The University of South Dakota's 2012 Biennial Women and Gender Research Conference invites submissions on the theme Gender and Conflict: Unraveling Paths to Change. The conference will be held on the USD campus in Vermillion, S.D., on October 18 and 19, 2012.

Organizers seek proposals for individual papers or panels on conflicts reflecting the ways in which individuals negotiate gender and agency across space and time. Conflicts may be personal, social, military, generational, familial, postcolonial, economic, psychological, or ethical; they may be the result of cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious expectations, rigidity of sex roles, war, inequality, colonization, or other factors.

The 2012 conference identifies several central questions to be addressed within the context of the theme:

• War, diplomacy, and trauma: How do women and men explore new roles in military environments? How do they negotiate for peace? How do they face or resolve trauma resulting from military conflict and/or its consequences, including displacement and forced relocation?

• Marginality and resistance: What creative negotiations of gender and agency occur in societies that restrict human rights and free expression? How have minority cultures or individuals maintained their own constructions of gender in the context of dominant ideologies?

• Assimilation and alienation: What are the current conflicts faced by gay, lesbian, and transgendered individuals? How do immigrants, indigenous peoples, and racial/ethnic minorities re-construct gender within a mainstream culture?

• Internalized conflicts: How do women and men negotiate body image and self-presentation in mediated contexts? What is the conflict between public and private identity in the context of gender?

• Personas and politics: How do women and men deal with conflict as they re-negotiate gender roles in parenting and the workforce? How has the conflict between definitions of sex and gender changed? How will it continue to change?

The conference is interdisciplinary. Perspectives from anthropology, art, business, communication, education, film, history, journalism, law, linguistics, literature, medicine, music, philosophy, political science, popular culture, religion, and sociology are welcome.

Please submit a one-page abstract, panel proposal, or a full paper by May 18, 2012, to Miglena Sternadori, Women's Studies coordinator, The University of South Dakota, 414 East Clark, Vermillion, SD 57069, miglena.sternadori@usd.edu. Proposals may be submitted electronically. Submissions will be evaluated by mid-June 2012.