The International Gender and Sexuality Studies Conference is presented by the Women’s Research Center and the BGLTQ+ Student Center at the University of Central Oklahoma with assistance from the UCO chapter of the National Organization for Women. In tandem, these organizations promote engagement with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality issues.

Our theme this year is “Recognition, Resistance, Resilience.” Drawing on foundational feminist thinking on solidarity, social justice, and self-care. The 9th annual IGSS Conference invites the many and varied ways that people have learned to see and take care of each other with intersectionality and inclusive justice in mind. What work does it entail to recognize a body and personhood to its fullest extent? What motivates practices of (self-)care and to what end? What are the possible ties and continuities between recognizing people for who they are/strive to become and the kinds of resistance and resilience that, in Elizabeth A. Flynn’s words, “[bring] attention to choices made in the face of difficult and even impossible challenges”? With your participation, we hope to take up these questions, among others, during our two-day conference, while sustaining a productive and positive space for students, scholars, activists, and community members alike.           

This year’s keynote speaker: Anna Cox, MFA, author of I Keep My Worries in My Teeth (2020), Director of Studio School at Oklahoma Contemporary, and former tenured professor of photography and creative thinking, will deliver a talk based on her fiction writing practices and collaborations with artists. The featured roundtable, led by Lindsey Churchill, Ph.D., Professor of History and Director of WGSS and students involved in the Herland Project, will discuss digitizing, documenting, and producing knowledge on women’s and minoritized histories. 

All submissions to this in-person conference are welcome. The selection committee interprets our theme broadly and encourages proposals that reflect on women’s, gender, and queer studies. The conference will include presentations that address issues of women, gender, and sexuality studies across various disciplines, including, but not limited to, the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, activism, and STEM fields. We invite students, faculty, staff, scholars, and activists to propose papers, panels, roundtable discussions, and poster presentations. We also welcome proposals from artists to present or perform creative work, including literature, theater, music, dance, and visual art. Please submit abstracts through the link listed here: https://shorturl.at/dezY8

All presentations must be submitted through: https://shorturl.at/dezY8

The deadline has been extended to April 26th 2024, at 11:59 PM. For more questions, please contact thecenteratuco@gmail.com or skiang@uco.edu