About the Project

This project will bring together a diverse team of community activists and artists to address the vitality of work on behalf of women’s, trans, and queer empowerment through responses to the question, What is Feminism Now? This event will create new space for the sharing of ideas and mutual respect on campus about the historic roots of feminism and what relevance this has today for our student body as active members of their communities and creative thinkers.

Our collaborators will share their current work in a panel addressing the modern place of feminism in art and activism, and later in smaller classroom presentations and workshops aimed at the student body. The program is set up to be inclusive of our panelists and authors work with diverse cultures, races, ethnicities, gender identities and socioeconomic classes. Our collaborators bring many years of experience in their fields to the conversation. Their experiences, in community organizing, craftivism, drag performance, writing with their communities and feminist artistic and political traditions, will bring a diverse range of voices to start a dialogue about this timely question.

Finally, students will have the opportunity to share their own answers to the question in a student open-mic co-hosted by student group Half the Sky. This project will allow students, faculty and staff to engage in dialogue concerning the overlap of art and activism in relation to the complicated historical roots of the term feminism and the various ways it is currently employed in the public sphere. Classroom visits will be focused on the personal development of students by providing a space for conversation and one-on-one interaction with our panelists. This project will introduce students to a broad range of voices and experiences that they might not otherwise have access to, creating a much needed space on campus for dialogue among students, faculty and staff.