Program Highlights

2023 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

Oceans, Islands, and Continents:
Reconceptualizing the Spatialization of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Histories

This page highlights conference activities that many might want to attend, ranging from plenary sessions to special group meetings and luncheons to breakfast, receptions, and coffee breaks. Many event participants are linked to online biographical information.

The page also shows eight time periods on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning for 167 ninety-minute sessions (lightning sessions, traditional panels, roundtables, and other formats).
Read/download the 2023 Big Berks Program (pdf). A printed program will be available at Registration.

Wednesday 28 June

2:00 – 6:30 pm Registration (Graham Hall)
7:00 – 8:30 pm Reception for International Participants and Friends (Graham Lawn)
Presenters: Barbara Molony, Santa Clara University and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, University of California, Irvine

Thursday 29 June

7:00 am – 7:00 pm Nursing Room (Graham Hall 151-153)
7:00 – 8:00 am Breakfast (Benson-Breakfast)
8:00 am – 5:00 pm Registration (Graham Hall)
12:00 – 1:00 pm Lunch (Benson)

1:00 – 3:00 pm Berks Fellows Roundtable (Benson Parlor B/C)
Organizer: Barbara Molony, Santa Clara University
Discussants:
– Samuel Cao, Santa Clara University
– Hannah Hagan, Santa Clara University
– Nico Sanchez, Santa Clara University
– Naomi Sneath, Santa Clara University
– Juia Kovatch, Santa Clara University
– Bridget Beavin, Western Kentucky University
– Kaci DeLisle, Western Kentucky University
– Brooklyn Lile, Western Kentucky University
– Chloe Paddack, Western Kentucky University
– Steven Bradford, Texas State University
– Christopher Johnson-Greer, Norfolk State University
– Levi Goldson, William & Mary
– Jessica Brabble, William & Mary
– Thalia Maria Chrysanthis, William and Mary
– Samantha Haddad, William & Mary
– Molly Shilo, William & Mary
Commentators:
– Leisa Meyer, William & Mary
– Audra Jennings, Western Kentucky University
– Jessica Pliley, Texas State University
– Stephanie J. Richmond, Norfolk State University
– Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, University of California, Irvine

1:30 – 3:00 pm Western Association of Women Historians: Executive Board Meeting (Williman)
Chairs: Patricia Ann Schechter, Portland State University, WAWH and Pamela Stewart, CCWH, WAWH

3:00 – 4:00 pm Annual Business Meeting of the Western Association of Women Historians (Williman)
Chairs: Patricia Ann Schechter, Portland State University, WAWH and Pamela Stewart, CCWH, WAWH

3:00 – 4:00 pm Graduate Student Meet and Greet (Benson Parlor B/C)
Organizers: Barbara Molony, Santa Clara University and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, University of California, Irvine

4:00 – 5:00 pm Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Annual Meeting (Williman)
Organizers: Barbara Molony, Santa Clara University and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, University of California, Irvine
– Treasurer’s Report: Traci Parker, University of Massachusetts Amherst
– Vice President’s Report: Deirdre Cooper Owens, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
– Secretary’s Report: Julie Gallagher, Penn State Brandywine
– Co-President’s Report: Barbara Molony, Santa Clara University
– Co-President’s Report: Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, University of California, Irvine
– Executive Administrator’s Report: Sandra Trudgen Dawson, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

5:30 – 6:45 pm Opening Presidential Reception [with hearty hors d’oeuvres] (Mission Garden)

7:00 – 9:00 pm Presidential Opening Plenary
(Mayer Theater and Reception Room Overflow)
Organizers: Barbara Molony, Santa Clara University and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, University of California, Irvine
This plenary will officially open the conference with a Land Acknowledgement and Blessing:
– Charlene C. Nijmeh, Chairwoman, Muwekma Ohlone Tribe
– Monica V. Arellano, Vice Chairwoman, Muwekma Ohlone Tribe
– Gloria E. Arellano-Gomez, Tribal Member, Muwekma Ohlone Tribe
Welcomes from Santa Clara University Acting Provost Kate Morris and Amy Randall, History Department Chair.

Friday 30 June

7:00 – 9:00 am Breakfast (Benson-Breakfast)
7:00 am – 7:00 pm Nursing Room (Graham Hall 151-153)
8:00 am – 5:00 pm Registration (Graham Hall)
8:30 – 10:00 am Sessions (23)
9:00 am – 5:00 pm Film Viewing
10:00-10:30 am Coffee Break (Benson, CA Mission Room Entrance, lower level, SCU)
10:30 am – noon Sessions (24)
12:00 – 2:00 pm Lunch (Benson-Lunch)
12:00 – 2:00 pm Women and Social Movements Luncheon (Williman)
2:00 – 3:30 pm Sessions (25)
3:30 – 4:00 pm Coffee Break (Benson, CA Mission Room Entrance, lower level, SCU)

4:00 – 5:30 pm Indigeneity Plenary
(Mayer Theater and Recital Room Overflow)
“Planting Good Relations: New Directions in Indigenous Feminist Scholarship”
The plenary brings together three rising stars in Indigenous Feminist scholarship to talk about their work which collectively helps us understand past and present gendered forms of settler colonialism. They also offer us windows into how many Indigenous peoples resist colonial modes of being in the world. Together, their critical insights offer everyone different ways of thinking about how to be in good relations with the lands we live on, as well as the Indigenous communities we live with.
Chair: Maile Arvin, University of Utah
– “Repairing Relations: Communal Frameworks for Native History,” Caitlin Keliiaa, University of California, Berkeley
– “Oceanian Feminisms, Rematriation and Protecting the Sacred,” Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, University of California, Davis
– “Oceans of Empathy: Indigenous Kinship and Gendered Settler Grief in the Salish Sea,” Lindsay Schneider, Colorado State University

5.30 – 6:45 pm 50th Anniversary Celebration Reception with hearty hors d’oeuvres (Mission Garden)

7:00 – 9:00 pm 50th Anniversary Celebration Plenary
“We Have Changed History: A Celebration” (Meyer Theater, overflow in the Recital Hall)
Co-Chairs: Alice Kessler-Harris and Mary Beth Norton
– “Remembering the Little Berks,” Sandi Cooper, Prof. emerita, City University of New York
– “Women in the Profession before the 70s,” Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University
– “Conceiving the Big Berks,” Mary Hartman, Rutgers University (retired), and Lois W. Banner, University of Southern California
– “The Early Days,” Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, University of Michigan
– “The Berks Experience in Photographs,” Kathryn Kish Sklar, State University of New York, Binghamton
– “Comparative History,” Karen Offen, Stanford University
– “Politics and Peace,” Blanche Wiesen Cook, City University of New York
– “Labor,” Vicki L. Ruiz, University of California, Irvine
– “Transnationalism,” Teresa Meade, Union College, New York, and Bonnie Anderson, City University of New York, emerita
– “Race and Ethnicity, ” Deirdre Cooper Owens
– “Sexuality,” Estelle Freedman, Stanford University
– “Social Welfare,” Linda Gordon, New York University
– “Archives and Preservation,” Heather Huyck, National Collaboration of Women’s History Sites
– “Towards the Future, with a Focus on Race and Labor,” Thavolia Glymph, Duke University

Saturday 1 July

7:00 – 9:00 am Breakfast (Benson-Breakfast)
7:00 am – 7:00 pm Nursing Room (Graham Hall 151-153)
8:00 am – 4:00 pm Registration (Graham Hall – Registration)
8:30 – 10:00 am Sessions (23)
9:00 am – 5:00 pm Film Viewing (Graham Hall 258)
10:00-10:30 am Coffee Break (Benson, CA Mission Room Entrance, lower level, SCU)
10:30 am – noon Sessions (23)
12:00 – 2:00 pm Journal of Women’s History Annual Meeting (Benson Parlor A)
12:00 – 2:00 pm Lunch (Benson)
12:00 – 2:00 pm Western Association of Women Historians Luncheon and Meeting (Williman)
2:00 – 3:30 pm Sessions (22)
3:30 – 4:00 pm Coffee Break (Benson, CA Mission Room Entrance, lower level, SCU)

4:00 – 5.30 pm Plenary — Oceans, Islands, and Continents
(Mayer Theater and Recital Room Overflow)
“Oceans, Islands, and Continents: Reconceptualizing the Spacialization of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Histories”
Held on the edge of the Pacific, the 2023 Berkshires conference invites us to consider how we might interrogate nation-bound and land-bound forms of history.
How might a consideration of the relationship between different scales of land and water foreground imperial, environmental, racialized, diasporic, and indigenous understandings of geography, culture, and society?
How does the study of women, gender, and sexuality history shift if we consider the local as well as the migratory, the ecological as well as the geopolitical, the oceanic as well as the hemispheric?
How does an awareness of trans-border and intra-border spatialization change our historical questions and analysis?
Please join our plenary as we explore these questions through gendered analyses of oceans, islands, and continents.
Chair: Judy Wu, University of California, Irvine
– “Navigating Diasporas and Borderlands in the Americas,” Theresa Delgadillo, University of Wisconsin, Madison
– “Oceanic Kinships and Feminist Dis/Loyalties,” Vernadette Gonzalez, University of Hawaii, Manoa
– “Multiracial Internationalism: Remaking Childhood, Family, and Citizenship in Twentieth Century France and French West and Equatorial Africa,” Rachel Jean-Baptiste, University of California, Davis
– “Activating Indigenous Feminist Futurity,” Laura Harjo, Oklahoma University, Norman, OK

5:30 – 6:30 pm Berks Members New Book Launch (Benson, California Mission Room)
6:30 – 7:30 pm Southwest Dinner and Reception (Mission Garden)
8:00 – 11:00 pm Berkshire Conference Dance (Locatelli)

Sunday 2 July

7:00 – 9:00 am Breakfast (Benson-Breakfast)
7:00 am – 7:00 pm Nursing Room (Graham Hall 151-153)
8:00 am – 10:00 am Registration (Graham Hall – Registration)
8:30 – 10.00 am Sessions (17)
10:00-10:30 am Coffee Break (Benson, CA Mission Room Entrance, lower level, SCU)
10:30 am – noon Sessions (10)

Conference ends

Campus Map

An interactive Campus Map may be found at https://www.scu.edu/map/
To see all building names, please enlarge the map.
Or view an online non-interactive Campus Map (pdf)

2023 Program Committees & CFP >>

For more information, please contact Sandra Trudgen Dawson, execadmin@berksconference.org

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