The USF Department of Women’s and Gender Studies will be hosting the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association annual conference on March 26-28, 2020 in St. Petersburg, Florida. The theme—Embodying Disobedience, Crafting Affinities—figures embodiment and diverse lived experiences as the lifeblood of resistant politics and the livelihood of building alliances across our many differences.
The theme also echoes the broader mission of the interdisciplinary field of Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS). With its distinctive blend of research, programming, teaching, and advocacy, WGS questions conventional wisdom, challenges the status quo, critiques intersecting gendered, sexual, and racialized inequities and injustices, and strives to create social change for more equitable, ethical, and just futures.
The keynote speaker for the conference will be Loretta J. Ross.
Ross is a Visiting Professor of Practice in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University teaching "Reproductive Justice Theory and Practice" and "Race and Culture in the U.S." for the 2018-2019 academic year. Previously, she was a Visiting Professor at Hampshire College in Women's Studies for the 2017-2018 academic year teaching "White Supremacy in the Age of Trump." She was a co-founder and the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective from 2005-2012, a network founded in 1997 of women of color and allied organizations that organize women of color in the reproductive justice movement. She is one of the creators of the term "Reproductive Justice" coined by African American women in 1994 that has transformed reproductive politics in the U.S.
Ross is also a is a nationally-recognized trainer on using the transformative power of Reproductive Justice to build a Human Rights movement that includes everyone. Ms. Ross is an expert on women’s issues, hate groups, racism and intolerance, human rights, and violence against women. Her work focuses on the intersectionality of social justice issues and how this affects social change and service delivery in all movements.
Ross has appeared on CNN, BET, "Lead Story," "Good Morning America," "The Donahue Show," "Democracy Now," "Oprah Winfrey Radio Network," and "The Charlie Rose Show. She is a member of the Women's Media Center's Progressive Women's Voices. More information is available on the Makers: Women Who Make America video.
Ms. Ross was also National Co-Director of the April 25, 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., the largest protest march in U.S. history with more than one million participants.
For more information on the conference and the Call for Papers, visit the SEWSA website.