About the Symposium on Gender, History, and Sexuality

The Symposium on Gender, History, and Sexuality has been a fixture in The University of Texas (UT) Department of History since 2001, offering a forum for graduate students and faculty to present papers and works-in-progress for discussion in a relaxed and collegial atmosphere.

Goals

Our goals are to build a community of scholars interested in exploring the benefits and challenges of incorporating issues of gender and sexuality into their work, and to maintain a historically informed discussion about the field of gender and sexuality studies across academic disciplines. Because our primary focus is to include presenters engaging in different methods and styles of research, gender and sexuality are not topics that we see as narrowly defined. Instead, our goal is to explore the creative and scholarly potential of gender and sexuality as fields of inquiry.

When and where we meet

The symposium meets every other week to discuss student papers or pre-circulated chapters, hold panel discussions, or listen to a talk by a faculty member or visiting scholar. Typically, meetings last about two hours and are held on Fridays at 3 p.m. in the Garrison Hall Conference Room 1.102. Our meetings are open to all.

Each year, the symposium invites one prominent scholar in gender or sexuality studies to campus for a formal talk, as well as activities that offer the visiting scholar the opportunity to meet and discuss research with UT graduate students from a variety of disciplines.

 Graduate student-oriented and graduate-run organization

As a graduate student-oriented and graduate student-run organization the symposium maintains a commitment to offering grad students opportunities to have their work reviewed by peers, create ties with students across disciplines, and build relationships with faculty members and visiting scholars. We are funded primarily by the History Department and the Office of the Dean of Liberal Arts, but receive additional funding for special programs from other programs or departments at UT.

Want to participate?

To participate in the symposium as a presenter, panelist, speaker, performer, etc., please see our broad Call for Presenters page, or directly contact one or both of the symposium’s organizers, Jennifer Eckel or Mary Katherine Matalon.

Featured speakers and past presenters

April 10, 2009
Dr. Joanne Meyerowitz, Professor of History and American Studies, Yale University
“Liberalism and the Contested Politics of Postwar Sexuality”

November 11, 2008
“Getting Beyond the ‘Woman Chapter’: A Dissertation Workshop with Veronica Martinez-Matsuda”
The workshop will be based on a chapter from UT graduate student Veronica Martinez-Matsuda’s dissertation on federal labor camps in South Texas entitled, "(De)Constructing Migrant Communities: Race, Labor, Architecture and the Federal Camp Space."

April 25, 2008
Dr. Laurie Green, Associate Professor of History, UT
"Memphis and the Racialization of Hunger: Neighborhood Activism, Medical Research, and the War on Poverty"

April 11, 2008
Dr. George Chauncey, Professor of History, Yale University
"The Strange Career of the Closet: The Culture and Politics of Homosexuality from the Second World War to the Gay Liberation Era"

March 21, 2008
Jeff Parker, Ph.D. student, History Department, UT
"Sexual Angst of Empire: Race, Manliness, Prostitution, and the Panama Canal, 1914-1921"

February 8, 2008
Dr. James Wilson, Assistant Professor of History, UT
"The Politics of Female and now Male Circumcision in Kenya: the African Body and the Western Gaze"

Past presenters also include: Dr. Leah DeVun on “Surgery and Intersexuality in the Late Middle Ages;” Richard Gachot, Kathryn Hixson, Mariana Ivanova, and Laura Lindenberger Wellen, on gender and the aesthetics of Weimar Germany; Angela Smith on “Early Modern Midwifery;” Dr. Lilya Kagonovsky on visual studies and gender; and Dr. James Brooks on “Conflict and Creativity in the Southwestern Borderlands,” and many more.

To be in the company of our many excellent presenters, please visit our Call for Presenters page, and get in touch with Jennifer or Mary Katherine.