IRW Distinguished Lecture Series Panel Discussion - "Anti-Gender Politics and Democratic Backsliding in Global Perspective"

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Thursday, February 19, 2026
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Online

From Turkey and Sri Lanka to the United States, anti-gender discourses are helping to undermine democracies and shore up authoritarian rule. In this panel, three scholars will discuss how anti-gender discourse travels globally and manifests in specific cultural and political contexts.

IRW Distinguished Lecture with Eva Illouz

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Thursday, February 12, 2026
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Provided to registrants

Please join us for the Department of Sociology’s Annual Dean’s Lecture and the fourth event in IRW’s 2025-2026 IRW Distinguished Lecture Series on Feminism, Academic Freedom, and Democracy with Professor Eva Illouz

Agnieszka Graff and Camille Robcis -- "Anti-Gender Politics and the Threat to Democracy"

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Thursday, December 4, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Humanities Seminar Room (Academic Building, 6051) College Avenue Campus Rutgers University–New Brunswick

According to its critics, “gender ideology” has driven the push for a broad range of sexual and reproductive rights, from the legalization of abortion, access to contraception, same-sex marriage, sexual education in schools, non-discrimination bills, access to new reproductive technologies, trans rights, and much more. This event will offer an

Judith Butler -- "Toward a Radical Democratic Imaginary for our Times: Reconsidering Academic Freedom and Rights of Expression"

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Thursday, November 13, 2025
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Kathleen Ludwig Global Village Living Learning Center 9 Suydam Street, New Brunswick Douglass Campus

Academic freedom is not the same as freedom of speech, but does it hold potential for imagining a more radical democracy? Although claimed in contradictory ways by partisans along the political spectrum, academic freedom can be renewed and reformulated by those defending the constitutional rights of expression and assembly, but

Nadje Al-Ali -- “Beyond Exceptionalism and Area Studies: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Gender/Feminist Discourses and Politics”

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Monday, October 13, 2025
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Humanities Seminar Room (Academic Building, 6051) College Avenue Campus, Rutgers University–New Brunswick

Based on a recently published co-edited volume entitled Resisting Far-Right Politics in the Middle East and Europe (University of Edinburgh Press, 2024), this talk will highlight anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ discourses as central to far-right politics across national and regional boundaries. Providing empirical examples and case studies from both Europe and

Rutgers Public Engagement Project workshop with Roxane Gay

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Monday, April 28, 2025
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Please join IRW for a Rutgers Public Engagement Project workshop with Roxane Gay. Attendance by prior registration only.

IRW Distinguished Lecture Series Panel with Kay Turner and Ann Cvetkovich

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Thursday, April 10, 2025
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Mabel Smith Douglass Room, Douglass Library 8 Chapel Dr, New Brunswick

Please join us for an IRW Distinguished Lecture Series event with Kay Turner (Performance Studies, New York University) and Ann Cvetkovich (English, University of Texas-Austin). Location: Mabel Smith Douglass Room, Douglass Library

Rutgers Public Engagement Project Workshop with Brittney Cooper

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Thursday, March 27, 2025
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Please join us for a Rutgers Public Engagement Project Workshop with Brittney Cooper (WGSS, Rutgers).

Knowing Otherwise Spring Symposium

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Thursday, March 6, 2025
9:45 AM - 6:00 PM
Mabel Smith Douglass Room, Douglass Library

Knowing Otherwise Conference Mabel Smith Douglass Room, Douglass Library March 6, 2025 To connect with ancestors, spirits, and ghosts entails intergenerational remembering that transcends individual memories and experiences and disrupts the space-time continuum. It involves tending to both the dead and the living, presence and absence, matter and trace, and

Rutgers Public Engagement Project workshop with Arlene Stein

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Thursday, February 27, 2025
12:15 PM - 1:45 PM
160 Ryders Lane, 2nd Floor, Douglass Campus

Please join IRW for “Writing Books for General Audiences,” a Rutgers Public Engagement Project Workshop with Arlene Stein on Monday, February 27, 2025, from 12:15 pm – 1:45 pm. Lunch will be served. Please note that this is an in-person workshop. The event will not be streamed or recorded. Seats

IRW Distinguished Lecture Series Panel on Radical Death Studies

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Thursday, January 30, 2025
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Virtual

Please join us for "Radical Death Studies: Death Work as Anti-Racist Practice," an IRW Distinguished Lecture Series panel discussion with Sarah Chavez (Executive Director, The Order of the Good Death), Kami Fletcher (American & African American History, Goucher College), and Mensah Adinkrah ( Sociology and Criminal Justice, Central Michigan University).

IRW Distinguished Lecture -- Deborah Thomas

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Thursday, December 5, 2024
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Humanities Seminar Room Academic Building 6051 College Avenue Campus, New Brunswick

Please join the Institute for Research on Women (IRW) for the second distinguished lecture of the academic year with Professor Deborah Thomas (University of Pennsylvania) on Thursday, December 5, in the Humanities Seminar Room, Academic Building 6051, College Avenue Campus from 11 am - 12.30 pm, followed by lunch for

Book Launch for IRW Director Chie Ikeya

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Monday, November 18, 2024
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Join IRW for the Launch of Chie Ikeya's new book, InterAsian Intimacies across Race, Religion, and Colonialism . Humanities Seminar Room, Academic Building 6051, College Avenue Campus.

Rutgers Public Engagement Project workshop with Angelique Haugerud

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Thursday, November 14, 2024
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Join IRW for a Rutgers Public Engagement Project event on Zoom with Angelique Haugerud

Rutgers Public Engagement Project workshop with Brendane Tynes

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Thursday, October 31, 2024
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Please join IRW for a Rutgers Public Engagement Project workshop on podcasting with Brendane Tynes.

IRW Distinguished Lecture -- Tithi Bhattacharya

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Thursday, October 10, 2024
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Humanities Seminar Room Academic Building 6051 College Avenue Campus, New Brunswick

Join us for "Deadly Spaces: Haunted Homes and Haunting Histories," an IRW Distinguished Lecture with Tithi Bhattacharya (History, Purdue University). Professor Bhattacharya’s talk will explore why modern Bengali ghost stories tend to be set outside Calcutta in places with older histories, while British ghosts frequent Calcutta mansions giving the city

IRW Seminar -- first session

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Thursday, September 12, 2024
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
IRW's seminar meets at 160 Ryders Lane (second floor)

Death, Mourning, and Gendered Afterlives with Jyoti Puri, Elyse Semerdjian, and Asli Zengi

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Thursday, April 4, 2024
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building 162 Ryders Lane Rutgers University–New Brunswick

Please join IRW for the final talk in its 2023-2024 Distinguished Lecture Series on the theme of "Possession." Professors Jyoti Puri (Sociology, Simmons University), Elyse Semerdjian (History, Clark University), and Asli Zengin (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Rutgers-New Brunswick) will discuss "Death, Mourning, and Gendered Afterlives" at 4:30 p.m. at

Resonance in Communication with Thaler Pekar

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Thursday, March 28, 2024
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Podcasting Workshop with Brendane Tynes

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Thursday, March 7, 2024
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM