Lectures in Celebration of International Women’s Day 2019

Lecture 1

6 MARCH 2019, 10:00
LECTURE BY SUE MCWATTS (UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN CAPE):
DOMESTIC WORKER NARRATIVES IN SOUTH AFRICA: AN ANALYSIS OF THEIR LANGUAGE OF PAIN

Dr. Sue McWatts completed her Ph.D. Thesis in Women & Gender Studies at the University of Western Cape (South-Africa) with a Ph.D. entitled: “Yes madam, I can speak!” A study of the recovered voice of the domestic worker.”

Location: to be announced
Entrance: free
Information: Ewout.Decoorne@UGent.be

Walkout

8 MARCH 2019, 12:00 – INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
WALKOUT AGAINST SEXISM AND DISCRIMINATION AT UGENT

Following the International Women’s Strike, on 8 March 2019 we organize the 3th edition of the Ghent University Walkout against discrimination and sexism.

More information, see website and Facebook

Lecture 2

8 MARCH 2019, 15:00 – INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
LECTURE BY NINA POWER: WOMEN’S STRIKE: ACTING IN AND ON THE WORLD

15:00 in Ghent: Vooruit, Theaterzaal 

The internationally renowned feminist Nina Power is visiting Ghent for International Women’s Day! Nina Power is an academic, editor and activist. She does not stay within the ivory tower of theory, however. Power frequently intervenes on the side of protesters, workers and marginalized people. She critiques the capitalist system and consistently underlines the continuity between the struggle for equal rights and the struggle of labour. ACOD Cultuur, the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender, and Comac are thrilled to welcome her in de Vooruit for a discussion on striking in the struggle for equal rights for men and women.Nina Power is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton, London. She has written widely on politics, culture, feminism, and philosophy. She is the author of One-Dimensional Woman and of many other articles and texts. She writes for The Wire, frieze, Disegno, The Guardian and many other magazines, as well as academically.More information, see Facebook

Lecture 3

11 MARCH 2019, 14:00-16:00

LECTURE BY TAMARA SHEFER (UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN CAPE):
RE-THINKING EVERYDAY ACADEMIA IN DIALOGUE WITH DECOLONIAL, FEMINIST AND QUEER CRITIQUE

Tamara Shefer is Prof. of Women’s and Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Western Cape. She has foregrounded youth, gender and sexualities in her scholarship, including a focus on HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, masculinities, memory and post-apartheid, gender and care, and social justice and critical, feminist pedagogies in higher education.

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, UFO-building, Room 1.1 Henri Pirenne, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 33-35, 9000 Gent
Entrance: free
Information and registration

Abstract:

Over the last few years, young South Africans have mobilised around decolonial, feminist and queer engagements in material and online spaces. Such interventions have arguably impacted significantly on the larger context of social justice in the post-apartheid university and society. Notably, there has been a proliferation of activism that articulates a powerful decolonial discourse that foregrounds intersectional inequalities of race, gender, sexuality, age, dis/ability. A range of creative, performative and activist modalities that also engage body, affect and materiality have been deployed in such initiatives. While the paper is located in local struggles, it arguably has value for transnational social justice projects in higher education, particularly in the light of the globalised corporatization of the university in a solidifying right-wing political turn. Drawing on a number of inspiring examples of activism, performance and art over the last few years in South Africa, which specifically deploy methodologies that disturb, subvert and resist normative practices, the paper unpacks the generative impact of such challenges to dominant practices in higher education and in patriarchal racial-capitalist social contexts, more generally, I also share an example of experimental decolonial feminist pedagogical work directed at disrupting the recalcitrant binarisms of research and activism and scholarship and art/creativity within our larger project of re-imagining scholarship.