Rider University to host 37th annual Gender and Sexuality Studies Colloquium

Premilla Nadasen, a Barnard College professor and author who studies race, gender and social policy, will deliver the keynote address at Rider University's 37th annual Gender and Sexuality Studies Colloquium. Her topic is "Building an Intersectional Feminist Agenda in the 21st Century."

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place from 9:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 11, in Rue Auditorium (Sweigart 115), with Nadesen's presentation beginning at 1:30 p.m.

"The Colloquium provides a forum each year for Rider students to share their original academic and creative work on issues relating to gender and sexuality," says Gender and Sexuality Studies Program Director Erica Ryan. "This year's students panels, along with our keynote on fashioning an intersectional feminism in today's political culture, will make for an exciting day of discussion and engagement with important ideas."

Nadasen's most recent book, Household Workers Unite, examines how African American domestic workers in the U.S. strategically used storytelling to develop a political identity and through their organizing reshaped the landscape of labor organizing. She is currently writing a biography of South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba.

Nadasen is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and co-chair of the National Women's Studies Association's Annual Conference. She serves on the scholarly advisory committee of the New York Historical Society's Center for Women's History.

The colloquium will also offer three student panels comprised of papers, multimedia presentations and creative projects focused on issues of gender and sexuality across the disciplines. All panels will be held in Rue Auditorium.

Associate Professor-Librarian Kathy Holden, winner of the Sadie L. Ziegler-Bernice Gee award, and junior Riley Rue, winner of the Virginia J. Cyrus Scholarship, will also be recognized during the Colloquium. Rue is an elementary education and fine arts major, with a minor in gender an sexual studies, as well as an Andrew J. Rider scholar.

The Ziegler-Bernice Gee award is presented annually to the person that has most significantly contributed to the effort to end discrimination based on gender and sexuality. The Virginia J. Cyrus Scholarship was established in honor of the founding director of the Women’s Studies Program and recognizes students who show academic promise of excellence and show potential to improve the status of women and girls through scholarship and/or activism.

The University’s Gender and Sexuality Studies program explores the complex interactions among race, class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Courses in gender and sexuality studies explore the current debates on key issues such as reproductive rights, domestic partnerships, health, communication and law. Students taking courses in gender and sexuality studies benefit from understanding how gender, race, class, ethnicity and sexuality affect the way that individuals think and act.

The gender and sexuality studies program evolved from the women's studies program, which offered its first courses at Rider in the fall of 1979. Since its inception, the name of the program has been changed on two occasions. In the spring of 2001, it became gender studies and then, in 2007, gender and sexuality studies. These changes occurred to formally recognize the program's more comprehensive attention to gender and sexuality.

For more information, please contact Gender and Sexuality Studies Program Director Erica Ryan at [email protected].