proper academic!

Feminism and its Methods: an interdisciplinary colloquium
12-13 July 2010, Manchester Museum

This event is organised by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), and is co-sponsored by: School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester and CESAGen (Centre for Research on Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics). This event is also part of the Manchester Feminist Theory Network.

The conference will have a dual focus on:

* methods as a means for rethinking feminisms, as well as
* the histories, transformations and travels of feminist methods and methodologies.

Academic reflections on feminism and its recent past have tended not to encompass feminist methods and methodologies. This workshop aims to explore how our understanding of feminism might be transformed if we focus in particular on methods. The widespread influence of feminist methods across the social sciences and humanities could be taken as evidence of feminism's vitality, countering narratives of its demise. However, this influence often goes unmarked and unacknowledged. Feminist methods and methodologies have not been taken up evenly across disciplines, and do not necessarily index the same debates. In this event, we are keen to promote dialogue within and between different quarters of feminist practice, research and activism. This colloquium will explore how feminist methods have been taken up and transformed in and across disciplines, that is, how feminist methods have travelled.

Methods have been central to feminist practices, from the making of women's history and the creation of feminist archives, to the speak-out, consciousness-raising groups, manifestoes, oral histories, feminist utopian fiction. This historical centrality poses questions about the contemporary relationship between methods and feminism.

Speakers include: Bridget Byrne, Rachel Cohen, Ann Cvetkovich, Jacqui Gabb, Magaretta Jolly, Joan Haran, Amelia Lee , Julie McLeod, Maureen McNeil, Kate O'Riordan, Nirmal Puwar, Rachel Thomson, Kath Woodward, Sophie Woodward

For more information please go to http://www.cresc.ac.uk/events/feminism_and_its_methods/