2024 Classroom Connections

Coordination with Course Assignments

Students listen and take notes as Cathy Middlecamp, professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, teaches during her Environmental Studies 126 - Principles of Environmental Science lecture course in the Chemistry Building on March 2, 2017. (Photo by Bryce Richter / UW-Madison)

The conference is free for all UW System students to attend in-person. The overall conference theme and threads have a strong interdisciplinary and intersectional lens which likely overlap with much of your coursework. We encourage instructors to include the conference in spring syllabi and find ways to incorporate conference events into classroom discussions and assignments.

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Assignment Ideas that Align with the WGSC Conference

  1. All UW System students can attend the conference for free in-person.
  1. Attend one plenary or keynote and connect the content to larger course themes.
  2. Attend a roundtable for each conference thread.  How does the roundtable engage with each issue intersectionally? How does the roundtable connect to themes in your course?
  3. What are common themes relating to social justice, institutional resistance, and intersectional feminist activism?
  4. How does hope function as a feminist strategy for institutional and structural change?
  5. How are activists and scholars deconstructing, decolonizing, and reimagining hope?
  6. How is creative work a feminist tool of inquiry, knowledge production, and critical resistance?
  7. How does a broadly defined vision of care expand and complement our work as researchers, students, educators, and activists?
  8. How does the space of the conference offer a different arena for sharing and connecting with others? What are the opportunities and limits of this type of space for thought exchange, dialogue, and feminist activism?

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Reading Guides

Reading guide for No Study without Struggle by Keynote Speaker Leigh Patel.

Release dates: Chapters 1-2: February 19; Chapters 3-4: March 4; and Chapters 5-6: March 22

 

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Bibliographies

The Office of the Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian has created bibliographies for each conference thread.  These include articles and books for further engagement and classroom discussions.

a. Centering Women of Color Feminisms
b. Digital Spaces, Online Activism
c. Fugitive Spaces: Feminist, Queer, and Trans Studies
d. Resistance Across the Globe
e. Student Center(ed)
f. Feminism, Community, and the State
g. Feminist Pedagogy and Praxis

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Conference Engagement

The 2024 conference is free for all UW System students (please contact srrytilahti@wisc.edu for waiver codes). As an attendee students have the opportunity to engage in three days of conference presentations that align with conference themes, including panels, keynotes and plenaries, art workshops, a poster session, and other networking opportunities. Our conference also includes feminist vendors, such as A Room of One’s Own Feminist Bookstore and T.L. Luke Art, and new author book talks. A member of the conference planning team is also available to visit classes in advance of the conference to prepare students for the experience or work closely with an instructor to recommend sessions and readings that align with course content.

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Thank you for your support of this annual event!