http://www.cpe.vt.edu/gbt/
Virginia Tech’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program welcomes you to
GENDER, BODIES AND TECHNOLOGY.
This upcoming conference, scheduled for April 22-24, 2010, at the historic Hotel Roanoke in Roanoke, Virginia, will showcase scholarship that explores the role of technologies, broadly defined, in constructing, reinforcing and destabilizing gendered bodies. As an assemblage of people and technologies, we view the conference itself as an enactment of this theme. Proposals for presentations, including performance art and new media as well as traditional text-based formats, are welcome from scholars in all disciplines. The topics that we anticipate exploring include, but are by no means limited to: new media and feminist aesthetics; gendered in/security and technologies of surveillance; technologies of development and eco-feminism; and the gendered production, design and deployment of technologies. (See the Call for Proposals for more information.)
The conference includes a keynote address by Jennifer Terry; a new, one-woman performance piece on aging and body image featuring Sue Ott Rowlands; and a plenary showcasing examples of new media and performance art that engage gender, bodies and technology through….gender, bodies and technology. The conference format is designed to be inclusive, provocative, and sociable. Continental breakfasts, buffet lunches, and evening receptions are included in the registration fee.
The Gender, Bodies and Technology conference grows out of a new, interdisciplinary research initiative at Virginia Tech, sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, which brings together scholars from Computer Science, Education, English, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Theater Arts, Visual Arts, and Women’s and Gender Studies. Our research interests include, among other topics, gender and aging bodies, flexible laboring bodies and immigrant workplaces, performance and new media as technologies for destabilizing gendered embodiments, gendered access to technology fields such as engineering, and writing as a technology of power. We envision the conference as a means to expand our lively internal discussions to a wider group of scholars.
For more information about substantive aspects of the conference or the Gender, Bodies and Technology initiative, please contact:
Barbara Ellen Smith, Director
Women’s and Gender Studies Program (0227)
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Email: smithbe@vt.edu
For more information about conference registration and accommodations, please contact:
Dinah Girma , Virginia Tech Conference Registrar
Continuing and Professional Education
702 University City Blvd. (0364)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Email: dinah@vt.edu
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