International Gender and Sexuality Studies Conference
Thursday–Saturday, Sept. 28–30, 2023
University of Central Oklahoma, Nigh University Center
The International Gender and Sexuality Studies Conference seeks diverse perspectives on the notion of striving and thriving in life—intimate, interpersonal, and institutional. We hope to demonstrate the ways that scholars, activists, and students in women’s, gender and sexuality studies take up the notion of striving and thriving through intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses.
This annual conference is presented by the Women’s Research Center and the BGLTQ+ Student Center at the University of Central Oklahoma with assistance from the UCO chapter of the National Organization for Women. In tandem, these organizations promote engagement with women’s, gender and sexuality issues.
"Queer Creations"
The theme for the 8th Annual International Gender and Sexuality Studies conference this year is “Queer Creations.” There are many and varied ways that people ‘engender’ new things, bringing fresh ideas, artworks, social norms or practices into being. This conference celebrates and draws on storytelling, world-making and community-building traditions, often found in groups with non-traditional gender identities or sexualities.
Call for Abstracts
All submissions are welcome. The selection committee interprets the theme broadly and encourages proposals that reflect on issues of women, gender, and sexuality studies across various disciplines, including, but not limited to, the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, activism and STEM fields. We invite students, faculty, staff, scholars and activists to propose papers, panels, roundtable discussions and poster presentations. We also welcome proposals from artists to present or perform creative work, including literature, theater, music, dance, and visual art.
Abstract submissions are Due April 15, 2023.
Submit abstract
Keynote Speaker
Our keynote speaker will be Iliana Rocha, Ph.D., poet and assistant professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville who will deliver a talk regarding “Critical and Creative Inquiry into Gender Based Violence.”
Rocha is the 2019 winner of the Berkshire Prize for a First or Second Book of Poetry for her newest collection, "The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez," forthcoming from Tupelo Press. "Karankawa," her debut, won the 2014 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). The recipient of a 2020 CantoMundo fellowship and 2019 MacDowell fellowship, she has had work featured or forthcoming in the Best New Poets 2014 anthology, as well as Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Nation, Virginia Quarterly Review, Latin American Literature Today, Oxford American, and Blackbird among others, and she serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Waxwing Literary Journal. She earned her Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Visit Iliana Rocha's webite.