Thinking About Gender: Diasporas and Migration
The seminar features general discussion of works-in-progress and is open to the public, but guests are requested to contact the IRW and to read the paper in advance. Papers are usually posted one week before the scheduled discussion.
Please contact the IRW (
Fall Semester 2005
September 8: First seminar meeting; Introduction of participants and projects
September 22: Hurricane Katrina discussion at Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building 10:30-noon
September 29
Josie Saldaña, "In the Shadow of NAFTA: Y tu mamá también Revists the National Allegory of Mexican Sovereignty"
Project Description:“Urban Indians: New York and its New Mexican Immigrants”
Respondent: Robyn Rodriguez
October 6
Catherine Raissiguier, "French Immigration Laws: The Sans-Papiers Perspective"
Background reading: “Gender, Migration, and the French Republic: The Case of the Sans-Papiers”
Respondent: Kayo Denda
October 13
Renee Larrier, "Secrets and Silence, Displacment and Délivrance"
Project Description: "Marabout, Madras, and Colombo: [Dis]placed Bodies Engendering Dyaspor(s)"
Respondent: Marc Matera
October 20
Kayo Denda, "A Structured Information Retrieval Tool for Interdisciplinary Fields: The Example of Japanese Women Diaspora"
Respondent: Kim Butler
October 27
Lisa Lowe, UC San Diego, "Metaphors of Globalization"
Additional reading: "The Ideal Type"
Professor Lowe's papers are available only in hard copy; please contact the IRW if you intend to participate in the discussion of her work at the seminar meeting.
Respondent: Josie Saldaña
November 3
Cati Coe, “The Strategies of Ghanaian Immigrant Women to Raise Their Children”
Respondent: Bozena Leven
November 10
Julie Livingston, “Pain, Laughter, and Other Historical Experiences in Botswana”
Respondent: Louisa Schein
November 17
Belinda Edmondson, "Caribbean Middlebrow: Popular Culture, Women, and the Caribbean Middle Class”
"Outline for Book Proposal "
Respondent: Jessica Kelly
December 1
Jasbir Puar, “The Biopolitics of Terror: Queerness and the Ascendancy of Whiteness”
Respondent: Catherine Raissiguier
December 8
Louisa Schein, “Rewind to Home: An Ethnography of Hmong Media and Gendered Transnationalism”
Respondent: Edlie Wong
Spring Semester 2006
January 26
Robyn Rodriguez, “Brokering Labor: The State, Globalization and Migration in the Philippines”
Respondent: Julie Livingston
February 2
Marc Matera, "In Search of Pan-Africanist Women: Feminism, Black Internationalism, and Colonial Women in Late Imperial Britain"
Respondent: Sonali Perera
February 9
Nicole Fleetwood, “In the Light: Gender, Visuality and Blackness”
Respondent: Rama L. Chase
February 16
Kim Butler, "Ransoming the Queen: Reclaiming Women’s Agency & Philosophy in the Making of the African Diaspora”
Respondent: Simone James Alexander
February 23
Simone James Alexander, “Migratory Subjects: The Politics of Dis/placement and Dis/possession in Edwidge Danticant’s Fiction”
Respondent: Jasbir Puar
March 2
Carlos Decena, “Tacit Subjects: A Critique of Compulsory Disclosure”
Respondent: Nicole Fleetwood
March 9
Edlie Wong, “An Invitation to Come Home: Transit, Travel and Flight in the Black Atlantic ”
Respondent: Renée Larrier
March 23
Jessica Kelly, “Claiming Abandoned Landscapes: Gender and Migration on the Rural Landscape in El Salvador”
Respondent: Cati Coe
March 30
Sonali Perera, "Rethinking Working-Class Literature: Feminism, Globalization, and Socialist Ethics"
Respondent: Carlos Decena
April 6
Ellen Wu, '"Chinatown Offers Us A lesson": Juvenile Delinquency, Family, and Race in Postwar America"
Respondent: Belinda Edmondson
April 13
Rama L. Chase, “Gender Matters, Location Matters: Location of Experience in Dislocated Spaces”
Respondent: Karen Alexander
April 20
Bozena Leven, “Poland’s Recent Migration – Who, and Why?”
Respondent: Ellen Wu
April 27: Final discussion