Local Answers to Global Transitions - Challenges to Women's and Gender Studies in Plurilocal Perspectives. Celebrating 20 Years of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, May 2022, 19 - 21
PROGRAMME (tentative: 08.03.2022)

Wednesday, 18 May
18.30 Public Reading (English + German):
Searching for Maud: Tracing her Feminism, Activism and Cosmopolitanism in Carl von Ossietzky’ public (after)life
Prof. Dr. Purna Banerjee, English Literary Studies, Presidency University in Kolkata (India) in cooperation with Dr. Lydia Potts, Migration & Gender Studies, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (Germany)

Thursday, 19 May
In the context of the Annual LAGEN Conference

10.00 – 10.30 Opening of the LAGEN Conference
NN, MWK Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture
Prof. Dr. Andrea Bührmann (Social Sciences, Director of the Göttingen Diversity Research Institute, Spokesperson LAGEN)
Prof. Dr. Almut Höfert, History, Director, ZFG Oldenburg

10.30 – 12.30 Panel: Knowledge, Power, Crisis, and the Pandemic
Towards a Responsible Culture of Objectivity: Corona Discourses as Situated Knowledges
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Corinna Bath, Gender and Technology Studies, Technische Universität Braunschweig (Germany), Dr. Smillo Ebeling, Feminist Science Research, Technische Universität Braunschweig (Germany)
The Pandemic and Gender in African Contexts
Amina Hersi, Head of Gender Rights and Justice, Oxfam International (Kenya)
Queer feminist challenges N.N.

12.30 – 13.30 Mitgliedsversammlung

13.30 – 14.30 Lunch Break

14.30 – 15.00 Working Groups

15.00 – 15.30 Opening of the ZFG-conference
Prof. Dr. Almut Höfert, History, Director, ZFG Oldenburg
NN, MWK Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture
NN, President/Vice President University of Oldenburg

15.30 – 15.45 Conceptual remarks: 21 years after…
Dr. Lydia Potts, Migration and Gender Studies, ZFG Oldenburg & Dr. Sylvia Pritsch, Gender Studies, ZFG Oldenburg

15.45 – 19.15 Opening presentations:
Panel 1: Global/Local Developments and their Impact on Gender Studies

15.45 – 17.15
Paradox of institutionalisation: Women’s Studies Centres in India
Prof. Dr. Samita Sen, Global and Postcolonial Studies, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies: Possibility and Risk as Seen from a South African Perspective.
Prof. Dr. Desiree Lewis, Literary Studies, University of the Western Cape (South Africa)

17.15 – 17.45 Coffee & tea break

17.45 – 19.15
The Politics of Disruption: Gender in the 21st Century
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Griffin, Gender Studies, Uppsala University (Sweden)
The Political Ethos of Cohabitation – On Community and Belonging, Violence and Borders (TBC)
Prof. Dr. Sabine Hark, Sociology, TU Berlin (Germany)

Friday, 20 May

9.00 – 11.00
Panel 2: Societal Transitions as Threats, Limitations and Opportunities I
The Status of Gender and Women’s Studies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) after the Arab Spring
Prof. Dr. Fatima Sadiqi, Linguistics and Gender Studies, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University (Morocco)
A 50-years History of Women’s Studies in India
Prof. Dr. Paula Banerjee, South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Calcutta (India)
Challenges Affecting Women in Central and Eastern Europe
Dr. Kinga Lohmann, Gender Equality, KARAT Coalition (Poland), TBC

Panel 3: (Un-)Gendering, Decolonizing, Queering I
Is Current Theorising on Same-sex Sexuality Relevant to the African Context?
Prof. Dr. Thabo Msibi, Educational Science, University of Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa)
Postcolonial Feminist Science and Technology Studies
Prof. Dr. Sigrid Schmitz, Science and Technology Studies, Humboldt-Universität Berlin (Germany)
Activism – some Postcolonial Queer-feminist Dilemmas
Prof. Dr. Debolina Dutta, Feminist Jurisprudence, O.P. Jindal Global University (India): Sex Workers

11.30 – 13.30
Panel 4: Societal Transitions as Threats, Limitations and Opportunities II
The Position of Gender Studies at Tribhuvan University and the Interjection of Gender Discourses in Academia
Prof. Puspa Ghimire and Neera Shrestha, Economics and Women’s Studies, Tribhuvan University (Nepal)
Gender Studies Under Dire Straits in Turkey
Prof. Dr. Alev Özkazanç, European Studies Centre University of Oxford (UK) Visiting Fellow and Prof.emerita Political Science, Ankara University (Turkey) (TBC)
War against Women – Inside the ‘Emirate’
Dr. Orzala Nemat, Political Ethnography/ Development Studies, Director Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit AREU, Kabul (Afghanistan)/SOAS London.

Panel 5: (Un-)Gendering, Decolonizing, Queering II
Queering Bodies/Images? In Between Media, Cultures, Species
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Brandes, Art and Visual Culture, Universität Bremen (Germany)
The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine and Resistance
Prof. Dr. Karma Chavez, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, University of Texas (USA)
How to Decolonise Music(ology) Between Modernism and the Popular
Prof. Dr. Cornelia Bartsch, Gender and Technology Studies, TU Dortmund (Germany)

13.30 – 14.00 Lunch break

14.00 – 15.30
Panel 6: Conflicts, Gender Politics, Activisms
Sudanese Female Activists: Diversity within a Globalised Milieu
Prof. Dr. Balghis Badri, Social Anthropology, Ahfad University for Women Omdurman (Sudan)
Gender Activism and Studies in Conflict Zones: Lessons from Libya
Hala Bugaighis, Gender Activism and Studies, Jusoor Center for Studies and Development (Libya)
Gender’s Crooked Path: Feminism Confronts Russian Patriarchy
Prof. Dr. Elena Zdravomyslova, Sociology and Gender Studies, European University at St. Petersburg (Russia), TBC

Panel 7: Potential and Transformation of Concepts
Mostly different, hardly ever familiar: Early modern history and some of its uses for gender theory
Dr. Monika Mommertz, History, Universität Basel (Switzerland)
Queer-ing Pedagogy: Un-Learning/ Un-Teaching in a plurilocal project
Dr. Antke Engel (Fernuniversität Hagen)

15.30 – 16.00 Coffee & tea break

16.00 – 18.30 Roundtable: Inter-/Transdisciplinarity—Inter-/Transnationality in Gender Studies
Prof. Dr. Balghis Badri, Regional Institute of Gender, Diversity, Peace, and Rights, Ahfad University for Women Omdurman (Sudan)
Prof. Dr. Paula Banerjee, South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Calcutta (India)/ Transnational Perspectives in Gender Studies (TraGS)
Dr. Sarah Farag, Asian and Oriental Studies, Universität Zürich (Switzerland)/ Promoting Gender Equality and Diversity through Shared Knowledge Production (PRO GED)
Prof. Dr. Sheila Meintjes, Political Studies, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)/ TraGS
Dr. Lydia Potts, Migration and Gender Studies, Universität Oldenburg (Germany)/ TraGS
Ghiwa Sayegh, Gender Research, Université de Paris-8 (France)/ Kohl Journal (Beirut, Lebanon)

Saturday, 21 May
9.00 – 10.30
Panel 8: Societal Transitions as Threats, Limitations and Opportunities III
(Re)Positioning Black African Women’s Voices in Gender Studies: Lessons from South Africa
Samiera Zafar, Social Justice Education, University of Toronto (Canada)
‘All has failed so far, so where to next?’: Feminists Theorising and Engaging the State for Gender Equality and Gender Justice in South Africa 1992 to 2022
Prof. Dr. Sheila Meintjes, Political Studies, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Panel 9: Identity in Intersectional Perspectives
Precarious recognition - LGBTIQ-families in Germany between trends of legal equality, heteronormativity and social inequality
Prof. Dr. Mona Motakef, Sociology of Work and Gender Relations, Technische Universität Dortmund (Germany)
Muslim Women’s Religious Concepts of Self in Pedagogical Fields
Dr. Meltem Kulaçatan, Religious and Islamic Studies, Goethe Universität Frankfurt (Germany)

10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break

11.00 – 13.30 Closing Presentations
Panel 10: Gender - Politics – Knowledge: Challenges and Perspectives
The Feminist Canon? - Decolonising the Mind
Prof. Dr. Babli Moitra Saraf, English & Multimedia and Mass Communication, Indraprastha College for Women (India), TBC
The Politics of Sexual Difference in Contemporary Islamic Thought
Prof. Dr. Bettina Dennerlein, Gender Studies und Islamic Studies, Universität Zürich (Switzerland)
Feminist Imaginations
Prof. Dr. Pumla Dineo Gqola, Literature & Women and Gender Studies, Nelson Mandela University (South Africa), TBC

Final discussion & snack lunch