The Future of Minority Studies at SU 2011 symposium: ‘Islamophobia, Orientalism and Gender Justice’

Laila Farah, a Lebanese-American feminist performance-scholar, will present “Living in the Hyphen-Nation,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 14, in Syracuse University’s Watson Theater. The performance is part of the symposium “Islamophobia, Orientalism and Gender Justice,” presented by the Future of Minority Studies Project at Syracuse University (FMS).

The symposium will include an afternoon session from 2-4 p.m. in SU’s Schine Student Center, Room 304 A, B and C. The afternoon session will feature Dana Olwan, assistant professor of gender studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, presenting “Bodies that Matter in Death More than Life: Thoughts on Honour Crimes and Canada’s Racial Logics;” and Carol Fadda-Conrey, assistant professor of English in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences, presenting “Arab-and-Muslim-American Representations of Gender, Sexuality, and Citizenship Post 9/11.” Beverly Guy-Sheftall, the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College, will moderate the session.

Both events are free and open to the public. Further information is available on the Women’s and Gender Studies website, or by calling the department at (315) 443-3707.

Farah, graduate program director in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at DePaul University, has performed “Living in the Hyphen-Nation” at universities and other public venues throughout the United States. Her creative scholarship includes research about Third World women and women of color, postcolonial identities and the “alien nation,” and ethnographic and auto-ethnographic performance and narrative. She is active in a variety of organizations, including the National Women’s Studies Association, the Arab-American Action Network and the International Oral History Organization.

The Future of Minority Studies Project is a consortium of scholars and academic institutions with a primary interest in minority identity, education and social transformation. FMS at SU is funded by a generous contribution from the Office of the Chancellor. Further information about the project is available on the web at http://www.fmsproject.cornell.edu/index.htm.

The symposium is co-sponsored by the Democratizing Knowledge Project, a Chancellor’s Leadership Project; the departments of women’s and gender studies, African American studies, English and religion in The College of Arts and Sciences; the departments of sociology and political science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; the Middle Eastern Studies Program, a joint program of The College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School; and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.