IGSF News
Massimadi: Love Triumphs
6th afrocaribbean lgbt international film festival
article in Montreal Gazette
Reception for Judith Butler
On the occasion of her receipt of a McGill Honorary Doctorate, at the May 30th convocation ceremonies, spring 2013
Huffington Post, article by Darin Barney: In defense of Judith Butler
Xtra! Canada's Gay and Lesbian News, article by Josh Mentanko: Judith Butler receives honorary doctorate from McGill
Radical Formations: Sex, Race, Trans
McGill Reporter Article: Four Burning Questions for Dean Spade, professor, lawyer, civil rights activist
Gazette Opinion piece by Robert Leckey: Opinion: More work to do on same-sex marriage issue
Gazette Blog post by Richard Burnett: International McGill University conference puts transgender civil rights front and centre
Gazette Blog post by Jillian Page: McGill Workshop: Radical Formations - Sex, Race, Trans
An Evening with Alison Bechdel
Drawn and Quarterly Blog: An Evening with Alison Bechdel
Three Dollar Bill Blog post by Richard Burnett: Pop Icon Alison Bechdel Is Still A Dyke To Watch Out For
The Future of Feminist Theory
Passion Pitchforks and Pinecones: Navigating academia in precarious times
Graduate Student Conference:
Whose Business Is Risk?
Girlhood Studies and the Politics of Place: New paradigms of Research
Girls Action Foundation e-newletter
Girls Action Foundation photos
It is our great pleasure to report that the highly anticipated international symposium “Girlhood Studies and the Politics of Place: New Paradigms of Research” was a resounding success! The Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at McGill University brought together Canadian government representatives and non-profit advocates with academic researchers from Australia, Canada, and the U.S to talk about some pressing issues in the field of Girlhood Studies. This emerging field is formed around a set of interdisciplinary and international initiatives that address social issues unique to girls. Through various panel presentations and a workshop, the group combined forces to develop new analytic tools and conceptual frameworks to approach girlhood as a significant site of social participation and change. Some of the topics explored include decolonizing methodologies, art making and memory work, girls’ human rights and advocacy, sexting and sexualisation, constructions of girlhood and girls’ interactions with those constructions (e.g., resistance or conformity).
Marnina Gonick
Voices in Longitude and Latitude
Kicking off the symposium, Dr. Marnina Gonick gave a moving talk on a video art installation she has co-produced with film maker/installation artist, Noam Gonick. Combining critical ethnography with contemporary art, Gonick posed a series of new questions about how the diversity of Canadian national identity might be interpreted through the voices of young women and woman identified youth. In presenting images and voices of diverse girls from each region of the country, this project asks: What would it mean to think of the national community with a new vision?
Sarah Banet-Weiser
Am I Pretty or Ugly? Girls, Digital Media, and the Economy of Visibility
Dr. Sarah Banet-Weiser delivered an insightful critique of the growing internet DIY video confessional trend “(Am I) Pretty or Ugly?” in which girls publicly display their bodies as products to be evaluated and commented on. The idea of girls using the Web more as a site for creative production is already bound by conventional notions of what, and who, girls are (e.g., fashionistas, make-up artists, stylists, and bodily objects). Through an examination of digital productions by girls, such as blogs and videos, Banet-Weiser outlined the ways in which these artifacts have implications for women and girls within 21st century postfeminist consumer culture; where "putting oneself out there" and the quest for visibility and "self-esteem" is an ever more normative practice for young women interested and invested (either explicitly or implicitly) in the branding and promotion of the self.
Claudia Mitchell
Charting Girlhoods
Dr. Claudia Mitchell’s presentation drew on a range of visual studies to endorse a “focused revisit” of the debates surrounding the budding field of girlhood studies using charting and mapping tools. Mitchell calls not only for a reflexive, strategic, and comprehensive charting of girlhoods and girlhood studies within and across nations and disciplines. She also calls for an interrogation of the visual evidence that girls themselves have created to broaden the terms of debate about their lives, and to trouble how "the voices of girls" can too easily become something of a cliché in the context of participatory methodologies if we don't take full enough account of what girls do, make, and say.
Catherine Driscoll
Nowhere to Go, Nothing to Do: Place, Desire, and Country Girlhood
One of the symposium's key highlights was speaker Dr. Catherine Driscoll’s enlightening keynote address which troubled the construct of the country girl in Australia and the ways development policy targets girls who live and are educated in country towns. Driscoll queried how the "country girl" is figured in political and popular discourse as a subject distant from modernity. Driscoll challenged the deficit model that has come to define rural life, drawing upon 10 years of field research she conducted in small country towns around Australia to demonstrate how girls participate in the kinds of cultural and economic exchange that exists between cities and country towns.
In recognition of the very first UN International Day of the Girl Child on October 11, we hosted an event and photography exhibit “Hearsay, Heresay, Hersay: A Photovoice Odyssey of Girl Identity” led by the Girls Action Foundation, a group of 10-12 year old girls from the Girls’ Media Club and a research team from the Faculty of Education at McGill University. Using their own photographs and narratives, several members of the Girls’ Media Club talked candidly with attendees about their work, revealing their own interpretations of place and how it shapes their experiences, relationships, and identities. The exhibit of their photographs and captions is on display at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF), 3487 Peel Street (2nd floor) through December 15th, 2012. Be sure to stop by to view them before it is too late!
In closing, thanks to all who joined us at this special event! Without your participation this symposium could not have been the success that it was. Special thanks also go to our sponsors. The symposium was made possible by a Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Mini Beatty Memorial Fund, the Dean of Arts Development Fund, Media@McGill, the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC), and the Departments of Art History and Communication Studies and English. Finally, a very big thank you to organizers Dr. Claudia Mitchell, James McGill Professor on Youth, Participation, and Social Change, and Dr. Carrie Rentschler, William Dawson Scholar of Feminist Media Studies.
Archive and Feminism Workshop:
On February 3, 2012 the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies was pleased to host the Archive + Feminism research workshop convened by Prof. Maryanne Dever, a scholar-in-residence at IGSF and professor of Film, Media and Cultural Studies at Newcastle University in Australia. The daylong workshop combined scholarly talks and in-depth discussion between faculty and graduate students about new theories and practices of archival research in gender, sexuality and feminist studies. Talks featured the work of Library and Archives Canada literary archivist Catherine Hobbs and professors Maryanne Dever, Christabelle Sethna of the University of Ottawa, Linda Morra of Bishop’s University, and Sarah Parsons of York University, throwing light on a number of key cases that open up essential questions of archiving feminism: from how the RCMP spied upon the Canadian women’s movement and kept archives now essential to movement scholars, to the archiving case of Merle Thornton, a noted figure in Australia’s second wave women’s movement known as one of the “Bar Room Suffragettes,” emergent approaches to archiving the lives and personal effects of Canadian women writers such as Jane Rule and others (and how to cultivate an ethical orientation to them), and the complex negotiation of privacy, intimacy and sexual identity in the archive of Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz’s 15-year relationship.
Public Lecture by Judy Norsigian:
On October 27th, 2011, IGSF welcomed Judy Norsigian to McGill University. Norsigian is Executive Director of Our Bodies Ourselves and a leader in the women’s health movement. She delivered an inspiring evening lecture to a packed audience of over 150 students, university and community members. Her talk focused on activist strategies for responding to violence against women within the context of transnational sex trafficking, and was followed by a lively Q & A session on how to mobilize those strategies. The talk was supported by Montreal’s own Women Inspiring Next Generations (WINGS), a community group that links women’s education and charitable funding. As a result of the event, funds were donated on behalf of WINGS to the Rescue India Foundation through Childcare International. IGSF’s first charitable event was a great success, and we look forward to working again with WINGS. Stay tuned for more information on our upcoming events!
Graduate Student Conference:
The IGSF’s first ever graduate student conference “The Body: New Paradigms, Perspectives and Practices” convened on Thursday November 3rd, 2011 for a day of engaging cross-disciplinary talks and panel discussions facilitated by McGill faculty. Students from the Departments of Art History and Community Studies, English, Music, and the School of Architecture delivered talks on topics ranging from the visual culture of cancer to histories of singer training, the architecture of gynecology, and an ethnography of caregivers’ bodily movements, among other fascinating subjects. Thanks to Prof. Annmarie Adams, Director of the School of Architecture, for midwifing the conference into being, to Professors Jennifer Fishman, Myriam Gervais, Eric Lewis, Nathan Grant Smith and Alanna Thain for serving on the organizing committee and to Professors Annmarie Adams, Lisa Barg, Jennifer Fishman, Karen Houle, Amelia Jones, Carrie Rentschler, and Alanna Thain for their critical responses to the conference talks. We also thank members of the audience, who packed the house for every panel!