Institute for Advanced Feminist Research

PROJECTS

• Feminisms and Global War

• Generations in Action

• Feminist Anger, Social Rage

PAST EVENTS

• Events 2006

• Events 2005

• Events 2004

• Events 2002, 2003

Maps of City & Body: An Evening of Excerpts and Conversation with
Performance Artist Denise Uyehara
Performance artist Denise Uyehara performs excerpts from various performance pieces including Big Head, a piece exploring the Japanese American relocation, detention and internment during WWII and links it with current state violence against Arab Americans, South Asians, and Muslims in the U.S. Uyehara is a pioneering performance artist, one of the first to explore Asian American queer subjectivity through performance. Uyehara's Maps of City & Body is a newly published collection that brings together her performance works of the last 15 years.
Tuesday, February 1, 2005, 7:00 PM
Cultural Center at Merrill, Merrill College

War/Sex/Violence Reading Group
The images of Abu Ghraib have reminded us that sex is deeply implicated in war and other forms of violence-- and that combinations of the three have much to teach us about psychic and social constructions and social expressions of desire.

We expect that the group will want to consider such topics as "violence, otherness and the pornographic imagination," "sex-negativity and the culture of violence," "the politics of representation," "torture in its social and psychological contexts," "rape and war," "male fantasies: fraternities and the military," "sexual violence and patriotism," "feminism and the female torturer." Texts and topics will be chosen by participants.

For the first meeting, there will be three short readings, which explore some aspects of the larger theme: Susan Douglas, "We Are What We Watch," (about reality TV and the photographs from Abu Ghraib,)" Megan Moody, "Thoughts on Patriotism and Violence in a New Year (excerpts), and Helene Moglen, "Bush's War on Women" (the relation of misogynistic politics, abstinence education and the pornographic imagination.")
Wednesday, February 16, 2005, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
UCSC Women's Center

Feminisms and Global War Seminar
"Family, Gender and State in the Middle East and South Asia."
Suad Joseph presenter
Friday, February 25, 2005, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Kresge 159

Reading of Shock and Awe: War on Words
Tuesday, March 1, 2005, 7:30 PM
Capitola Book Cafe

“Pumping Iron II” Video Showing and Discussion
Pumping Iron II raises provocative questions-- about stereotypes of beauty and femininity, about the possibilities and implications of reclaiming the female body, and about the relation of inside to outside--of the psychic to the physical.
Thursday, March 3, 2005, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
UCSC Women's Center
Sponsored by the IAFR Body Modification Conference Planning Group

War/Sex/Violence Reading Group
There will be three short readings for the second meeting: "Love and Resistance in Wartime: An Interview with Chris Hedges," YES, Winter 2005; Chris Hedges, "Eros and Thanatos," from War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning; and Cynthia Enloe,"Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire," from The Curious Feminist.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
UCSC Women's Center

War/Sex/Violence Reading Group

There will be several short readings for the third meeting: Roland Littlewood, "Pathologies of the West, An Anthology of Mental Illness in Europe and America"; and excerpts from Klaus Theweleit, "Male Fantasies, Vol. I: Women Floods Bodies History" and "Vol. II: Male Bodies: Psychoanalyzing the White Terror".

Tuesday, April 5, 2005, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Kresge 159 (please note: room change)

"Let's Face It" Video Showing and Discussion
Thursday, April 21, 2005, 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Women at Work Staff Retreat
San Juan Bautista Retreat Center

Feminisms and Global War Seminar
"Up against the Wall - Making the Concrete Bloom in Israel/ Palestine."
Dalit Baum presenter
Wednesday, April 27, 2005, 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Kresge 159

There will be two short readings for the fourth meeting: Roger Friedland, "War, Sex, and God; Religious Terrorism in the Mind of Mark Juergensmeyer," and from Isis Nasair, "Women and Militarization in Israel; Forgotten Letters in the Midst of Conflict".
Tuesday, May 3, 2005, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Women's Center

"Dirty Pretty Things" Video Showing and Discussion
Dirty Pretty Things is a powerful film that raises provocative issues about the beneficiaries and victims of the global market in organs and the values of the societies that enable and support it.
Thursday, May 5, 2005, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
UCSC Women's Center
Sponsored by the IAFR Body Modification Conference Planning Group

Feminisms and Global War Seminar [CANCELLED]
Meira Weiss presenter
Thursday, May 19, 2005, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Kresge 159

War/Sex/Violence Reading Group
The group is exploring a range of topics, including: "violence, otherness and the pornographic imagination," "sex-negativity and the culture of violence," "the politics of representation," "torture in its social and psychological contexts," "rape and war," "male fantasies: fraternities and the military," "sexual violence and patriotism," "feminism and the female torturer."
There will be two short readings for the fifth meeting: Orna Sasson-Levy, "Feminism and Military Gender Practices: Israeli Women Soldiers in "Masculine" Roles," and from Eileen Zurbriggen, "A feminist social psychological analysis of Abu Ghraib: New questions and different answers".
Tuesday, May 31, 2005, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Women's Center

IAFR Open House
Thursday, October 6, 2005, 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Kresge Provost House

Bodies in the Making: Transgressions and Transformations
In recent years, many feminist, cultural and queer theorists have studied the material body in the context of the psychological, social, economic, aesthetic, sexual, political, medical, and technological practices through which that body is experienced and produced. Participants in this conference will use an inter-generational lens to consider what has become, in the 21st century, a continued fascination--even an obsession--with self-conscious body modifications.

Friday, October 14th
Porter College, Sesnon Art Gallery
2:30 PM - 4:30 PM: The Rhetoric of the Pose: Rethinking Hannah Wilke
Shelby Graham, moderator (Curator, Sesnon Art Gallery)

• Joyce Brodsky (Art, UCSC), "Painful Viewing: Seeing Hannah Wilke's Intra-Venus Photographs in the Light of Questions Raised by Susan Sontag"

• Carla Freccero (Literature, UCSC), "De-Idealizing the Body"

• Joanna Frueh, (Art, University of Nevada, Reno), "Beauty Loves Company"

• Donna Hunter (History of Art and Visual Culture, UCSC) "Venustas/Vanitas, or 'Everybody dies': Mortality in the Work of Hannah Wilke"

Stevenson College Event Center
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM: Keynote address

• Victoria Pitts (Sociology, CUNY) "Beauty, Body Image and Psychosocial Power."

Saturday, October 15th
Stevenson College Event Center
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Sign-in; Coffee and Muffins

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM: Skin: Cosmetic Surgery and Tattooing
Melanie Dupuis, moderator (Sociology, UCSC)

• Virginia Blum (English, University of Kentucky), "Love My Neighbor, Hate Myself: The Vicissitudes of Affect in Cosmetic Surgery"

• Richard Roullard (Surgical Nurse, Santa Cruz), “Reconstructive Surgery in Asia and Latin America: A Surgical Nurse's Perspective”

• Aleshia Brevard (Transsexual author and actress, Santa Cruz): Interview
with Mary Weaver (History of Consciousness)"

• Kelley Richardson (Photographer, Santa Cruz), "The Santa Cruz Tattoo Project"

11:30 AM - 11:45 AM: Women's Ensemble Theater
• "Freak Show"

12:00 NOON - 1:00 PM: Lunch Buffet

1:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Inside/Outside
Katharine Norwood, moderator (Literature, UCSC)

• Sheila Namir (Psychoanalyst, Santa Cruz), “Embodiments and Disembodiments: The Relation of Body Modifications to Psychoanalytic Treatment”

• Gabriela Sandoval (Sociology, UCSC), "Cutting Through Race and Class: Women of Color and Self-Injury"

• Lorna Rhodes (Anthropology, Univ. of Washington, Seattle), "The Borderline in and of the Prison"

• John Marlovits (Anthropology, UCSC), "'The Brain in a Vat': On Drugs and Psychopharmafetishism"

3:30 PM - 5:30 PM: Social Bodies and Transformation
Susan Harding, moderator (Anthropology, UCSC)

• Maria Frangos (Literature, UCSC), "Embodied Subjectivity and the Quest for 'Self' in Televised Narratives of Body Modification"

• Helene Moglen (Literature, UCSC), “Aging and Trans-aging”

• Sharon Kaufman (Anthropology, UCSF), "Aged Bodies and Kinship Matters: The Ethical Field of Kidney Transplant"

• Donna Haraway (History of Consciousness, UCSC), "We Have Never Been Human: Cultivating Kind, Kin, and Value across Species"

Sunday, October 16th
Cowell College Conference Room
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM: Sign-in; Coffee and Muffins

10:00 AM - 12:00 NOON: Bodies and Violence
Alison Galloway, moderator (Anthropolgy, UCSC)

• Steve Kurzman (Anthropologist, San Francisco), “Hillbilly Armor and C-Legs: Technologies and Bodies at War”

• Megan Moodie (Anthropology, UCSC), "Nursing Memory: Gender and the Work of Healing American Culture after War"

• Carla Freccero (Literature, UCSC), "The Other Inside"

• Nancy Chen (Anthropology, UCSC), "Dead Bodies, Violence, and Living on through Plastination"

More information about panels listed above

Related Exhibitions:

The Rhetoric of the Pose: Rethinking Hannah Wilke
Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, UCSC
October 5 - December 3, 2005
Reception: October 5, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
From the 1970s until her death in 1993, Hannah Wilke produced work that examined sex and sexuality, feminism and femininity, the body and its representation. Wilke's work culminated in the early 1990s with a stark, moving series of photographs of her face and body during her struggle and eventual death from cancer. This exhibition will run in conjunction with the Institute for Advanced Feminist Research conference on body modification.

Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery Web site

Narrative Bodies
Porter Faculty Gallery, UCSC
October 5 - December 3, 2005
Reception: October 5, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
This is a provocative group exhibition of artists exploring issues of identity, agency, and transformation through the documentation or representation of body modification practices. How are bodies, as objects and agents of cultural production, inscribed by material and conceptual practices? What stories do our bodies tell and what stories do we tell with our bodies? How does conceiving of the body as text, or as canvas, enable an exploration of subjectivity outside of the classic mind/body dualism?

Co-sponsors of Bodies in the Making: Transgressions and Transformations
• UC Humanities Research Institute, Irvine • Alumni Association • Anthropology Department
• Center for Justice Tolerance & Community • Colleges 9/10 • Community Studies Department
• Cowell College • Crown College • Division of the Arts • Feminist Studies
• Graduate Student Association • History of Art and Visual Culture • History of Consciousness
• Institute for Humanities Research, UCSC • Kresge College • Literature Department
• Oakes College • Porter College • Psychology Department • Sociology Department
• Stevenson College • The Center for Cultural Studies
• The Lionel Cantú GLBTI Resource Center • Women's Center

• Free and Open to the Public
• Free Parking at Stevenson College
• Refreshments will be served throughout the day

Feminist Anger, Social Rage
Feminist Anger, Political Rage will appeal to scholars from diverse disciplines and with a range of interests (e.g., feminist and psychoanalytic theorists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, cultural and literary critics, philosophers, political theorists and political scientists, psychologists, film theorists, art historians and artists.) In developing this project, participants will explore--through research, publications and community-oriented activities--the relation of psychological to social phenomena, of individual to collective anger, and of collective anger to constructive and destructive political action. In the process, they are likely to examine such issues as:
• the correlation of an increase in violence against women with globalization;
• the power relations and cultural meanings of anger;
• anger as a technology of mobilization and immobilization;
• the affects, effects, histories, causes and possible resolution of anger within feminism;
• the multiple ways in which anger is socially produced, psychically registered, and personally enacted in the family through maternal rage and depression, the cultivation of dependence, intergenerational anxieties and resentments, and the brutalities of domestic violence.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Stevenson Silverman Conference Room

War/Sex/Violence Reading Group
The basic assumption of this seminar is that sex is deeply implicated in war and other forms of violence-- and that combinations of the three have much to teach us about psychic and social constructions and social expressions of desire.

In its second year, the group is considering such topics as "violence, otherness and the pornographic imagination," "sex-negativity and the culture of violence," "the politics of representation," "torture in its social and psychological contexts," "rape and war," "male fantasies: fraternities and the military," "sexual violence and patriotism," "feminism and the female torturer." Texts and topics will be chosen by participants.

The group will be reading Susan Sontag's, "Regarding the Pain of Others"
Tuesday, November 1, 2005, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
UCSC Women's Center

Dialogue Series; Feminisms, Past, Present and Future [CANCELLED]
Thursday, November 10, 2005, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Stevenson Silverman Conference Room

Feminisms and Global War Seminar
"Feminism and Security: What is to Be Done?" Please join us for a round-table discussion with Paola Bacchetta, Piya Chatterjee, and Norma Klahn, with Neferti Tadiar as discussant.

Feminists have recently been pulled into addressing the question of “Feminism and Security.” We have argued that violence and insecurity often result from projects initiated and conflicts conducted in the name of security. This workshop is meant to generate new feminist strategies of intervention that derive from alternative conceputalizations of “security” problems for which violence and war are now considered necessary or inevitable solutions. We hope to generate a round-table discussion of the limits to the concept of security. What can feminists do to intervene in public debates and redirect attention to alternative ways to imagine collective life?

Professor Paola Bacchetta, Department of Gender and Women's Studies, University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as Ideologues, and the co-editor of Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists around the World (with Margaret Power). She works on transnational feminist theory, religious nationalism and social movements (right-wing, queer, feminist).

Professor Piya Chatterjee, Department of Women’s Studies, University of California, Riverside, is the author of A Time for Tea: Women, Labor and Post/Colonial Politics on an Indian Plantation. She is one of the co-founders of Dooars Jagron, a community-based organization with tea plantation women workers based in North Bengal, India. Dooars Jagron promotes a basic anti-casteist, pro-working class women's human rights agenda.

Professor Norma Klahn, Department of Literature, UCSC, does research on Chicano/Latino literature, culture and feminist theories from a cross-border perspective. Her publications include Literary (re)mappings :áautobiographical (dis)placements, The border :áimagined, invented or from the geopolitics of literature to nothingness, and Las Nuevas fronteras del siglo XXI =áNew frontiers of the 21st. century.

Professor Neferti Tadiar, The History of Consciousness Program, UCSC, is concerned with the role of gender, race, and sexuality in discourses and material practices of nationalism, transnationalism, and globalization, as well as the potential of non-Western knowledges for thinking about the politics of minoritarian cultural practices. She is the author of Fantasy-Production: Sexual Economies and Other Philippine Consequences for the New World Order.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Stevenson Fireside Lounge

War at home
A series of roundtable discussions sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Feminist Research in collaboration with local activists from Santa Cruz and Monterey counties: What have we done so far? What can we do now? Cross-generational conversations between women on Peace, Freedom, and Protest.

Friday, November 18, 2005
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Screen Cindy Sheehan Coverage
3:30 PM– 4:30 PM Local Activists Share Their Stories
5:00 PM March to Women in Black Peace Vigil on Pacific Avenue
Veterans Memorial Hall, 846 Front St., Santa Cruz