Call for Proposals from Undergraduate and Graduate Student Researchers
3rd Annual College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Forum on Human Rights
“(En)Gendering Human Rights”
February 28, 2014
Virginia Tech
The 3rd Annual College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Research Forum on Human Rights, “(En)Gendering Human Rights,” will take place on the campus of Virginia Tech located in Blacksburg Virginia. All the papers and creative works will be presented on Friday, February 28, 2014. Pending funding, lodging may be provided for presenters travelling from other universities. The most promising papers and creative works will be considered for possible publication in Societies Without Borders: Human Rights and the Social Sciences and/or Philologia, the journal of undergraduate research published by the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech.
Overview
The 1979 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) made it clear that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, was, in reality, anything but “universal.” Indeed, it would take almost another two decades for the Beijing Declaration of 1995 to really push the centrality of gender in human rights realizations. Since then, putting women and gender at the center of discussions about, and conceptions of, human rights has deepened and expanded our understanding of what “human rights” really means. Focusing on women blurs the boundaries between public and private by placing everyday violence against women, as well as the violence experienced by women during the more extreme circumstances of war and political conflict, within the lexicon of human rights violations. It forces us to consider the struggle for women’s rights – economic, political, social, cultural, sexual – as integral to the larger struggle for human rights. And it brings to light the gendered dimensions of systems of domination and control that make women the targets of state and military violence, and which place both women and men in positions of subjugation to highly masculinized displays of political terror. As gender is a central axis upon which human experience spins, approaches to, research on, discussions of, and, ultimately, realizations of human rights must also spin centrally upon gender. Bringing together the best undergraduate and graduate research in the region for a one-day conference, “(En)Gendering Human Rights,” will serve as a space where we can investigate these issues across multiple disciplines.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
* the gendered dynamics of oppression
* women’s rights as human rights
* gender and international human rights policy
* gender-based discrimination
* gender, vulnerability, and human rights
* violence against women, violence against men
* global vs. local activism
* men’s and boys’ roles in promoting the human rights of women and girls
* sexual rights
* women’s health
* women’s activism, gender and activism
* theorizing human rights from women’s and feminist perspectives
* global and transnational feminisms
* and so many more…
Submission Guidelines
Interested undergraduate or graduate student researchers should submit a proposal to Professor David Brunsma (brunsmad@vt.edu) by December 5, 2013. Proposals should include name, email, university, degree program, year of completion, faculty mentor’s name, and a 250-500-word proposal. The proposal should include purpose statement, research questions, methods, and conclusions, etc., in order that the committee might get a good sense of the research. Proposals will be vetted by an Organizing Committee from the Working Group for the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Virginia Tech. Participants will be notified of the committee’s decision by December 15, 2013. If you are unsure whether your research fits the conference theme, please do not hesitate to contact the organizer, Professor David Brunsma (brunsmad@vt.edu).
We very much hope you will consider submitting and/or attending this conference.
Organizing Committee:
Dr. David L. Brunsma, Sociology
Dr. Marian Mollin, History
Dr. Katrina M. Powell, Women’s and Gender Studies
Katie Cross, Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought