Download the 2018-2019 schedule here!
The Boston Seminar on the History of Women, Gender, & Sexuality is a collaboration of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America and the Massachusetts Historical Society.
This series, whose five meetings in 2018-2019 will alternate between the Radcliffe Institute and the MHS, aims to seed fresh conversations on the history of women, gender, and sexuality in America without chronological limitations. Some sessions will offer the opportunity to discuss new scholarship presented in pre-circulated essays. These sessions begin with remarks from the essayist and an assigned commentator, after which the discussion is opened to the floor. Other meetings will feature panel discussions and “state of the field” conversations. At the end of each program, the organizers will offer light refreshments and time for informal networking.
Attendance is free and open to everyone. We invite you to support this ongoing series as a subscriber. Subscribers help to underwrite the cost of planning and presenting this free series, including the reception that follows each program.
October
This roundtable will use the body as frame for examining racial formation in the Caribbean and U.S. from the eighteenth century to the present. The presenters will meditate on biological reproduction in relation to citizenship and subjecthood, labor and economy, medical and scientific knowledge, and representations of blackness in popular culture.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
MoreThis panel aims to begin an interdisciplinary conversation in transgender history. What is the state of the field of transgender studies in history, archiving, and public health? How do changes in popular usage and attitudes about terminology facilitate or hinder research? In what ways does transgender studies intersect with women’s and gender history and other feminist scholarly concerns?
This session has recommended reading (available here) but is open to all regardless of whether they have done the reading.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
MoreIn 1951, the American Red Cross in Japan began offering “schools for brides,” to prepare Japanese women married to American servicemen for successful entry into the United States. This paper argues that bride schools measured Japanese women’s ability to be good wives and mothers because their immigration to the US depended on their labor within the home as well as their reproductive value in the family.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
MoreThese papers begin a conversation on the intersection of the study of the women’s liberation movement with the history of capitalism. Danielle Dumaine’s paper, “Sisterhood of Debt: Feminist Credit Unions, Community, and Women’s Liberation,” examines the role of Feminist Credit Unions in the women’s liberation movement. Julie Enszer’s paper, “‘a feminist understanding of economics based on a revolutionary set of values’: Feminist Economic Theories and Practices,” looks at the feminist organizations that created the Feminist Economic Network.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
MoreWith popular and scholarly attention focusing on the August 2020 centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, this session will explore "the long Nineteenth Amendment" stretching from the woman’s suffrage movement to second-wave feminism and beyond, with an eye toward continuities, challenges, and unfinished business.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
More
This roundtable will use the body as frame for examining racial formation in the Caribbean and U.S. from the eighteenth century to the present. The presenters will meditate on biological reproduction in relation to citizenship and subjecthood, labor and economy, medical and scientific knowledge, and representations of blackness in popular culture.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
closeThis panel aims to begin an interdisciplinary conversation in transgender history. What is the state of the field of transgender studies in history, archiving, and public health? How do changes in popular usage and attitudes about terminology facilitate or hinder research? In what ways does transgender studies intersect with women’s and gender history and other feminist scholarly concerns?
This session has recommended reading (available here) but is open to all regardless of whether they have done the reading.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
closeIn 1951, the American Red Cross in Japan began offering “schools for brides,” to prepare Japanese women married to American servicemen for successful entry into the United States. This paper argues that bride schools measured Japanese women’s ability to be good wives and mothers because their immigration to the US depended on their labor within the home as well as their reproductive value in the family.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
closeThese papers begin a conversation on the intersection of the study of the women’s liberation movement with the history of capitalism. Danielle Dumaine’s paper, “Sisterhood of Debt: Feminist Credit Unions, Community, and Women’s Liberation,” examines the role of Feminist Credit Unions in the women’s liberation movement. Julie Enszer’s paper, “‘a feminist understanding of economics based on a revolutionary set of values’: Feminist Economic Theories and Practices,” looks at the feminist organizations that created the Feminist Economic Network.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
closeWith popular and scholarly attention focusing on the August 2020 centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, this session will explore "the long Nineteenth Amendment" stretching from the woman’s suffrage movement to second-wave feminism and beyond, with an eye toward continuities, challenges, and unfinished business.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
close