Women's & Gender Studies Consortium

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 and all events can be accessed quickly for participation.  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.

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.

Abolition Feminisms Bibliography

Climate Justice and Ecofeminism Bibliography

Critical Approaches to Trans Care and Trans Justice Bibliography

Disability Justice and the COVID-19 Pandemic Bibliography

Post-Roe Reproductive Justice Bibliography

Refusing the Colonial State in (and out) of the Feminist Classroom

Assignment Ideas that Align with the WGSC Conference

  1. View and comment on 3 pre-recorded conference talks or poster presentations.  Pre-recorded presentations will be available as a pre-conference activity beginning April 1, 2023.  
  2. View the virtual art exhibition and comment on the connections between each artist’s work and key conference themes. The virtual artist exhibition will also be available for viewing and engagement beginning on April 1, 2023.  
  3. Attend one synchronous plenary or keynote and connect the content to larger course themes.
  4. Attend a virtual roundtable for each conference thread.  How does the roundtable engage with each issue intersectionally? How does the roundtable connect to themes in your course?

Study Guides

Side Affects

Reflective Questions

  1. What are common themes relating to social justice, institutional resistance, and intersectional feminist activism?
  2. How does hope function as a feminist strategy for institutional and structural change?
  3. How are activists and scholars deconstructing, decolonizing, and reimagining hope?
  4. How is creative work a feminist tool of inquiry, knowledge production, and critical resistance?
  5. How does a broadly defined vision of care expand and complement our work as researchers, students, educators, and activists?
  6. 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?

Thank you for your support of this annual event!  Instructors will need to complete a free register for the conference (registration opens in January 2023) to gain access to content to share with class, but you can then share all events and links with your class!