Women’s Studies at Trent Hosts Fourth Annual Research Day at Trent

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Free Public Event Showcasing New Research Including Gender Enforcement and Women’s Contributions as New Media Artists

Tuesday, March 11, 2008, Peterborough

Trent University’s Women’s Studies program will be hosting the fourth annual “Research Day” event on Friday, March 14 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Lady Eaton College Senior Common Room.

Professors, associated community researchers and upper year students will present their new scholarship looking at women’s experiences from the perspectives of many different disciplines, including Canadian studies, education and sociology. Women's Studies explores gender relations and women's lives throughout history, across cultural, religious, political and economic divides, and in every site of human interaction.

In her narrative presentation of junior high school social ritual entitled “Pretty”, Professor Karleen Jiménez will be exploring the stressful results of systemic gender enforcement for those students with nonconforming gender expression. At an age when most children face changing hormones and accompanying social insecurities, “Pretty” provides a look into the specificity of living as a boyish girl. In addition, the perils of language and labeling are addressed through the (de)construction of the term “pretty" in the context of adolescent experience.

Friday’s event will also feature Professor Caroline Langill’s recent research into the emergence of women as new media artists in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Canada. Electronic media artworks are active agents beckoning us, as viewers of art, to interact with them. They demand our attention, behaving badly in the gallery, making noise and generally causing panic for museums and their staff. Through her illustrated talk, Prof. Langill will discuss how women approached the field quite differently from men, using the material agents they produced to create social networks that included the artist, the artwork, and the audience.

Another highlight during the event will be the announcement of the 2008 Soroptimist Women’s Studies Award Winner. This award is presented to an outstanding student in Women’s Studies heading into their last undergraduate year of study.

Members of the Trent community and general public are invited to attend this free event. A reception with appetizers and cash bar will follow in the Lady Eaton College Senior Common Room.

The program for Women’s Studies Research Day is as follows:

2:00 - 2:10 Welcome and Announcement of the 2008 Winner of the Soroptimist
Women’s Studies Award

2:10 - 2:35 Linzy Bonham and Andres Salazar: Racism, Sexism and Gender
Discrimination in Peterborough (Trent Centre for Community-Based Education project with Community & Race Relations Committee)

2:35 - 3:00 Professor Momin Rahman, sociology: In Search of My Mother’s Garden:
Reflections on Migration, Gender and Modern Muslim Identity

3:00 - 3:25 Professor Karleen Pendleton-Jiminez, School of Education and
Professional Learning: Pretty

3:25 - 3:40 BREAK

3:40 - 4:05 Deborah White, sociology: Medical Forensic Evidence and Sexual
Assault: Findings From a Global Review

4:05 - 4:30 Professor Moira Howes, chair, philosophy: The Relationship of Ignorance
and Value in Functional Analyses of Menstruation

4:30 - 4:55 Professor Caroline Langill, Canadian studies: Gender and Material
Agency: The Emergence of Women as New Media Artists in the Early
1990s

4:55 - 5:20 Professor Melanie Buddle, Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and
Indigenous Studies: From Barmaid to Barista: Gender Segregation in
Beverage Service

Media are invited and encouraged to attend this event. Lady Eaton College is located on the Symons Campus at 1755 West Bank Drive, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.

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For further information, please contact: Associate Professor Margaret Hobbs, chair, women’s studies department, (705) 748-1011, ext. 7085