In 2004, Prof. Leslie Petty launched the first Rhodes Women’s Studies Symposium (changed to Gender and Sexuality Studies Symposium in 2009). Every spring since then, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program has hosted an interdisciplinary research symposium featuring moderated panels of scholarly and creative presentations by Rhodes students. Students present work on topics and issues related to gender and sexuality from across the disciplines, including projects that center feminist and LGBTQIA2S+ perspectives, as well as those that address intersections of race, class, religion, and national identity.
A call for paper proposals goes out early in the spring semester; the symposium normally occurs in early April.
The program for the most recent symposium is posted below. Please visit our digital archive to view work from past symposia.
3:30-3:45 P.M. OPENING REMARKS
Welcome: Dr. Judy Haas, Chair of Gender and Sexuality Studies
Reflections on Gender and Sexuality Studies: Marjorie Garber, William R. Kenan, Jr. Research Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University
3:45-4:45 P.M. Panel 1: Our Bodies, Our Selves: Law, Medicine, and Discipline
Moderator: Dr. Kate Shields, Environmental Studies and Sciences
Emma Taylor, “Love Life, the Pro-Life Movement in North Carolina, and the Abortion Access Fight" (faculty sponsor, Dr. Robert Saxe)
Maya Underwood, “Modernizing Feminist Accounts of Anorexia Nervosa” (faculty sponsor, Dr. Rebecca Tuvel)
Maggie Emmendorfer, "Did It Jiggle When You Fell from Heaven: An Analysis of Fat Sexuality Through Feminist Theory" (faculty sponsor, Dr. Judy Haas)
5:00-6:15 P.M. Panel 2: Losing My Religion: Sexuality and Confession
Moderator: Dr. Shatavia Wynn, Religious Studies
Trinity Lambert, “The Life of Jesus through A Feminist Framework” (faculty Sponsor, Dr. Beck Henriksen)
GraceAnne Hodgson, “Love, Sex, and Marriage in the French Middle Ages and Sixteenth Century” (faculty sponsor, Dr. Stacey Battis)
Lakshmi Alla, “The Horrors of Gender Binary System Creeping into the Medical Field” (faculty sponsor, Dr. Beck Henriksen)
Camille Montoya, “The Influences of Hispanic/Latino Culture on Plurisexual Individuals Coming Out to Their Families” (faculty sponsor, Dr. Evelyn Perry and Dr. Jeanne Lopiparo)
6:15-6:30 P.M. Break
6:30-7:45 P.M. Panel 3: Sex and Death in Popular Culture
Moderator: Dr. Nina Morais, Modern Languages and Literatures
Ben Robison, “Our Brothers' Keepers: Old Noir Heroes in a New Age of Film” (faculty sponsor, Dr. Robert Saxe)
Kelsey Steinmetz, “Girls, Ghosts, and Guerrilleros: Rosero's Weaponization of Vision in Los ejércitos (2007)” (faculty sponsor, Dr. Juanita Bernal Benavides)
Jamie Garland, “2010s Trans Internet Discourse, Conventionality, and Individuality in Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby” (faculty sponsor, Dr. Gordon Bigelow)
7:45 P.M. Light Reception
