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 Studies issues.

Our theme this year is “The Past as Knowledge.” Instead of defining the past as times, events, and modes of knowledge preceding the present moment, the 10th annual International Gender and Sexuality Studies (IGSS) Conference invites the many ways that people have based their future-forward thinking through engaging with and being inspired by the past. The past, in fact, has always been one with—and living among—the present. At a time when cultural amnesia and other forms of forgetting pervade every corner, how should we protect and make good use of archives as defense? How should the past be the current guide for our knowledge production? What epistemic value does the present-past offer us? Virginia Woolf, in Women and Writing, asks that we don’t ignore quotidian history, saying “It is only when we know what were the conditions of the average woman’s life . . . that we can account for the success or failure of the extraordinary woman as a writer.” Likewise, scholars such as Miriam David and Sue Clegg have resisted the temptation to obscure foundational second-wave feminist thinking—the personal as the political—in current research and practices. With your participation, we will take up many questions related to WGSS in multiple disciplines during our two-day conference on 10/17-18, 2025, while sustaining a productive and positive space for students, scholars, activists, and community members alike.

This year’s keynote speaker will be Paula Sophia Schonauer (LCSW), a licensed social worker in the State of Oklahoma and the director of the Counseling Center at Oklahoma City University. A published writer, Schonauer has written fiction and on forensic social work. Schonauer’s talk, which will cover activism and social work in the mental and medical healthcare settings, will be moderated by Lindsey Churchill, Ph.D., Professor of History and Director of WGSS.

All submissions 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 workshop presentations. Please submit abstracts through the link listed here: https://forms.gle/uHvrebEayuwERnhJ8

For all submissions, the deadline is April 18th 2025, at 11:59 PM Central Time.

For more questions, please contact thecenteratuco@gmail.com or Shun Kiang at skiang@uco.edu