UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center Presents
THINKING GENDER 2023
“TRANSFORMING RESEARCH:
FEMINIST METHODS FOR TIMES OF CRISIS AND POSSIBILITY”
Thursday, February 23, 2023 (Virtual) and Friday, February 24, 2023 (In Person)
UCLA
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Submission deadline: October 23, 2022, at 11:59PM PDT
The UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center invites proposals for our 33rd annual and first hybrid Thinking Gender Graduate Student Research Conference.
This year’s conference theme, “Transforming Research: Feminist Methods for Times of Crisis and Possibility,” seeks to open conversations about feminist methods and research across fields and disciplines.
In lieu of a keynote address, the conference (TG23) will feature two in-person interactive sessions. One session will be co-facilitated by TL Cowan and Jas Rault on Trans-Feminist & Queer collaborative “heavy processing” methods for working with digital materials. The second session will be facilitated by Celine Parreñas Shimizu on “Creativity in the Face of Devastation: Methodologies of Research and Practice Across Inequality.”
Students have three ways to participate in this conference:
We welcome a range of submission formats from graduate students, including scholarly papers, works in hybrid critical/creative genres (e.g., multimedia projects, performance, experimental forms of academic writing), and film/mixed media. While submissions are not limited to these, some media formats that might work particularly well for this year’s call include short films and videos, soundscapes, digital and alternative archives or cartographies, and interactive works. We also invite poster proposals from undergraduate students.
This conference is interdisciplinary, and we encourage submissions from all fields of study, across the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and the arts. Successful submissions will center feminist research methods and practice, and ideally, engage substantively with power relations concerning race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, Blackness, gender, transness, queerness, and/or forms of colonialism and settler colonialism.
We will highlight work that speaks to different knowledge systems, research formats, critical and creative practices, and/or collaborative modes. We welcome work that reflects upon and/or models feminist, decolonial, collaborative, community-centered, activist, and creative modes of knowledge production and dissemination. We also welcome work that rethinks the possibilities of research settings, formats, scales, rhythms, and durations.
We see the expansive format of this year’s conference as a form of feminist praxis. Feminists, particularly racialized and postcolonial subjects, have long played critical roles in rethinking the methods and genres that constitute research, working as scholars, activists, and artists. At its best, research offers grounds for transformative ideas, unraveling conventional ways of knowing. But the concept of research can also evoke extractivist, pathologizing methodologies that claim ownership of knowledge. Even though it is commonly recognized that knowledge is situated, we still see Eurocentric, patriarchal matrices of power persist, sometimes taking subtler forms in academic research practices and institutional structures.
Building from longstanding conversations on feminist epistemologies, decolonial methodologies, and institutional activism, this year’s Thinking Gender conference responds to much-needed inquiries, reflections, and imaginations of feminist, decolonial research methods and practice. We welcome submissions situated in a wide range of inter/disciplinary areas, so long as they engage with critical issues in feminist research theories, practices, and methods. We also encourage work that considers art/creation as methods (beyond simply an object of research or a platform for research dissemination), investigating how creative making and critical writing can mutually inform each other.
Questions for engagement might include:
We encourage applicants to think within, alongside, beyond, and perhaps against the following topics as they consider the shape and content of their prospective participation in TG23:
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Eligibility
Registered graduate students from any institution are eligible to submit abstracts or synopses of scholarly papers, works in hybrid critical/creative genres (e.g., multimedia projects, performance, experimental forms of academic writing), and film/mixed media to present or workshop. While not exhaustive, formats that might work particularly well for this year’s call include seminar papers, dissertation chapters, personal essays, speculative fictions, short films, video/photo essays, soundscapes, digital and alternative archives or cartographies, and interactive works.
Registered undergraduate students from any institution are eligible to submit proposals for in-person poster presentations only.
Submissions of works that are collaborative or co-authored with other students are welcomed. Unpublished submissions are preferred. Recently published and forthcoming projects will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Submissions that are not directly related to the theme, “Transforming Research: Feminist Methods for Times of Crisis and Possibility” will not be considered.
Deadline for Application Submissions
Deadline for Application Submissions: Sunday, October 23, 2022, at 11:59PM PDT
Applicants whose submissions are accepted will be notified by December 12, 2022.
All accepted virtual graduate student participants will be required to submit the final version of their work-in-progress by January 30, 2023, for pre-circulation among their co-participants and faculty moderator. When deciding on submission proposals, please keep in mind that final drafts need to be ready for circulation by this date.
All accepted in-person graduate student participants will be required to submit their finished work by January 30, 2023, for pre-circulation with the faculty moderator. Please note that works will need to be completed, not in-progress, by this date.
All accepted undergraduate student participants will be required to submit their final posters in hard copy by January 30, 2023 at the UCLA Center for Study of Women’s campus office. Please note that posters will need to be completed, not in progress, by this date.
Online Application Form
All proposals must be submitted using the online application form.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
Graduate Student Applicants
Virtual Workshops (will take place on Zoom Thursday, February 23, 2023): Each workshop will include four graduate students, a faculty moderator, and up to three observers from other workshops, who will read and provide detailed feedback and questions for each submission. Panelists will be required to submit the final version of their work-in-progress (not to exceed 20–25 double-spaced pages or 20 mins of runtime) by January 30, 2023, for pre-circulation among their co-participants and faculty moderator.
In-Person Presentations (will take place at UCLA on Friday, February 24, 2023): Each panel will include four graduate students, a faculty moderator, and public conference attendees. Paper presentations will be 12 minutes long. Panelists will be required to submit their completed paper by January 30, 2023, for the faculty moderator to read and prepare comments and questions.
Scholarly Paper, Dissertation or Thesis Chapter, or Article Draft Application Requirements:
Works in Hybrid Critical/Creative Genres (e.g., Multimedia Projects, Performance, Experimental forms of academic writing, and others)
Film/Mixed Media Application Requirements:
Undergraduate Student Applicants
Undergraduate students will present visually compelling research posters. Undergraduate poster presentations will take place in person at the poster exhibit. Presenters will be required to submit their completed posters in hard copy by January 30, 2023, at the UCLA Center for Study of Women’s campus office.
Poster Session Application Requirements:
1. Poster proposal (1–2 double-spaced pages maximum) that includes (1) a thesis/research question, (2) discussion of methodology and theoretical framework, (3) explanation of your argument and supporting data, and (4) conclusions or anticipated conclusions. If your poster presentation is co-authored with other students, please make this clear.
2. Works Cited or Reference List (1 page maximum)
3. CV (2 pages maximum)
All materials must be submitted using the online application form. Unless otherwise specified, please submit materials as Word documents, not as PDFs.
Deadline for Application Submissions: Sunday, October 23, 2022, at 11:59PM PDT
Only complete submissions received by the deadline will be considered.
Questions?
Contact Zizi Li, Thinking Gender Coordinator at thinkin...@women.ucla.edu.