaishali Mamgain, University of Southern Maine
*Rachel Bouvier, University of Southern Maine
Girls Camps That Girls Love
Come join with an experiential educator as she teaches us about summer camp programs designed especially for girls ages 6 - 12. She will lead us in cooperative games and initiatives that are very successful in her "all-girls" summer camp programs.
*Yvette Mason, Burlington (VT) Parks and Recreation Dept.
Maman Disait: An Exhibit of Collages on Franco-America Proverbs (Gallery Talk) (Third Floor, Hudson Museum)
Proverbs or sayings pronounce a final word or explanation, an understanding, an insight into the situations of the world. They are a way of ordering life, holding sway over the uncontrollable so that it becomes controllable. I wanted to see these proverbs in print--in a frame, as home graffiti or kitchen art--to experience French in places one has seen English. A discussion of the proverbs will be offered in the gallery.
*Rhea Côté Robbins, University of Maine
Struggles for Equity in Maine Women's History
"'Taxation and Representation (are) Inseparable': Early Petitions for Maine Woman’s Suffrage, 1872-1897"
According to past historians, the Maine woman suffrage movement experienced a nadir in the late 19th century. By analyzing pro- and anti-suffrage petitions to the Maine State Legislature between 1872 and 1897, I demonstrate that suffrage spread to all inhabited corners of the state. Despite repeated failures in the Legislature, Maine woman suffragists formed an expansive network, encouraged their enemies to do the same, and indoctrinated all who participated in modern American politics.
*Shannon Risk, University of Maine
"Transforming the Community: Abortion on Trial in Maine, 1900-1920"
This paper will look closely at six trials in abortion-related deaths that took place in Maine at the beginning of the 20th century. Through newspaper accounts and court records, it will explore the ways in which abortion was transformed by the trials and resulting harsh punishment and, as a result, how the community involvement in abortion was severely curtailed.
*Mazie Hough, University of Maine
Session III (3:45 - 4:45)
Conversation and Book Signing with Plenary Speaker Beverly Guy-Sheftall (DPC
Gender Violence, Closer to Home
“Rural Maine Women’s Disclosure of Abuse”
Results from a study with women in abusive relationships in rural Maine will be presented. Factors that influenced women's decisions to disclose or reveal abuse included the distance between a woman's residence and sources of assistance, the desire to keep the community from knowing of her plight, the vigilance in maintaining that secrecy, and the fear that disclosure of her circumstances would result in further harm.
*Nancy Fishwick, University of Maine
"The Posthumously Contested Identities of Teena Brandon: Tomboy, Lesbian Butch, Incest Survivor with Active PTSD, or Pre-Op Transsexual?"
Tina Brandon is remembered today as the female-to-male, pre-op, transsexual victim of a brutal transphobic murder. This paper explores the literature that identifies Gender Identity Disorder as a post-traumatic, dissociative response to child sexual abuse and examines the ways in which treatment for transsexualism is counter-therapeutic for patients with complex PTSD.
*Carolyn Gage, Independent Playwright
Women in Maine’s Pulp and Paper Industry: Oral History Project
“A Man’s World”
As part of a project to understand women's experience, we have interviewed more than a dozen local women who've worked in Maine's pulp and paper mills. They often spoke of what it's like to be a woman at work in "a man's world." From pornography and vulgar language to the hot, dirty manual work involved, they expressed varying opinions, which will be featured in this presentation.
*Amy L. Stevens, University of Maine
“Choosing Sides in the Paper Mill: Class or Gender?”
Women entering the male-only production areas of paper mills for the first time in the latter part of the 20th century were challenged by the male culture they found there. Generally middle-class women worked in the office, while working-class women worked in the dirty, hot conditions of production. This presentation will focus on the choices some women made to "act like men" and why their behavior differed significantly from that of the middle-class women in the industry.
*Pauleena MacDougall, University of Maine
Beyond Words: Women as Subject and Object in the Arts (Shibles 201)
"Irish Women Crossing Borders: Images of Their History"
The Irish diaspora is famous in story and song but Irish women's part is less recorded. However, monuments in the U. S. and in Australia testify to the parts played by Irish women and to increased appreciation for their roles.
*Eileen Eagan, University of Southern Maine
"Singing Girls, Mystics, and Aristocrats: A Survey of Women’s Roles and Their Influence on Western Art Music"
This presentation will discuss the influence of women from the East and the West during the Middle Ages, as well as key Western women whose influence promoted the musical forms and poetry that provided the foundation for Western High art music. There will also be some performance for illustration.
*Lisa Nielson, University of Maine
European Women's Survival and Emancipation
"Border of Hell: Women’s Memoirs from Auschwitz"
This talk will discuss memoirs from the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Notably, women's writing on this period differs from men's. While the men often stress individuality and competition to survive, the women emphasize sisterhood and compassion. These narratives instruct us on various attitudes of resilience and resistance in the most atrocious of settings.
*Ellen M. Taylor, University of Maine at Augusta
"Discussions of Women’s Emancipation Cross Culturally in the Netherlands" This field study project examines the ways in which women living in the Netherlands discuss and work toward their emancipation in a multicultural climate. The themes of identity discourse, religion, media, and men serve to illustrate how migrant Muslim women and non-migrant women are continually polarized from one another in Dutch society.
*Sara Culver, Bates College
Workplace Harassment Policies in the 21st Century
"Sexual Harassment Law in North America: A Reflection of Cultural Tolerances"
The U.S. legal standard for businesses and government to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace has led to several changes this decade in the U.S. workplace. As companies expand over the borders to Mexico and Canada due to NAFTA and other treaties, women employees are running into different standards based on the Mexican and Canadian cultures' tolerances and older laws. How women are expected to respond and deflect sexual harassment in these countries is significantly different than in the U.S. My presentation will focus on these different standards and suggest ways American companies can lead the way in stopping sexual harassment at work and internationally.
*Martha Broderick, Esq., University of Maine
"Gender Identification and the Workplace: Expanding Traditional Notions of Harassment and Discrimination in Employment"
Federal laws that protect individuals against sex discrimination and harassment exclude "gender" or "gender identification." However, many state laws include protections for "gender identification" and persons of transgender status. This presentation discusses the expanding concepts of sex and gender in the evolution of anti-discrimination laws.
*Katherine Lynch, Esq., Moon, Moss, & Shapiro. P. A.
U.S. Migration: A Two-Way Street
“American Women Expatriates in Norway"
This session draws on a series of interviews conducted in 2005 with American women living in Tromso, Norway, a university town above the Arctic Circle, as well as a thesis written by a University of Oslo graduate student who interviewed members of the American Women's Club of Oslo. On the one hand, the women gave a variety of reasons why they have decided to make Norway their permanent home, but on the other hand, none of them has given up their American passports.
*Polly Welts Kaufman, University of Southern Maine
Combat Zones: Students’ Gender and Sexuality Border Wars
As university students, we find that our campus becomes a combat zone when we demand that unauthorized expressions of gender and sexuality be recognized and honored. Even as we move toward institutional recognition, we are still in combat at the borders of gender and sexuality.
*Steffan Morin, Queer Insurgency, University of Southern Maine
*Kiersten Fletcher, Queer Insurgency, University of Southern Maine
Canuck and Other Stories: Franco-American Women's Literary Tradition (Readings)
This new translation of early Franco-American women writers of Maine and the borderlands of Canada, edited by Rhea Côté Robbins, has just been published. Readings from the book will demonstrate the distinct voice of women of French heritage in the Northeast (both Canada and the U.S.). The editor will also comment on the process of putting the book together and working with a number of different stories and their translators.
*Rhea Côté Robbins, University of Maine
Feminist Theory Borderlands: Explanations in Translation, Narratology, Geography, and Motherhood
"Women Situated in the Borderlands: Feminist Translations as a Site of Resistance"
The translator's role has traditionally been invisible and disempowered. The ushering in of Translation Studies changed this, and translators of women's work and that of other previously marginalized groups have since assumed a more visible status and at times a more revolutionary one.
*Patricia Sithole, University of Maine
"Using Feminist Narratology to Read Isabel Allende's The Stories of Eva Luna"
This paper uses feminist narratology to reveal the subversive texts in Allende's Stories of Eva Luna. What is proposed is that three levels of narration exist in Stories, and all three work together to reveal a hidden text of women's liberation and social critique.
*Jessie Meeks, University of Maine
"Feminist Theory and Feminist Geography: Reconceptualizing Space and Place"
The field of geography has traditionally been a male-dominated discourse that had a very rigid conception of space and place. This paper identifies feminist geographers who have worked to create new spaces that are either partially or completely unrecognizable, in order to allow new meanings to be created. How are these "borderlands" conceptualized? What language is used to create these spaces and identities within them? How can this be useful for future study?
*Jlynn Frazier, University of Maine
"Feminist Theory and Essential Motherhood"
For over 30 years feminist theorists have acknowledged and debated traditional or "essential" motherhood. Contemporary theorists are directing their attention to alternative forms of mothering, such as mothering by lesbians, disabled women, or women who work outside the home, forms that address the realities of most women's existence. Most conclude that those who choose to mother should do so not through "nature" but through "nurture," and that it is important to create an ideological space for women who do not mother.
*Shannon Risk, University of Maine
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Globalization, Immigration, and Borderlands
21st Annual Maine Women’s Studies Conference
Saturday, November 18, 2006
The University of Maine
Sponsored by
Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program
PLEASE NOTE: Early registration must be received by November 13. After that, the fee is $30. Presenters must pay the registration fee. Make checks payable to The University of Maine. Please return this form to Angela Hart, 5728 Fernald Hall, Orono, ME 04469-5728.
Name ______________________________________________________________
Address ____________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Telephone (day) _____________________ (evening) ________________________
Email ______________________________________________________________
Organizational affiliation, if relevant ______________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Lunch and a coffee break are included with registration. Those without the full registration fee are encouraged to pay what they can. Please check your choice:
_____ $25 early registration fee enclosed by check, cash, or money order.
Other amount $ _____
_____ $15 early student registration fee enclosed by check, cash, or money order.
_____ I am unable to attend, but would like to sponsor another woman.
Amount enclosed $ _____
_____ I will need assistance getting into the building.
_____ I would take advantage of hearing assistance if provided.
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Directions to the Conference
On I-95 take Kelley Road Exit #191; if traveling north take a right, if traveling south take a left. Drive to the end of Kelley Rd., about 1 mile to the flashing red light, and take a left onto Route 2. Drive through “downtown Orono”, across the river, and up the hill. At the light at the top of the hill bear right onto Park St. Turn left onto the campus at the University of Maine sign and left again toward the large parking lots where you may park. The conference will be centered in the Donald P. Corbett Business Building, a big brick building to the right of the Maine Center for the Arts.
Accommodations
The University Inn: Off I-95 take Kelley Rd. Exit #191. Follow the directions above through Orono to the top of the hill. The hotel is on your left. Rates are $55 one person, two double beds; add $10 each for 2, 3 or 4 people in the room. $60-70 for a king. All with continental breakfast. Phone 207-866-4921
The Black Bear Inn: It’s just off I-95 at the Stillwater Ave. Exit #193. $75.00 single or double, for the night of the 17th only. (They are booked for the night of the 18th as of this writing). Ask for the Women’s Studies Conference rate when making reservations. All with continental breakfast. Phone 207-866-7120
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