Center for Women’s & Gender Studies

The goal of the Healthy Sexuality Peer Educator program is to empower UT students to make healthy sexual choices that are right for them.

Healthy Sexuality Peer Educators carry out the program’s goal by conducting outreach and education activities such as presenting workshops to student groups, distributing information at tabling events, conducting individual consultations, and instructing the Methods of Contraception class. Healthy sexuality peer educators cover a variety of topics related to sexuality including sexual decision making, STIs, HIV/AIDS, condoms, methods of contraception, anatomy and physiology, safer sex, men’s health, women’s health, and safer sex communication.

Students receive 5 hours of upper division Kinesiology credit for their participation.
The application can be found here.

CWGS Embrey Women’s Human Rights Initiative invites you to learn about a new tutorial for faculty to support students in archival research on women’s human rights.

View a New Teaching Tool for Archival Research on Women’s Human Rights
Tuesday, April 26, 11:30am – 12:30pm, Gebauer 4th Floor Conference Room (GEB 4.200, left off of the elevators)

Finding aids, folders, reading rooms, and card catalogs – archival research can be confusing for students and difficult to teach effectively. Amelia Koford, a master’s student in the School of Information and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, has created an online tutorial about conducting archival research on women’s human rights at UT-Austin. The tutorial guides students through five steps: finding an archival collection, preparing for research, viewing the collection, conducting research, and considering emotions and ethics. It focuses on archives on the UT campus, including the Benson Latin American Collection, Briscoe Center for American History, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, and Human Rights Documentation Initiative. The tutorial supports the Embrey Women’s Human Rights Initiative: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/cwgs/womens-rights/Womens-Rights-Initiative.php

Please join us to learn how you might incorporate this tool for primary source research into your teaching. Bring a brown bag lunch and join our conversation. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Amelia Koford at akoford@ischool.utexas.edu. Hope to see you there!

We are pleased to invite faculty to a series of workshops on teaching critical approaches to women’s human rights. We welcome you to attend any or both of the two remaining workshops scheduled for this semester as part of the Embrey Women’s Human Rights Initiative. Each of the workshops will address readings available prior to the workshop; please email Kristen Hogan (hogank@mail.utexas.edu) if you would like to receive the readings in preparation for the workshop. The workshops will take place on: April 6, 4-5:15, Walter Webb Hall 202 • April 21, 4-5:15, Gebauer 3rd Floor Conference Room

Dear Faculty:

We are pleased to invite you to a series of workshops on teaching critical approaches to women’s human rights. We welcome you to attend any or all of the three workshops scheduled for this semester as part of the Embrey Women’s Human Rights Initiative.

Each of the workshops will address readings available prior to the workshop; *please email Kristen Hogan (hogank@mail.utexas.edu) if you would like to receive the readings in preparation for the workshop.

We also welcome you to forward this announcement to any interested faculty.
Sincerely,
Kristen Hogan

Teaching Women’s Human Rights
Workshops for Faculty

Workshops for and by faculty on teaching women’s human rights material in the undergraduate classroom. All faculty welcome. For each workshop we invite attendees to read selected material in advance. To receive the readings, or for more information, email Kristen Hogan at hogank@mail.utexas.edu.

I. Using Service-Learning and Archival Materials in Support of Women’s Human Rights Course Objectives
Wednesday, February 23, 4-5:15, Gebauer 4th Floor Conference Room
Lisa L. Moore (English/CWGS) &
Kristen Hogan (CWGS)
Help students develop a reflective approach to service learning and archival research that will avoid the pitfalls of volunteerism in the community and appropriation in the archives. Share strategies to prepare students for ethical engagement with community-based service-learning; consider how the responsibility to mutually engage with others extends to understanding archival materials.

II. Teaching a Critical Human Rights Framework for Women’s Human Rights
Wednesday, April 6, 4-5:15, Walter Webb Hall 202
Karen Engle (Law/CWGS/Rapoport Center) &
Neville Hoad (English/CWGS/Rapoport Center)
Embrace your students’ energy for human rights while engaging them in a critical reading of the contexts in which international actors shape human rights discourse. Discuss readings and strategies for replacing a benevolent western human rights world view with a self-aware and mutually engaged practice.

III. Thursday, April 21, 4-5:15, Gebauer 3rd Floor Conference Room
Teaching Women’s Human Rights Material in Support of Course Objectives
Barbara Harlow (English/CWGS/Rapoport Center) &
Sharmila Rudrappa (Sociology/CWGS)
Explore how human rights texts may support courses you’re already teaching. Engage with example pedagogical strategies from the co-facilitators’ classes to understand how discussions about human rights can strengthen students’ critical thinking skills and other course objectives.

Workshops sponsored by the Embrey Women’s Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies.

The Women’s Programming Alliance present “What Goods Are We Really Being Sold” on Tuesday, November 30, Jester A209A at 6:00 pm. This interactive and fun workshop examines popular advertising images and the underlying messages they convey. It promises to be a thought-provoking and entertaining examination of popular media. Space is limited, so please RSVP to this training by emailing us at gsc@austin.utexas.edu.

The Feminist Action Project is a new group on campus working with the Gender and Sexuality Center to put on a conference about feminist activism. We will be spending three days in April workshopping projects, learning about feminist organizing, and connecting with other like-minded folks! We’ve got some new things happening…

First and foremost, we have a website / blog up and running. It is http://feministactionproject.blogspot.com/. There you will be able to register, download our call for submissions, meet the committee members and snag some sneak peeks of programming we have planned.

Second, we’ve extended our call for submission deadline! Many folks have talked about really great workshops/panels they’d like to do at the conference, and we’ve received many great submissions, so we want to make sure that everyone gets a chance to submit! Find it here: http://feministactionproject.blogspot.com/2009/12/call-for-submissions.html

Third, registration is available for the Feminist Action Project. Early registration ends April 1st, so register early to make sure you take advantage of our early registration fee ($25). After April 1st, the fee is $35. Find registration here: http://feministactionproject.blogspot.com/2010/02/feminist-action-project-registration.html

Lastly, make sure you stay connected to the Feminist Action Project! We are now on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/FeministActionProject) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/FeministAction).

That is all for now. If you have any questions regarding the Feminist Action Project or want to become involved, please contact us at feministactionproject@gmail.com. Thank you for your interest in the Feminist Action Project, and we hope to see you in April!

The GSC is presenting Vicky Grise and The Panza Monologues on 3/25 at 7 pm in Main 212. ” The Panza Monologues is an original performance piece based on women’s stories about their panzas. Tu sabes – that roll of belly we all try to hide. Conceived from kitchen table conversations and chisme and compiled from interviews of Chicanas of all ages, places, and spaces, these stories create a quilt of poignancy, humor, and revelation. Performed in monologue format and riffing on Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues, The Panza Monologues boldly places the panza front and center as a symbol that reveals the lurking truths about women’s thoughts, lives, loves, abuses, and lived conditions.”

Also: Vicky will be doing a writing workshop on 3/23 from 2-4 in the African American Culture Room of the Union (4.110). Workshop description: Writing from the Core: Panza Power. This workshop focuses on a process of revealing what stories live at the core of our being. An auto-ethnographic approach to writing and storytelling.

The Feminist Action Project, a new student organization housed in the GSC, is proud to announce their first annual 2010 conference. “The Feminist Action Project: Examining Intersections, Building Alliances” will take place April 16th-18th, 2010, and is open to all levels of students, faculty, staff, community members, Feminists, and Feminist Allies. This conference aims to connect social justice activists across the state of Texas and the United States through a series of workshops, panels, performances, and lectures. The programming committee is currently accepting submissions for papers, panels, and workshops. More information can be found at http://feministactionproject.blogspot.com/ <http://feministactionproject.blogspot.com/> . Any questions can be directed to Kalee Gower, project manager for the Feminist Action Project, at feministactionproject@gmail.com.

January 28-30, 2010

1/28 (8:30-12:30) Dean’s Conference Room, GEB 3.312
1/28 (12:30-6:00) Meyerson Conference Room, WCH 4.132
1/29-30 (8:30-6:00) Meyerson Conference Room, WCH 4.132

Participants:
• Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Chair (History, Loughborough University, UK)
• Gail Minault (History, University of Texas, Austin, TX)
• Hulya Adak (Cultural Studies, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey)
• Sonia Nishat Amin (History, Dhaka University, Bangladesh)
• Kathryn Babayan (History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI)
• Margot Badran (Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, DC)
• Marilyn Booth (University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK)
• Afshan Bukhari (Art History, Suffolk University, Boston, MA)
• Miriam Cooke (Arabic Literature and Culture, Duke University, Durham, NC)
• Nawar al-Hasan Golley (Arabic and Translation Studies, American University of Sharjah)
• Ruby Lal (Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, GA)
• Anshu Malhotra (History, Delhi University, Delhi, India)
• Ellen McLarney (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC)
• Roberta Micallef (Modern Languages and Comparative Literatures, Boston University, Boston, MA)
• Farzaneh Milani (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA)
• Mildred Mortimer (French and Italian, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO)
• Sylvia Vatuk (Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL)

This workshop is the first of three to be held by an international network of scholars working on women’s autobiographies
in Muslim societies. Dr. Siobhan Lambert-Hurley of Loughborough University, the Chair of the network, has
received a grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of the UK, and the co-operation of local sponsors, to hold this
series of workshops. The first will convene at the University of Texas in austin, January 28-30, 2010, with papers to be
given by members of the network. Subsequent workshops will be held at the India International Centre in New Delhi in
late 2010, and at the University of Sharjah, UAE, in late 2011. It is a great honor for the South Asia Institute of the
University of Texas to co-sponsor and host this inaugural gathering, which will be of interest to scholars of South Asian
and Middle Eastern Studies, Women and gender Studies, and Comparative Literature.