NEW YORK – When the Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) was founded in 1971 it was the first of its kind in the United States—a central location that joined together scholarly inquiry in the then emerging field of women’s studies with political activism in the feminist movement. BCRW’s mission in the words of the original charter is to ensure that women “can live and work in dignity, autonomy and equality.”
Notable occurrences in the life of BCRW include the first annual Scholar & Feminist Conference in 1974; the infamous “sex conference” in 1982, out of which came the publication of Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality; the 2003 founding of the online journal S&F Online, which disseminates the work of BCRW; and the founding of the print publication New Feminist Solutions in 2004, which addresses concrete policy initiatives that grow out of the intellectual work of BCRW and its collaboration with activist organizations.
Over the past four decades, the field of women’s and gender studies has evolved greatly as have the issues addressed by political activists. The ongoing collaboration was marked by “Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action.”
This past Friday and Saturday panelists and speakers addressed topics related to how feminist inquiry is crucial to advancing issues of social justice.
“Intellectual work that happens in the context of colleges and universities can be leveraged for more practical and policy oriented activist projects,” noted Dr. Elizabeth A. Castelli, acting director of BCRW.
Dr. Sonia E. Alvarez, Leonard J. Horwitz professor of Latin American Politics and Studies and director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at UMass Amherst, gave the keynote address on day one. Her presentation focused on an overview of the forthcoming book Translocalities/Translocalidades: Feminist Politics of Translation in the Latin/a Americas, of which she is one of the editors.
The book is a collaborative project with 23 chapters written by 24 contributors. It involves building a framework and a bridge across a number of divides.
