sigelphoenix

Now that I'm all unpacked and (mostly) de-jetlagged, I can talk about the conference. I will definitely talk about our roundtable later - thank you again to everyone who provided pre-conference support and post-conference congratulations - but the conference itself was definitely a significant experience on its own.

It was like going to con, just for a different kind of nerd. The first moment this became clear to me was when my professor (who, unsurprisingly, knew and/or had worked with just about every fifth person we met) took us to meet a friend of hers. We went up to this person's hotel room, and it was sort of like going to a room party at con: a hotel room full of people who had just connected at the con itself, drinking wine and talking to each other about their work (in place of, say, anime). I met the new vice president of NWSA, the winner of one of the Women of Color Caucus student essay awards, a Chicana poet-activist ... it was pretty awesome.

The other thing that made me think of con was that the NWSA conference has an exhibitors' hall, and it was just as dangerous to my credit card as Sakura Con used to be. XD A bunch of publishers were there, with "conference discounts" on their books ... Yeah, I was weak. From NYU Press I bought Getting Played: African American Girls, Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence and Watching Rape: Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture. SUNY Press only had sample books you could choose to order (a lot of booths worked that way, actually), so I ordered Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Black Male Outsider: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man, and the forthcoming Ain't I a Feminist? African American Men Speak Out on Fatherhood, Friendship, Forgiveness, and Freedom. (Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance was the only one of those titles I'd heard of before, so I'm geekily excited.) It's lucky I received my economic stimulus check in the mail today ...

One cool thing of note: in the NWSA-reserved area of the conference center, many of the restrooms had paper signs taped up that said "Gender Neutral Restroom." Rock.

As for the actual content of the conference, it was a mixed bag. The National Women's Studies Association, like the U.S. feminist movement in general, has long had a problem with homogeneity: it's been white, middle-class, and heterosexual. My professor, in fact, had not been to a NWSA conference in over a decade because of recurring problems of racial exclusion and white ignorance, among other issues. There have been improvements, among them a Women of Color Caucus, not to mention the change in leadership (Beverly Guy-Sheftall as the new president, Tricia Lin as the new vice president). There were some problems at this year's conference, though I hear they weren't as bad as previous years have been.

Some interesting gossip/news that I noticed: Seal Press (reference) was an exhibitor at the conference . They also advertised that Amanda Marcotte (reference) and Jessica Valenti (reference) would be there, though I didn't see them. Valenti was scheduled to give a panel talk, though, so I assume she was there.

The one guest I was most pleased about was Patricia Hill Collins, the keynote speaker. She was the reason I got up at the buttcrack of dawn on Thursday morning, so I could get to Cincinnati in time to hear her speak. She was fantastic, giving us a presentation exploring mass media complicity in the "colorblind" myth of modern-day racism - heavy on the theory, but made engaging and comprehensible in her accessible style. (Collins isn't as jargon-free in her writing as, say, bell hooks, but I find her pretty easy to read. Anyone is welcome to borrow my copies of her books if you'd like to sample them.)

There were two people at the conference who are authors of books that I own and had in my possession: Collins and Alyson Cole, author of The Cult of True Victimhood. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that Collins was doing a book signing until after the fact, and I didn't even know Cole was there until the end of the conference. *sigh*

As for the content of the conference itself - the panels, the paper sessions, etc. - I found that they were kind of light on research. Now, take my opinion with a grain of salt for two reasons: 1) there were about 400 events scheduled, a few dozen occurring simultaneously during each time slot, so I only know about the handful that I attended, and the ones my group members attended, and 2) our group discussion was also light on primary research, though our goal at this point was to push the theory, so fieldwork wasn't on our to-do list. A lot of the presenters were students, both graduate and undergraduate. I think this conference is pretty open in what submissions it accepts, which means that it's a great opportunity for students - which is something our group benefited from. But as a result, I didn't run into anything that blew me away, though plenty of presentations seemed promising. I might talk about them a little when I talk about our presentation, but for now it's getting late and I've been rambling.

I'm undecided about whether I want to go next year - either submitting a new proposal with my group or just going as an attendee. It was a valuable experience, to be exposed to different theory through the presenters and book exhibitors; but there were enough shortcomings that I'm not sure it's worth all the money I had to put down for it. :/ I might find another forum that is more valuable, though anything besides NWSA will probably be smaller. Or I could just give into geekiness and direct my resources toward next year's WisCon ...