WSRC Events

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2024 Alfredo & Demitra DiLuzio Annual Concert

March 16, 2024

7:30 PM,  Slosberg Music Center at Brandeis University

Pre-concert talk at 7:30 followed by 30 minutes of music. 

Reception will immediately follow in the Slosberg lobby. 

Register HERE

The premiere of Muriel’s Songs, a major new song-cycle by Eric Chasalow, the Irving G. Fine Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department, will be the 2024 DiLuzio Concert of the Women’s Studies Research Center, co-sponsored by the Music Department. 

Based on stories of a Jewish woman’s journey across 20th Century New York, the piece chronicles the memories of Eric’s grandmother, Muriel Gellert Chasalow, across the decades from age ten in 1913 through 1985. The text, drawn from her own stories, follows her life from a childhood attending a “mixed” school in Brooklyn, to Newark (and the Jewish mob), parenthood, multiple wars, grandparenthood, travel – mixing a shared American story with one that is very personal.

Muriel’s Songs was a 2022 commission of the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, in memory of composer Andrew Imbrie, for the Boston new music ensemble Sound Icon directed by Jeffrey Means.  Sharon Harms will be the soprano soloist.

Voices on Air: Talking to Tiziana Dearing, host of WBUR’s Radio Boston

March 20, 2024

Dearing in raadio studio smiling

In-Person, 4:00pm. 

Light reception to follow.

Tiziana Dearing, host of WBUR’s Radio Boston, a weekday broadcast that features provocative stories and authentic voices from Greater Boston, will sit in conversation with Professor Harleen Singh, Director of the WSRC and Senior Associate Provost for Faculty and Global Affairs at Brandeis.   

Prior to joining the Radio Boston team, Tiziana was a professor at Boston College’s School of Social Work where she taught social innovation and leadership. A longtime anti-poverty advocate, she also led Boston Rising, an antipoverty fund to end generational poverty in Boston, and was the first woman president of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Boston. She and Professor Singh will touch upon women in the public sphere, women’s voices, and women modulating the conversation.

Tiziana will speak and answer audience questions about her own career trajectory and professional roles ranging from professor to nonprofit executive to radio host, including her work as host of Phenomenal Women, a WBUR CitySpace series that invites women who have risen to the top of their professions to share their stories. Co-sponsored by the Metrowest Women’s Fund.

Registration encouraged.

Location:  Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center, Epstein Building, 515 South  Street, Waltham, MA 02453. Parking is readily available in the lots both in front and behind the building.

VIRTUAL: "Crip Justice: Gender, Disability, and Sexual Violence" Mellon Sawyer Seminar #7

March 26, 2024

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VIRTUAL 5:00pm - 7:00pm EST

Organized by Brandeis professor Ilana Szobel, this session will examine a wide range of issues unique to the experiences of sexual assault victims who have a cognitive, sensory, emotional, or mobility disability. By locating the conversations about sexual gendered violence in contemporary disability justice frameworks, the session will focus on prevention of sexual violence against people with disabilities, modes of resistance and self-empowerment of disabled victims, as well as on the creation of support systems by and for survivors with disabilities.

Register Here

VIRTUAL "Digital Harassment and Online Gender Violence" Mellon Sawyer Seminar #8

April 15, 2024

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Virtual, Time TBD

Organized by Brandeis professor Dorothy Kim, this session will discuss online gender violence as a tool of toxic masculine culture and the political far-right. It will also discuss organized resistance efforts among  social justice activists, writers, academics, political figures, and legal experts.

Past WSRC Events

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"Violence Knows No Borders: A Continuum of Violence for Latin American and Caribbean Women" Mellon Sawyer Seminar #6

February 27, 2024

VIRTUAL 2:00pm - 4:00pm EST

Organized by Brandeis professor María J. Durán, this session will address three interrelated topics: 1) the conditions surrounding gender-based violence in the Northern Triangle (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) and its relationship to northward migration; 2) the workplace as a site of violence against women in the border cities of Ciudad Juárez, MX and El Paso, TX; and 3) the gynecological abuse of Latin American women immigrants in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. 

Author Susan Wilson, sitting and  looking at camera
"WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST: The Trailblazing Life of Susan Dimock, M.D." Author Talk with Susan WIlson

February 7, 2024

ImagePlease join us to hear Susan Wilson speak and answer questions about her exciting new book:  WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST: The Trailblazing Life of Susan Dimock, M.D.

In addition to being an author Susan Wilson is also a photographer and public historian. She is the official House Historian of the Omni Parker House in Boston, an Affiliate Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, and an Honorary Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Reception and book signing to follow talk. Please note, books will be available for purchase via: cash, check, or Venmo.

When:  Wednesday, February 7th, 2024 from 5:30pm - 6:30pm 

Where: Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, 515 South Street, Waltham,  02453.  Parking is free and easily accessible.

Book DetailsIn 19th-century America, it was assumed that woman patients would be treated by male doctors. The idea of a "woman doctor" was deemed by many to lie somewhere between unfathomable and repugnant. Then along came Susan Dimock. A young North Carolinian who dreamed of becoming a physician, and grew up to practice medicine in Boston in the 1870s, Dimock was, at the time, arguably the best-educated, most-skilled woman surgeon in the nation.

Dimock's life reads like an adventure story, from recoiling at slave auctions and witnessing Civil War battles to escaping her fire-engulfed Southern hometown, then finding her place among Boston's most enterprising women. She studied medicine in Zurich and Vienna, hiked the Swiss Alps, executed complex surgeries, and trained America's first professional nurses, ultimately inspiring a new generation of female surgeons. Tragically she died at the young age of 28 in the sinking of the ocean liner SS Schiller off England’s Scilly Isles.

"Laid to Rest: Buried Stories of the Jewish Sex Trade", A Screening and Conversation with Ornit Barkai, Documentary Filmmaker and HBI Research Associate

February 6, 2024

7:00pm - 8:30pm / In-Person

Where:  Liberman Miller Lecture Hall, Women's Studies Research Center, 515 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453.  Located directly across from the MBTA train station, free parking is available in lots both in front and behind the Center. 

Several black and white film strips showing images of men and women in intimate situations with a photo of Ornit Barkai in the upper right corner. Ornit is a White women with dark black hair. With the title of the film: Laid to Rest: Buried Stories of the Jewish Sex Trade.

Ornit Barkai’s film, Laid to Rest: Buried Stories of the Jewish Sex Trade, is about themes of Jewish memory, culture and identity. It investigates the underreported story of the historic Jewish sex trade in Argentina between the 1890s and 1930s. Unfolding a taboo that was never laid to rest, the film gives voice to marginalized women and brings to life buried stories about a minoritized immigrant community that fought trafficking from within and prevailed. Through this film, Barkai brings to light complex issues of women’s rights, sex trafficking and community action, then and now.

A research associate and former scholar-in-residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and Affiliated Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, Ornit Barkai is a documentary filmmaker whose areas of research cover gender, culture, identity, and memory. 

This HBI event is proudly co-sponsored by the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.

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"From Comfort Woman to Comfort Child: Genealogies of Gendered and Sexualized Violence in the Korean Diaspora" Mellon Sawyer Seminar #5

January 23, 2024

VIRTUAL 6:00pm - 8:00pm, EST

Organized by Yuri Doolan (Brandeis University) and moderated by Ji-Yeon Yuh (Northwestern University), this virtual session will host speakers Kimberly McKee (Grand Valley State University), Christine Hong (UC Santa Cruz), and Jeong-Mi Park (Chungbuk National University). It will engage the experiences of three generations of women and children whose lives have been shaped by various forms of imperial violence originating on the Korean peninsula: (1) Japanese “comfort women,” (2) camptown sex workers for the U.S. military, and (3) transnational adoptees.

Zoom webinar link (no registration required): https://brandeis.zoom.us/j/92253344228 

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"Legacies of Colonial and Postcolonial Gender, Sexuality, Caste and Citizenship" Mellon Sawyer Seminar #4

December 12, 2023

Virtual 2:00pm - 4:00om EST

Liberman Miller Lecture Hall, WSRC, 515 South Street, Waltham, 02453

Organized by Brandeis professors Harleen Singh and Faith Smith, this session will host speaker Jyoti Puri, Simmons University. It will grapple with the conjoined Anglo-colonial histories of South Asia, the Caribbean, and South Africa from the moment of emancipation (1834) in Victorian England to independence, apartheid and beyond (1947, 1962, 1991 and more).

Reception to follow.

Professor Harleen Singh
Work and Life, Unexamined: A Conversation with Harleen Singh

November 6, 2023

5:00om - 6:00pm EST

Liberman Miller Lecture Hall at the WSRC, 515 South Street, Waltham, 02453

A conversation between Professor Harleen Singh, Director of the WSRC and Professor Faith Smith as they discuss the challenges and rewards of work, scholarship, immigrant lives, and more.  Professor Harleen Singh is also the Senior Associate Provost for Faculty and Global Affairs and a professor of Literature, South Asian Studies, and Women's Studies.  Alongside these administrative roles, Harleen also pursues her work as a scholar and author in Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Literature and Theory, Colonial Studies, music, film, and the novel from India.  Join us for an evening sure to be filled with wit, insight, and intellect as you also learn more about the Brandeis community. 

Reception to follow.

cover of book "We're Here to Help"

Photo Credit: Brandeis Press

When Care Turns Predatory: A book launch and talk with Diane Dimond, author of "We're Here To Help: When Guardianship Goes Wrong"

October 25, 2023

5:30pm start

Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University, 515 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453.

Author and journalist Diane Dimond will be in conversation about her newest book with Ann Silvio, Brandeis Associate Professor of Journalism and past producer of Sixty Minutes.  The state-run guardianship system, called conservatorship in some states, is largely unregulated, ill-understood, and increasingly populated by financially motivated predators.  We're Here to Help tells the human stories behind the headlines and shows how to avoid the risks of voluntary or involuntary guardianship.

Reception and Book Signing to follow.

Event co-produced by the Brandeis University Press and co-sponsored by the Brandeis Journalism Program and Legal Studies Program. 

Book Overview   

The state-run guardianship system, called conservatorship in some states, is largely unregulated, ill-understood, and increasingly populated by financially motivated predators. Just how guardianship works and its real-life effects remained a mystery to most until the very public case of pop star Britney Spears. It suddenly became clear that those conscripted into the system lose all their civil rights in the process. Currently, there are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Americans under court control, but no one can say for sure how many are affected because no government entity keeps track of citizens who have lost the right to determine their own fate.

Established in the late 1800s, the guardianship system was designed to assist the most vulnerable citizens: the elderly and the physically or intellectually disabled. While guardianship has been beneficial to many “wards of the court,” this little-understood process can be a judicial rollercoaster from which there is seldom an escape, and which often leads to financial devastation for the ward. Each year, fifty billion dollars belonging to wards are placed under the control of court appointees, tempting bad actors. As investigative journalist Diane Dimond discovers, the number of exploitive and abusive guardianship cases nationwide demands our urgent attention.

Explosive and compelling, We’re Here to Help tells the human stories behind the headlines and shows how to avoid the risks of voluntary or involuntary guardianship.

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"Slavery, Citizenship, and the Afterlife of Gender-Based Violence" Sawyer Seminar Session #2

October 24, 2023

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

12:15pm - 2:00pm EST,   hybrid event

This event will take place in the Glynn Amphitheater (G4) in the Heller Schneider Building.

This session will undertake a comparative discussion about the logics of settler colonial genocide and sexual violence against Native and enslaved Black women with regards to the delineation of citizenship. It will lay bare the foundational inequities facing Black, Indigenous and other marginalized people that must be addressed in order to eliminate violence and other residuum of slavery and settler colonialism. This session is organized and moderated by University Professor and PI Anita Hill. Speakers for this session are Sarah Deer, University Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas, and Crystal Feimster, Associate Professor of African American Studies, American Studies and History at Yale University.

Remote registration sign-up.

Professor Sheida Soleimani
An Artist in the World, A World in Art: A Conversation with Professor Sheida Soleimani About Life, Work, History, People and Birds in Flight

October 18, 2023

4:30 - 5:30pm EST, In-Person and Virtual

Liberman Miller Lecture Hall, WSRC, 515 South Street, Waltham 02453

Professor of Fine Arts Sheida Soleimani will talk about The Banner Project, her work that is currently at the MFA Boston, in conversation with Brandeis Professor Harleen Singh.  This will be an interesting conversation about the histories, art, politics, and stories that build the life of an artist and teacher. Reception to follow.

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NIIKSOKOWAIKS My Relatives: Dance Offering/Showing of a work-in-process by Evangelina Macias (Amskapi Pikuni Blackfeet, A’Aninin Grosventre)

October 7, 2023

NIIKSOKOWAIKS My Relatives

Saturday, October 7, 2023,  5:00pm-7:00pm

Opening by Larry Spotted Crow Mann (NIPMUC)

Dance Offering/Showing of a work-in-process by Evangelina Macias (Amskapi Pikuni Blackfeet, A’Aninin Grosventre)

Please join for an evening of dance and community connection. We will begin with an opening of space by Larry Spotted Crow Mann (Nipmuc) followed by a dance offering/showing of work in process "Niiksokowaiks My Relatives" by Evangelina Macias (Amskapi Pikuni Blackfeet, A'aninin GrosVentre). This showing is the early development of "Niiksokowaiks My Relatives", a work that investigates lineage, embodied histories, and land/body relationships. The evening will conclude with time for observation shares and conversation over light refreshments. Light refreshments will be provided.

Update to Location: Due to uncertainty around the weather, the event will be held in the inclement weather location in the MERRICK THEATER 205 on campus. Please see images below. Signs will be posted at the old location, and in the Spingold Theater. https://www.brandeis.edu/theater/spingold-map.html

Parking: The nearest parking lot to the event site is the Theater lot. Please see image below and see the Brandeis Public Safety site to obtain a visitor parking pass. 

Free event at Brandeis University. 

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The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist

September 21, 2023

Thursday, September 21, 2023
10:45 am - 12:15 pm Eastern Time (US)
Hybrid In-Person Event and Zoom Webinar (Registration Required)
Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library, Brandeis University

**Co-sponsored by Brandeis Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Department of PoliticsWomen's Studies Research Center and International Global Studies Program.

Invitation to a luncheon event with Kristina Lunz, activist and founder of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, and Dr. Sonja Kreibich, German Consul General to the New England States on Thursday, September 21 at 10:45am.

On 1 March 2023, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock presented Germany’s first-ever Guidelines for a Feminist Foreign Policy. Safeguarding women’s and marginalized group’s rights, representation and access to resources has thus become a cornerstone of German foreign policy.

Kristina Lunz, author of “The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist” will read a brief excerpt from the book and explain the concept, and Consul General Sonja Kreibich will share from her experience implementing the Guidelines.

About the Speakers

Kristina Lunz is the Co-CEO of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP) and bestselling author of "The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist”, Forbes "30 under 30," Ashoka Fellow, Atlantik Brücke Young Leader, Handelsblatt/BCG "Vordenker*innen 2020," Focus Magazine's "100 Women of 2020." She's an Advisory Group Member for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Initiative on the SDGs. With extensive experience, she holds dual master's degrees from the Universities of College London & Oxford. Featured regularly in (inter)national media including Vogue, Spiegel, and The Guardian, Kristina was the face of the Giorgio Armani campaign “Crossroad” for female empowerment.

Dr. Sonja Kreibich is a German career diplomat, currently serving as Germany’s Consul General to the New England States. Her earlier postings include three years as Gender and Human Rights Expert at Germany’s Mission to the UN in New York.

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Photo Credit: Image by rorozoa on Freepik

Parallel Lives: Women of the Iranian Diaspora

September 27, 2023

September 27, 2023,  7:00pm start

This program will have automated captions and is hosted via Zoom webinar. Registration is required.

Artist Arghavan Khosravi has stated, “I occupy an in-between space, familiar to many immigrants.” As an Iranian artist living in America, her work reflects her lived experience, dwelling within a rich liminal space between identities. This cultural hybridity provides a  nuanced perspective, which serves the creative process and allows for new spaces of belonging.

Join Khosravi and acclaimed author Marjan Kamali for an exploration of the Iranian diaspora through visual and narrative storytelling. Moderated by Shahla Haeri, Professor of Anthropology at Boston University, this virtual conversation will investigate the dual consciousness experienced by Iranian immigrant women and how their work shifts cultural dynamics of power and privilege.

 

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Shahla Haeri is a Professor of Anthropology and a former director of the Women's Studies Program at Boston University (2001-2010). Dr. Haeri is one of the pioneers of Iranian Anthropology and has produced cutting-edge ethnographies of Iran, Pakistan, and the Muslim world. Her landmark books include her classic ethnography, Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage, Mut’a, in Iran (1989/revised edition, 2014; Syracuse University Press), translated into Arabic and reprinted frequently, highlighting the tenacious but secretive custom of temporary marriage in Iran; No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women (2002/2004; Syracuse University Press), making visible lives of educated and professional Muslim women. Her latest book, The Unforgettable Queens of Islam: Succession, Authority, Gender (2020; Cambridge University Press), is among the handful of books on Muslim women and political authority. The book foregrounds the extraordinary lives and legacies of a few remarkable women sovereigns from across the Muslim world who have worn the crown in medieval Muslim societies or been elected to the office of Prime Minister or President in contemporary ones. Dr. Haeri’s academic and creative oeuvre includes producing and directing the documentary Mrs. President: Women and Political Leadership in Iran (2002), which focuses on six women presidential contenders during the 2001 Iranian presidential election. She is the recipient of many fellowships, grants, and postdoctoral fellowships.

Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Stationery Shop (2019; Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster), a national bestseller, and Together Tea (2013; EccoBooks/HarperCollins), a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. She is a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship recipient. Kamali holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, Kamali spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and the United States.  She is currently a Scholar in Residence at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.

Arghavan Khosravi is the 2023 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with shows at the FLAG Art Foundation, New York; the Orlando Museum of Art, Florida; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China; Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island; and Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Massachusetts; among others. Khosravi is a 2019 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters & Sculptors Grant and a 2017-18 recipient of the Walter Feldman Fellowship.

This program is held in conjunction with Arghavan Khosravi: Black Rain, on view August 3 – October 22, 2023 at the Brandeis Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA, and is supported by the Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award Fund.

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"You Speak, I Listen" Audio Storytelling Project, 2022-2023

Audio storytelling can be used as a tool for education and social change, and its popularity has exploded in recent years with the rise of podcasting.

Over this past academic year, the WSRC was proud to present "The Second Half: 40 Women Reveal Life After 50," a solo exhibition in the Kniznick Gallery by American photojournalist, portrait photographer and author Ellen Warner, co-sponsored by Brandeis University Press. Over the course of 15 years, Ellen Warner interviewed and photographed women from different cultures about life after age 50 — from an author and translator in Connecticut to a sacred healer in Indonesia, a doctor in Saudi Arabia, a retired cook in Antigua and the first French woman TV anchor.

To further the conversation, listen in as a team of Brandeis journalism students share recent interviews with women and non-binary people aged 50+ who speak about the wisdom, resiliency and joy of the second half of life.

One of the interviewers is Brenna Pearlstein, a third-year student at Brandeis University studying Health: Science, Society, Policy and minoring in journalism. Originally from New York, Brenna is studying abroad in Sydney, Australia. Another interviewer is Jillian Brosofsky, a 22-year-old Brandeis senior studying journalism and psychology. She was born in Rhode Island.