2024 Graduate Student Conference
“Towards Intersectional and Resilient Futures”
The Gender and Social Justice Graduate Students at the University of Alberta are pleased to announce our graduate and undergraduate student conference, “Towards Intersectional and Resilient Futures,” will take place on March 23rd and 24th, 2024. The conference will be hosted as a hybrid format, in person at the University of Alberta in Assiniboia Hall and online via Zoom. We are seeking research papers and creative submissions that explore social justice praxis, prioritizing those centering imagined and practically viable intersectional and resilient futurities, BIPoC feminisms, Indigenous feminisms and rematriation, transfeminism, queer politics, and/or other intersectional issues.
The conference aims to:
- Enable undergraduate and graduate students from various disciplines to present and exchange their research;
- Foster an emerging multidisciplinary praxis community of students, scholars, and activists concerned with gender, BIPoC, queer, disability, class and/or other intersectional social justice issues;
- Catalyze activism among students to imagine and transform the academy into an active space of resistance to structures of oppression; and to
- Create a space where the voices and stories of community members who have been made most vulnerable are centered
Along with the traditional academic gathering, the conference aims to be a space for praxis-oriented discussions, which can include panels, artistic performances, and/or research-creation presentations. It will also facilitate mentorship engagement between graduate and undergraduate students. The organizers are particularly interested in papers and creative projects exploring the topics outlined in the objectives, but submissions are not limited to them. Papers citing Queer, Trans, Disabled, BIPoC and/or other marginalized scholars will be prioritized.
We encourage submissions from current community members, undergraduate, and graduate students. We invite submissions from those representing various Universities particularly in Edmonton, and also the larger province of Alberta, including University of Alberta, Concordia University of Edmonton, MacEwan University, University of Calgary, and others. We also invite those representing various, activists and non-profit organizations in the greater Edmonton area who span disciplines, of which include Womens’ and Gender Studies, Native Studies, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, English, Media/Film Studies, Literature Studies, Digital Humanities, Education, and the like. We hope to promote multidisciplinary dialogue focusing on gender, BIPoC, queer and trans, disability, class and/or other intersectional social justice issues.
Please submit a 250 word abstract together with a 100 word author bio submitted by using this Google form by February 15, 2024. Please include your name and the tentative title of your submission on the attached Word document (GSJ Conference: Name, Paper Title). Decisions will be communicated to applicants by early March 2024. Please note that those selected will be required to submit a full paper or copy or description of the creative project by March 18th, 2024. Length of papers should not exceed 3000 words or about 12 pages double spaced for a 20 minute presentation.
Plant based breakfast items and plant based lunches will be provided with gluten free options available. Face masks will be provided for attendees to wear if they would like, they are highly encouraged to provide the accessibility of all, but not required. The organizers will center accessibility and food allergy needs of all the attendees. If you have questions about the accessibility of this conference, require any accommodations, or have any food allergies please send an email to myoungma@ualberta.ca (though the google form will have a space to describe these as well)!
We are truly excited to welcome you at the conference!