GENDER AND WOMEN'S STUDIES STUDENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE AND SIGNATURE EVENTS
STUDENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE
2022: Erin Murphy, PhD, "Amazons and Zombies: Margaret Cavendish’s Soldiers, Gender, and the Paradoxes of War"
2019: Uma Narayan, PhD, "Sisterhood and Doing Good"
2018: Duchess Harris, "Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA"
2017: Valerie Steele, "Chanel and Her Rivals"
2016: Lauren Berlant, “On Being in Life Without Wanting the World: Rankine, Isherwood, and Dissociative Life”
2015: Katina Sawyer, "What’s Gender Got to Do with it? The Impact of Gender on your Life at Villanova"
2014: CJ Pascoe, "Bullied: Youth Gender, and Homophobia."
2013: Stephanie McCurry, "The Tale of the Solder's Wife: War, Gender, and Emancipation"
2012: Cynthia Enloe, "The Risks of Not Learning from Iraqi Women's War Experiences"
2011: Noel Sturgeon, "Avatar and Activism: Ecological Indians, Climate Justice and Disabling Militaris."
2010: Lori Ginzberg, "A Very Radical Proposition: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Meanings of the vote"
2009: Linda Greenhouse, "What Judges Know (or Don't Know) About Sex Discrimination (or Anything Else)"
2008: Susan Aberth, "Frida Kahlo: Mexican Hydra"
2007: Afsaneh Najmabadi, "Feminism, Secularism, and the Challenges of Women's Rights Activism in a Islamic Republic"
2006: Bonnie Dow, "Screening the second Wave: Images and Activism in 1970s Feminism"
2005: Elizabeth L. Hillman, "Guarding Women: Abu Ghraib and Military Sexual Culture"
2004: Yopie Prins, "Ladies' Greek"
2003: Maria DiBattista, "Fast-talking Dames"
2002: Alan Sinfield, "Using Two Noble Kinsmen to read Midsummer Night's Dream against the Grain"
2000: Marion Roydhouse, "A New Zealander Abroad: Unexpected Journeys and Women's History in Unexpected Places"
1999: Janice Madden, "Gender Discrimination in Labor Market: Constructing Evidence in the Classroom and in the Court Room"
1998: Mary Crawford, "Feminist Research: Generations of Change"
1997: Madelyn Gutwirth, "My Life in Women's Studies, and Why We Still Need Them"
1996: Adele Lindenmeyr, PhD, and Ryan McDonough
1995: Rachel Hare-Mustin, PhD, and Kelly Biessel
1994: Marie McAllister and Sherry Masters, "The Value of Women's Studies Education"
1993: Barbara E. Wall, OP, "Women and Mass Communication"
1991: Farrah Griffith, "Black Feminist Contributions to Women's Studies"
9:00 Villanova Room
Welcome
Dr. Kelly-Anne Diamond, co-chair, GWS
Dr. Adele Lindenmeyr, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Terri Boyer, Director, McNulty Institute for Women’s Leadership
Dr. Lauren Shohet, conference chair
9:30 - Devon Room -Relationships, Families, Communities
Dr. Melissa Hodges, chair
Dickinson’s Death of Female Identity in Heterosexual Marriage
Catherine Messier, Villanova University
Female Servitude and Sexuality in Carmen Maria Machado's "The Husband Stitch"
Lauren Kourey, Villanova University
A (Partial) Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman: Considering Milly and Dilly in Ulysses
Cait Salomon, Villanova University
“This is How I Fight”: The Evolution of Masculinity within Contemporary Depictions of Asian American Men
J. Matthew Villanueva, Villanova
9:30- Rosemont Room -Femininity, Queerness, Community
Dr. Travis Foster, chair
Examining “Post-Conflict” Northern Ireland Through a Gendered Lens
Isabella Balian, Villanova University
The Vitality of Penelope in the Odyssey
Camille Ferace, Villanova University
Innocent Flower and the Serpent Under’t: Queering Gender Performance in Shakespeare
Sydney Curran, Villanova University
On Being Genderqueer/Nonbinary
Kayla Redfern, West Chester University
9:30 - Haverford Room -Feminist and Queer Theory
Dr. Adrienne Perry, chair
The Real Horror of It: Beverly Marsh’s Lack of Gendered Agency
Julia Micklo, Villanova University
Paradise Lost: Eve’s Objectification and Exploitation
Hannah de Melo, Villanova University
To Be Backstage: The Erasure of Women in King Lear and We That Are Young
Sarina Sandwell, Villanova University
The Ties That Bind: Personal Feelings in Giovanni’s Room
Eva Wynn, Villanova University
“Not Man. Woman”: Freeing Leopold Bloom from Her Closet
Theo Campbell, Villanova University
10:45- Devon Room -Spirituality and Religion
Dr. Bess Rowen, chair
Moving with the Ghosts: Feminized Haunting and Healing in Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls
Sophia Honigfeld, Haverford College
The Sinful Body Divine: Hildegard’s Ordo Virtutum in Performance as a Site of Binary Terror (and Ecstasy)
Alison Pascale, Villanova University
Pope Francis and Women within the Church
Theresa Gardner, Villanova University
10:45 - St David’s Room -Representation Matters: Black Female Writers in Philadelphia Classrooms & Beyond
Dr. Jean Lutes, chair
Cynthia Choo Jenine Hazlewood
Adrianna Ogando J. Matthew Villaneuva
10:45 - Haverford Room - Representation
Dr. Yumi Lee, chair
“Nothing Marigold Can Stay”: The Intersectionality of Race, Feminism, and Fascism in The Bluest Eye
Matt Tallman, Villanova University
Forget Escapism, I Read for the Badass Heroines
Cammie Norman, Villanova University
Socialized Inhibitions and Critiques of Female Bodies on Stage
Kylie Horan, Villanova University
Editing Sexism in Golden Age Musical Revivals
Abi Johnson, Villanova University
Growing Pains & Growing Tensions: Bittersweet Relationships Between Girlhood and Memory Throughout the Troubles with Colette Bryce, Lisa McGee, and Olivia Gatwood
Bailey Quinn, Villanova University
10:45- Rosemont Room -Intersectionality and Representation
Dr. Megan Quigley, chair
Unsettling Feminism: Settler Colonialism, Gender, and Violence
Molly Carriero, Villanova University
Exploring Black Women’s Representation and Participation in Négritude and Negrismo
Rose Poku, University of Pennsylvania
A Look into the Language: Trans Erasure in China
Lily Alicea, Villanova University
Luke’s Story, or, the Repercussions of a Chance Meeting
Jamie Kozol Wojtal, Villanova University
12:00 pm - Villanova Room -Luncheon
Presiding Dr. Travis Foster, co-chair,
GWS
Invocation The Rev. Dr. Crystal Lucky
Alumnx speaker Caterina Deuser, VU ‘22
Keynote address
Literature Against Cisness
Dr. Emma Heaney Associate Director and Clinical Assistant Professor, XE Program in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement, New York University
1:45 - Haverford Room -Knowledge
Dr. James Wetzel, chair
If a Tree Falls in Paradise, Does It Have Anything to Do with Eve’s Beauty?
Katie Reed, Villanova University
House of Desires and the Value of the Educated Woman
Alexandra Marino, Villanova University
Wanton Looks and Desires
Meaghan Falconer, Villanova University
Eileen Fernand: Mother, Wife, and -- Most Importantly -- Businesswoman
Lexi Toriello, Villanova University
1:45- Rosemont Room -Health and Relationships
Dr. Max Osborn, chair
The Economic Implications of Restrictive Abortion Policy in the Post-Roe World
Samantha Neuman, Villanova University
Gender Difference in the Increase in Suicide Rate in Japan During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Mai Miura, Swarthmore College
Human Incubators: How Commercial Surrogacy Corrupts Reproduction
Katie Carlson, Villanova University
Contraceptives on Catholic Campuses: The Ethical Debate
Maggie Winston, Villanova University
1:45 Rosemont Room -Knowledge and Theory
Dr. Timothy McCall, chair
All My Heroes Shed Their Skin
Olivia Loudon, Bryn Mawr College
Queer Vase: How Might Michel Foucault Interpret Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greek Vase Paintings?
Zhongyin (Maggie) Zhang, Haverford College
The Psychophysiology of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD): a Gender-Inclusive Exploration
Lauren Cuevas, Widener University
Disremembered Daughters: An Investigation into the Neglected History of Marginalized Suffragists
Morgan Haller, Villanova University
3:00 Connolly Cinema - Performance Showcase
Dr. Heidi Rose, chair
The Ghost in the Corner
Katie Jandrasits
We Are Family
Sheldon Shaw
My Nightmares
Carly Isselman
“Da Paz" by Marcelino Freire
João Marcelo Costa Bulsing
Takeout and Television
Rachel Rhee
4:00 Villanova Room
Reception with tea and cookies.
Emma Heaney
Emma Heaney is a scholar of comparative literature, feminist studies, and trans studies. She is Associate Director and Clinical Assistant Professor in the XE Program in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement at NYU. Her first book is The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory (Northwestern UP 2017). Her forthcoming edited collection, Feminism Against Cisness [Duke UP 2024], gathers essays by trans studies scholars that demonstrate the potential of feminist critique freed of the ideology that assigned sex determines sexed experience.
CAMPUS COMMUNITY EVENTS
Every semester, the Gender and Women's Studies program hosts about 8 – 10 events. These events include lectures, live performances, and films from a variety of fields and disciplines.
Several of these events are recorded and may available on the University's YouTube channel, making them available to the larger community.