Conferences

THE ROAD TRAVELED: THE 9TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL ISLAMOPHOBIA CONFERENCE
April 27th: Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall
April 28th – 29th: 370 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley

After 43 years of transformative scholarship, Center for Race & Gender Founding Director, Prof. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, retired from her faculty position last spring. Prof. Nakano Glenn’s fearless writing, multifaceted approach to social justice research, and commitment to mentoring scholarly leaders across disciplines continue to impact scholars and activists around the globe. This symposium will provide an opportunity to honor Prof. Nakano Glenn’s insurgent legacy and her influential impact on race and gender scholarship.

Symposium with scholars and activists reflecting on domestic and sexual violence in light of the prison crisis, racialized structural violence, criminalization of gender & sexuality, and community organizing.

UNDOCUNATION brought together artists, community members, students, faculty and staff from California and the nation focusing attention on critical issues affecting undocumented immigrant communities. UndocuNation was a daylong symposium where scholars, activists, and artists explore insurgent citizenships and immigration justice at UC Berkeley, the Bay Area, and beyond, and an evening of culture jamming, visual art, and performances, hosted by Bay Area artist Favianna Rodríguez and spotlighting the consequences of violence against immigrant communities and liberatory visions for interventions based on creativity and art practice.

A roundtable of activists and scholars exploring and challenging the political tensions in debates on sex trades, sex trafficking, public policy, institutional violence, and community organizing.

Catalyzing Knowledge in Dangerous Times explores the ways in which knowledge is politicized, embodied, and imagined within a volatile political climate that targets education as a racialized and gendered battleground for defining legitimacy, visibility, and access.

Conference participants interrogate the meaning and practice of scholarship in a time shaped by militarism, economic crisis, gender policing, and persistent racism. They consider methodologies used inside and outside of academia to challenge what and who is known and identify transformative possibilities stemming from the transgression of traditional epistemological boundaries, academic discipline, gender, and nation.

On October 1st, 2009, the Center for Race and Gender hosted and organized a symposium where scholars and artists critically reflected upon Michael Jackson’s life and legacy. Scholars such as Dr. Rickey Vincent and Megan Pugh discussed some of early cultural icons and antecedents such as James Brown, Billy Kersands, Gene Kelly, Elvis and many others, whose movements and dance vernacular would be incorporated and synthesized into Jackson’s own singularly unique performance style. Professor Tamara Roberts, Music, and Cecilia Lucas, Education, both explored how sexuality and race were both represented and redefined as performance. The CRG symposium also featured the contributions of National Poetry Slam winner, BLAIR, who captivated the audience with performances of original spoken-word poetry.

“Hierarchies of Color: Transnational Perspectives on the Social and Cultural Significance of Skin Color” is a conference designed to bring together scholars to examine the social, cultural, and economic significance of skin color and of social hierarchy based on skin tone. Through the conference, we seek to explore colorism not in isolation, but in its intersection and entanglements with other forms of social hierarchy based on gender, caste, class, sexuality, and race. We also aim to take an historical comparative approach that uncovers general patterns across societies as well as historical and cultural specificities and differences across cultures.