2025 WGHS Schedule
All events are in Levis Faculty Center Room 220 unless otherwise noted.
Thursday, February 20, 2025
4:30- 5:30pm – Keynote by Dr. Neil J. Young
Introduced by Dr. Marsha Barrett, Assistant Professor of History
5:30-7:00pm – Opening Reception
Opening remarks by Dr. Adrian Burgos, Professor of History and Department Chair
Friday, February 21, 2025
9:30-11am – Q&A on Alt-Academic Career Paths ft. Neil J. Young, Laura Goffman, and Antonio Sotomayor
Facilitated by Dr. Kathryn Holliday, Randall J. Biallas Professor of Historic Preservation and American Architectural History, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Chair, Graduate Minor in Heritage Studies
This Q&A will feature keynote speakers, Dr. Neil J. Young and Dr. Laura Goffman, who are passionate about supporting graduate students through the job search process– both in and outside of academia. It will also feature Dr. Antonio Sotomayor, associate professor and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Librarian at the University of Illinois. This session will provide a forum to discuss how to prepare for an alternative job search to the traditional academic pathway, and the particular considerations students of women’s and gender studies may have.
11:15am-12:20pm – Panel 1: (Re)production: Medicine, Law, and the Body
Moderated by Lex Sundarsingh, PhD Candidate, Department of History
*Christen Hammock Jones, Columbia University – “The Sterilization State”
Zsófia Veszely, European University Institute- “The National Council of Hungarian Women and the Struggle for Sex Education and Reproductive Freedom in State-Socialist Hungary”
*Darcy Roake, Tulane University – Title TBD
Noah Kupper, The New School for Social Research- Title TBD
12:20-1:45pm – Lunch for Symposium Registrants and Guests of the History Department
2:00pm – 3:10pm – Panel 2: Statecraft, Scandal, and Spectacle: Gendered Power Plays and the Law
Moderated by Dr. Liz Abosch, Lecturer, Russian East European, and Eurasian Center, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Lena Nasrallah, Harvard University – “‘She is released to appease us, but she is whipped to appease the UAE natives’: Spectacles of Justice and Economic Dependencies in a Global Abu Dhabi”
Paul Mora, University of Mississippi – Title TBD
Rachel Elise Wiedman, University of Tennessee – “Make Historical Memory a Precious Inheritance: Statesmanship, Manhood, and Northern Political Culture, 1852-1861”
Sarah Offutt, University of Missouri – “Gender on the Gallows: The Ending Public Execution in Britain”
3:30 – 4:30pm – Keynote by Dr. Laura Goffman
Introduced by TBD
4:30-6:30pm – Reception for Symposium Registrants and Guests of the History Department
Remarks by Dr. Marc Hertzman, Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies
Saturday, February 22, 2025
9:00 am – Breakfast for Symposium Registrants
9:30-10:40 am – Panel 3: Gender Under Surveillance: Policing Bodies and Politics
Moderated by Haiyi Li, PhD Student, History
Joanna Cardenas, University of California, Berkeley – “Girlz in the Hood: How Black and Latinx Women Navigate the Streets of South Central Los Angeles”
*Keara Sebold, Boston University – “‘Did She Know Her Act Was Wrong?’ Race, Insanity and Queer Crimes of Passion at the Turn of the Century”
*Shareena Jasmin, University of Calicut – “Colonial Law and Gendered Constructs of Madness: Case Studies from Kerala, India”
*Kelly N. Giles, University of Massachusetts-Amherst – “Make It Make Sense: Black women navigating partner incarceration, the affective, and cultural expectations”
10:55am – 12:05pm – Panel 4: Gendered Economies: Labor, Power, and the Politics of Work
Moderated by Owen MacDonald, PhD Candidate, History
Taryn DeLeon Mendiola, Boston College – “Women’s Craft, Men’s Power: Regulation and Control of the Medieval Icelandic Cloth Industry”
*Foster Mayemyan Biyignandam, University of Mississippi- “Gender Dynamics in Forced Labor: Colonial Legal Frameworks and Social Disruptions in the Gold Coast ca. 1906–1927”
*Emma Chapman, University of California, Davis – “The Missing Husband: Coverture and Absence in New England and New France, 1680-1725”
Katy Evans, University of Illinois Chicago – “Fighting for Common Ground: Legislative Reforms of the Nicaraguan Women’s Movement in the 1980s”
12:05pm – Lunch for Panelists, Moderators, Keynote Speakers