A Note from Vicki Mayer - Vice Chair

I was so happy to be the programming coordinator for San Francisco’s conference and hope you’ll have a great time there! It was so much fun thinking with the other divisions and interest groups of the ways FSD could be involved with a city that has such an amazing history of progressive feminist, multicultural, and LGBT movements.

One thing we came up with was a plenary re-thinking the impact of the Barnard Convention 25 Years Later, called “Representing Sexuality, Mediating Power.” This was a milestone in articulating a pro-women/pro-sex standpoint for academics and activists alike. It’s an all-star panel, scheduled for Friday, May 25th from 4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. in the huge Franciscan Room C. Check out the participants:
Carol Queen: Part Owner of Good Vibrations, Founder of the Center for Sex and Culture, and Performance Artist, http://www.carolqueen.com/pages/queen.htm
Susan Stryker: Gay Historian, Filmmaker, and Executive Director of Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California, http://geography.berkeley.edu/ProjectsResources/CaliforniaThinkers/profiles/stryker.html
Carla Freccero: Professor and Chair of Literature, University of CA, Santa Cruz, http://humwww.ucsc.edu/PEMS/faculty/freccero.html
Respondent: Lisa Henderson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, http://www.umass.edu/communication/faculty_and_staff/faculty/lisa_henderson.shtml
Chair: Lynn Comella, Indiana University, http://www.indiana.edu/~gender/html/visiting_lecturers_and_instruc.html
It’s SO IMPORTANT that you make time for this panel, which is co-sponsored by FSD, LGBT, Phil Comm, and Pop Comm.

This fab group is scheduled right after the FSD Business Meeting, where we will strategize for the future health of the division and award some excellent student papers by Hongmei Chen (University of Maryland), Melissa Fritz (University of Toronto), and Karen Sichler (University of Georgia). Afterwards, we are having a joint reception with LGBT, Phil Comm, Pop Comm, and ERIC, our new and rapidly growing ICA interest group. So folks, I’m sorry, your Friday is booked. Bring yer friends.

Some other notes of interest: We had over 100 submissions for about 52 slots. The quality of the papers and works in progress were really high. There’s a range of panels focusing on everything from girls’ media uses to women’s health, from women’s activism to women and technology. I want to THANK the reviewers for FSD; I could not do this without you!

So I hope to see everyone in San Francisco. If you have a chance, be sure to see some of the great feminist centers, performances, bookstores, and shops in the city.

-- Vicki Mayer