The Barnard Center for Research on Women celebrated its 40th anniversary this academic year, marking the beginning of its fifth decade of bringing feminist academics and feminist activists together in the service of social justice and social change. In all of our collaborative projects, we work to create feminist knowledge that can be used by researchers, activists, policy makers, scholars, media makers, students, artists, and anyone working in social justice arenas.

This panel will provide an overview of the Center’s many projects and showcase three of our current scholar-activist collaborations: the Feminism and Disability Oral History Project; our Transnational Feminisms Initiative; and our online feminism project.

Panelists include:

• Elizabeth Castelli, Professor of Religion and Acting Director of BCRW
• Ynestra King, feminist author, disability justice activist, and Coordinator of BCRW’s Feminism and Disability Oral History Project
• Lulu Mickelson, Barnard Class of 2015, BCRW student research assistant working on online feminism
• Shayoni Mitra, Assistant Professor of Theater at Barnard College and 2012 Global Symposium Faculty Fellow
• Catherine Sameh, Associate Director of BCRW and Coordinator of BCRW’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative

Anna Barbara Meier and Emma R. both grew up as females in Germany, and were in their adult lives both medically declared to be male. However, there was a time gap of more than one century between the two cases. In her lecture, Geertje Mak shows that hermaphroditism itself changed profoundly over the course of the nineteenth century. Until the 1860s, in cases of doubt someone’s sex was medically examined on the basis of outer appearance and the patient’s own statements mainly. Around 1900 sex had become something turned inwards: both microscopically established and anchored in the psychic self. Moreover, dealing with such cases of doubt changed profoundly. In the first half of the century, policies of secrecy and containment prevailed, protecting a person’s initial inscription as man or woman in society in order to avoid social disorder and dislocation. Increasingly, an urge to reveal the ‘inner truth’ of the body emerged. This had to be understood and ‘managed’ in its relation to an interiorised sex of self. The physician’s role thereby transformed from being an expert arbiter in cases in which doubtful sex caused a social problem, into offering medical-psychological advice and therapy concerning the individualized problem of the relation between body and self.

Geertje Mak is Assistant Professor at the Institute for Gender Studies and the History Department of the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. This year she published Doubting Sex: Inscriptions, Bodies and Selves in Nineteenth-Century Hermaphrodite Case Histories (Manchester University Press). She has published two books (in Dutch) and several international articles on masculine women, hermaphrodites, migrant history, and gender history. Currently she is working on a project about fabrications of identity.

This event is co-sponsored by the Columbia University Seminar on Sexuality, Gender, Health and Human Rights.

BOMBAY/MUMBAI STORIES: Films about Gender, Labor, and the Politics of Visibility
Part 2: Surabhi Sharma

Bombay/Mumbai Stories explores questions of gender, labor, the politics of visibility, and subaltern public culture with Mumbai-based documentary film-makers Surabhi Sharma and Paromita Vohra.

Surabhi Sharma will share her debut film, Jari Mari: Of Cloth and Other Stories, which documents narratives of gender and informal labor as these relate to the broader processes of deindustrialization.

Sharma will also share scenes from her latest work, Bidesia in Bombayya, a story of Bhojpuri music, migration and mobile phones. Migration is the predominant theme in the music, and the phone is a recurring motif. Mobile phones are also used to circulate the music. And it’s the only way to stay connected to the mothers and wives back home in the village. This film follows two singers in Mumbai who occupy extreme ends of the migrant worker’s vibrant music scene, a taxi-driver chasing his first record deal and Kalpana, the star of the industry.

Surabhi Sharma is an independent film maker. She studied film direction at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and made her first film in 2001. She has since produced six films including Aamkar [Turtle People] and Jahaji Music, which explores race, identity and Indian indenture as these are reflected in Caribbean music, as well as three video installations including, most recently, an installation for the Hongkong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture.

Surabhi’s films explore a range of subjects, including music and identity, labour and globalization and women’s health. Her films have been screened at various international festivals, and have been awarded at Film South Asia, Nepal; Karachi Film Festival, Pakistan; The Festival of Three Continents, Argentina; Indian Documentary Producers’ Association and Eco-cinema, Greece. Surabhi has written scripts and directed for telefilms and educational films. She has also taught as Visiting Faculty at a range of Institutes and film schools in India.

This event is part of BCRW’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative. We are grateful for additional support from the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, The Forum on Migration, MESAAS, The Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia. These screenings are in conjunction with the seminar “Bombay/Mumbai and Its Urban Imaginaries.”

More from this series:

• EVENT: Q2P with Paromita Vohra

There is a war against women raging across the country. Presidential candidates are speaking out in opposition to basic contraception. Anti-woman legislators around the country are trying to put more and more barriers between women and their reproductive rights. Wisconsin’s governor just pushed through a repeal of his state’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act. Even here in New York, we are having difficulty pushing a pro-woman agenda forward.

Join us for an evening of basic training to learn what you can do to stop the War Against Women. Speakers include:

• Senator Liz Krueger: New York State Senator, 26th Senate District
• Jessica Valenti: Author and Founder, Feministing.com
• Joe Rollins: Associate Professor and Executive Officer, The Graduate Center of CUNY and Queens College
• Jamia Wilson: Vice-President of Programs, Women’s Media Center
• Amy Richards: Author and Feminist Activst, Soapboxinc.com

To RSVP and for additional information, please contact Susannah Pasquantonio at spasquantonio@gmail.com or 212-490-9535. Download the flyer for this event (PDF).

This event is sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger and The Center for the Study of Women in Society at CUNY Graduate Center. Co-sponsors for this event include the Barnard Center for Research on Women; B’nai Jeshurun; Community Board 6; Congregregation Rodeph Sholom; Eleanor’s Legacy; Family Planning Advocates of NYS; The Feminist Press at CUNY; Gender Studies Program at Hunter College; Girls for Gender Equity (GGE); Gray Panthers – NY; Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ); NARAL ProChoice – NY; National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; National Organization for Women-NYC; The New York Women’s Bar Association; New York Women’s Foundation; Raising Women’s Voices; Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; Sarah Lawrence College Women’s History Graduate Program; The Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women’s Activism 1945-Present; Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College; The Women’s Center at John Jay College; Women’s City Club of New York; Women’s Media Center; Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer; NYC Council Speaker, Christine Quinn; Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney; Congressman Jerrold Nadler; Senator Tom Duane; Senator Jose Serrano; Assemblymember Richard N. Gottfried; Assemblymember Micah Kellner; Assemblymember Dan Quart; Councilmember Dan Gurodnick; and Councilmember Jessica Lappin.

BOMBAY/MUMBAI STORIES: Films about Gender, Labor, and the Politics of Visibility
Part 1: Paromita Vohra

Bombay/Mumbai Stories explores questions of gender, labor, the politics of visibility, and subaltern public culture with Mumbai-based documentary film-makers Surabhi Sharma and Paromita Vohra.

Paromita Vohra will explore gender, the city, and vulnerability with clips from select films, accompanied by a screening of her award-winning documentary Q2P. Q2P is a film about toilets and the city. It sifts through the dream of Mumbai as a future Shanghai and searches for public toilets, watching who has to queue to pee. As the film observes who has access to toilets and who doesn’t, we begin to also see the imagination of gender that underlies the city’s shape, the constantly shifting boundaries between public and private space; we learn of small acts of survival that people in the city’s bottom half cobble together and quixotic ideas of social change that thrive with mixed results; we hear the silence that surrounds toilets and sense how similar it is to the silence that surrounds inequality. The toilet becomes a riddle with many answers and some of those answers are questions—about gender, about class, about caste and most of all about space, urban development and the twisted myth of the global metropolis.

Paromita Vohra is a filmmaker and writer. Her films as director include Partners in Crime (2011), Morality TV and the Loving Jehad (2007), Where’s Sandra (2005), Work In Progress (2004), Cosmopolis: Two Tales of A City (2004), Unlimited Girls (2001), (Women’s News Award, Women’s International Film Festival, Seoul), A Woman’s Place (1998), and Annapurna: Goddess of Food (1995). Her films as writer include the feature Khamosh Pani (Best Film, Locarno Film Festival; Best Screenplay, Kara Film Festival); and the documentaries A Few Things I Know About Her (Silver Conch, MIFF and National Award, Best Film), If You Pause: In A Museum of Craft and Skin Deep. She teaches writing for film at various universities and writes a popular newspaper column in the Sunday Midday.

The film’s producer PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research) is a Mumbai based organization that creates a new space for critical engagement with the city, and seeks to contribute to a global debate about urbanization and globalization.

This event is part of BCRW’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative. We are grateful for additional support from the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, The Forum on Migration, MESAAS, The Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia. These screenings are in conjunction with the seminar “Bombay/Mumbai and Its Urban Imaginaries.”

More from this series:

• EVENT: Jari Mari: Of Cloth and Other Stories with Surabhi Sharma

Harvest of Grief, a 66-minute documentary, chronicles the stories of those left behind in the wake of an epidemic of farmer suicides sweeping the north Indian state of Punjab. Created by Rasil Basu and Ekatra, a non-profit devoted to supporting marginalized women and their families, the film reveals complicated dynamics of gender, economics, and sustainability in the wake of economic liberalization and globalization.

Amrita Basu, daughter of the filmmaker and Professor of Political Science and Women and Gender Studies at Amherst College, will offer an introduction to the film and will participate in a discussion following the screening.

This event is part of BCRW’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative.

Join leaders from several NGOs to discuss the past and future of the World Conference on Women. What have these conferences accomplished and why is 2015 the right time for another one? Find out how you can you get involved in developing a youth-focused and inclusive event for women from around the world. Partipants include:

Yvonne Maingey is a 23-year-old Kenyan environmentalist and graduate of the London School of Economics currently pursuing graduate studies at New York University. She is the former African representative to the UNEP Tunza Youth Advisory Council and Junior Board.

Rosemary Williams is the founder of Women’s Perspective, a non-profit offering financial education to women, and serves on the International Advisory Committee for the 5th World Conference on Women. Mrs. Williams is a former banker and certified financial planner and is the co-author of The Women’s Book of Money and Spiritual Vision. Currently she acts as a consultant and trainer, leading financial empowerment workshops in economically depressed countries such as Haiti and Kenya as well as in the US.

Anele Heiges is the current President of the International Public Policy Institute and an ECOSOC representative. She has a long history of NGO leadership actively advocating for the causes of peace, justice, environment, development and women’s issues. Dr. Heiges received her PhD in Global Peace Education and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University, an MA in Theology from the University of San Francisco and a BA in Life Sciences and History from Siena Heights University, Adrian, Michigan.

Shazia Z. Rafi is, since 1996, Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action. PGA programs promote peace, democracy, justice and sustainable development around the world. She also writes for the Women’s Media Center and was recently appointed to serve on the United Nations Democracy Fund Advisory Board. Ms. Rafi was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Fletcher School, Tufts University.

This event is part of BCRW’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative.

As part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), join Men’s Peer Education for a lecture by Mia Mingus on the intersections of disability justice, sexual violence, and transformative justice.

As a queer, physically disabled woman of color, Korean transracial and transnational adoptee, writer, organizer, and community builder, Mia Mingus has worked with disability justice, reproductive justice, queer liberation, and transformative justice. Her work is concerned not only with responding creating safer, healing communities for survivors, but also transforming the social and institutional conditions that give rise to violence.

Much of her work can be understood in terms of disability justice, an emerging political framework rooted in the lived experiences of disabled people who have been largely excluded, silenced, and ignored by the mainstream disability rights movement. Led by disabled people of color, and specifically disabled queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people, disability justice offers a necessarily intersectional analysis of ablism, racism, class, and gender which has implications for all social justice movements.

We recommend reading this brief introduction on ablism and disability justice.

For wheelchair access from Broadway or Amsterdam Avenues, travel along College Walk (116th St) to Dodge Hall (nearer to Broadway) and use the elevator at the east end of building to access upper campus. University guests can alert a Public Safety officer, stationed on College Walk at both the Broadway and Amsterdam entrances, for assistance.

This event is sponsored by Men’s Peer Education (a program of Sexual Violence Response) and Disability Services (Morningside), and co-sponsored by ROOTEd, Femsex, Asian American Alliance, IvyQ, Radical College Undergraduates Not Tolerating Sexism, Students Against Mass Incarceration, Lucha, Columbia University Amnesty International Chapter, CUSSW Disability Awareness Caucus, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Barnard Center for Research on Women, Office of Disability Services (Barnard) and Office of Access and Services for Individuals at Teacher’s College.

In 1946, upon her return from receiving the Nobel Prize, Gabriela Mistral met New Yorker Doris Dana, BC ’44, at a lecture in Milbank Hall. Mistral was a poet, educator, and diplomat, revered in her native Chile. Yet plagued by gossip about her sexuality and the devastating loss of her only son, she spent most of her later life outside of Chile, and in her final years, settled with Dana on Long Island, where her companion recorded many of their conversations. Out of these recordings comes Madwomen, which follows the mysterious story of the last years of Mistral’s life, her burgeoning friendship with Dana, and her captivating later work.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the film’s director María Elena Wood, Maja Horn (Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Cultures, Barnard) and Nara Milanich (Associate Professor of History, Barnard).

This event is part of BCRW’s Transnational Feminisms Initiative.

This event is co-sponsored by Columbia Global Centers / Latin America in Santiago.

This panel will explore comparative approaches to Israeli prisons and detention.

PANELISTS:
Judith Butler, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Angela Davis, Prison Activist and History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz
Mai Masri, Independent Documentary Filmmaker, Beirut, Lebanon
Lena Meari, Center for Palestine Studies Fellow, Columbia University

Registration is recommended on the Center for Palestine Studies website. Doors open at 5:30 PM and the event will begin promptly at 6PM. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.

This event is brought to you by the Center for Palestine Studies and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia and generously co-sponsored by: the Barnard Center for Research on Women, the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, the Heyman Center, and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.

More from this event:

• VIDEO: Carceral Politics in Palestine & Beyond: Gender, Vulnerability, Prison – Part 1 of 2
• VIDEO: Carceral Politics in Palestine & Beyond: Gender, Vulnerability, Prison – Part 2 of 2
• PHOTOS: Carceral Politics in Palestine & Beyond: Gender, Vulnerability, Prison