Mapping Feminist Scholarship / Tracer les Études Féministes

REVISED SCHEDULE / HORAIRE RÉVISÉ
last update: 5 june 2006

Here is the revised schedule for the second annual "mapping feminist scholarship / tracer les études féministes" symposium, to be held on Friday June 9 at Thomson House, 3650 rue McTavish (see map).

SCHEDULE/HORAIRE

8h30 Registration / Inscription

9h00 Welcome / Bienvenue
Shree Mulay, Director/Directrice, McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women

9h15 – 10h30 Session 1: Race, Space, and Place
[1] Tracey Nicholls, Centre de Recherche en Éthique, Université de Montréal: Following Haiti's Lead: Radical possibilities for de-ontologizing race and gender
[2] Aiyyana Maracle, McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women, McGill University: Indigenous Contemporary Realities: Neocolonialism and Decolonization
[3] Sarah Waisvisz, Department of English, McGill University: Fugitive Rhythms: Re-Imagining Diasporic Caribbean Canadian Communities in Dionne Brand's 'What We All Long For'

10h30 Coffee break / Pause-Café

10h45 – 12h00 Session 2: L'art et le corps
[1] Catherine Girard, Département d'histoire de l'art, Université de Montréal: Les résistances d'un portrait: vers une décolonisation de l'histoire de l'art
[2] Alex Anber, Department of Art History, Concordia University: Mona Hatoum's Corps étranger
[3] Rachel Lauzon, Département d'histoire de l'art, Université Concordia: Identité, corporalité et automatisation: La répresentation du corps chez Vanessa Beecroft et les enjeux qu'elle soulève

12h00 Lunch / Dejeuner

12h45 – 13h45 Session 3: Women, Work and the Global Economy
[1] Marlène Elias, Department of Geography, McGill University: Bridging Women's Worlds: Global Markets, Fair Trade, and African Shea Butter
[2] Anjali Abraham, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University: What's love got to do with it? Women, Teaching and Global Education Reform

13h50 – 14h50 Session 5. Les conceptions et la pratique du féminisme
[1] Eve-Marie Lampron, Département d'Histoire, Université de Montréal: Entre solidarité feminine et solidarités féministes: enjeux théoriques et applications pratiques
[2] Debbie Lunny, Humanities Program, Concordia University : Un/learning solidarity through transnational feminist activism

14h50 Break / Pause

15h05 – 16h05 Session 4: Gendered Human Rights in International Politics
[1] Joshua Philbrook, Department of Political Science, Concordia University : Western Wombs, African Aliases
[2] Benjamin Persett, Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut: Speaking Queerly: U.S. Foreign Policy Making, Queer Theory, and the Human Rights of Sexual Minorities

17h00 Reception / Réception *

18h00 – 19h30 Keynote Address /Discours-Programme *
Sherene Razack, Sociology and Equity Studies in Education (SESE), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto: The 'Sharia Law Debate' in Ontario: The Modernity/Premodernity Distinction in Legal Efforts to Protect Women From Culture

See Keynote abstract/biography here (or scroll down...) (désolée, le résumé et l'historique sont disponibles seulement en anglais pour le moment).

* présenté avec l'Institut d' études islamiques, Université McGill / co-presented with the Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS), McGill University.

We are delighted to welcome Sherene Razack, professor of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto, as our keynote speaker. This event is co-presented with the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. Everyone is welcome and there is no cost to attend. Join us for refreshments at 5:00 p.m. Professor Razack's address will begin at 6:00 p.m. This is a wheelchair-accessible venue. See map here.


Professor Razack will be speaking on "The ‘Sharia Law Debate’ in Ontario: The Modernity/Premodernity Distinction in Legal Efforts to Protect Women From Culture".


Abstract: The normative figure in Western feminism  remains the liberal autonomous individual of modernity. ‘Other’ women are those who have their freedom to choose restricted. Typically, ‘other’ women are those burdened by culture and hindered by their communities from entering modernity. If we remain in the terrain of thinking about women as vulnerable or imperilled, and some women as particularly imperilled, as we generally do of Muslim women, we remain squarely within the framework of patriarchy understood as abstracted from all other systems. A modernity/premodernity distinction will continue to invade any projects intending to help Muslim women.  This paper shows the persistence of the modernity/premodernity distinction in contemporary debates around applying Sharia law to the settlement of family law disputes under the Arbitration Act in Ontario, Canada. I argue below that in their concern to curtail conservative and patriarchal  forces within the Muslim community, Canadian feminists (both Muslim and Non-Muslim) utilized frameworks that installed a secular/religious divide that functions as a colour line, marking the difference between the modern, enlightened West, and tribal, religious Muslims. I suggest that feminist responses might have helped to sustain a new form of governmentality, one in which the productive power of the imperilled Muslim woman functions to keep in line Muslim communities at the same time that it defuses more radical feminist and anti-racist critique of conservative religious forces.


Professor Razack's research and teaching interests lie in the area of race and gender issues in the law.   Her most recent book is Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (University of Toronto Press,  2004). Previous books include an edited collection Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping A White Settler Society (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002), Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998,1999, 2000) and Canadian Feminism and the Law: The Women’s Legal and Education Fund and the Pursuit of Equality (Toronto: Second Story Press, 1991). She has also published articles on Canadian national mythologies and immigration policies of the 1990s, race, space and prostitution, and gendered racism. She is a founding and coordinating committee member of Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equality (R.A.C.E.).


Related Links:

Buy Race, Space and the Law from Between the Lines.

Buy Looking White People in the Eye and Dark Threats and White Knights from University of Toronto Press.

See Professor Razack's webpage at OISE/UofT

See the website of the 5th Annual Conference of Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equality (R.A.C.E.), at the University of Regina, May 4-6, 2006. The conference theme is “The Race/Culture Divide in Education, Law and the Helping Professions”.

Check out the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University, co-presenters of this event.

To register for the second annual "Mapping Feminist Scholarship / Tracer les Études Féministes" symposium, which will be held on Friday June 9, 2006 at McGill University, e-mail us at ggfs {dot} mcgill {at} gmail {dot} com.
There is no cost to attend and everyone is welcome! This is a wheelchair accessible venue.