A daylong academic conference focusing on "Sexuality in Crisis" will be held Saturday, Feb. 1, at the University of California, Davis. It is expected to attract 100 scholars from the United States and abroad in the fields of social sciences, history, art, English and ethnic studies.
The conference, free and open to the public, will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in MU II, located in the Memorial Union complex.
Among the issues to be addressed at the conference will be AIDS, lesbian and gay activism, assaults on and defenses of sexual and reproductive freedom, sexual harassment law professor Anita Hill's testimony in the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, and new directions in theories about the body.
Below is a listing of some of the presentations.
• "Sexuality, AIDS and National Identity," by Simon Watney, lecturer at the Polytechnic of Central London and co-director of the Terrance Higgins Trust for AIDS, 9:30 a.m.
• "Engendering Racial Politics, Racializing Sexual Politics: Black Feminism and Violence Against Women of Color," by Kimberly Crenshaw, associate professor of law at UCLA, 11 a.m.
• "Witnessing the Collision of Identities and Practices: Lineages of Contemporary Queer Theory, Culture and Action," by Jennifer Terry, visiting scholar at the Pembroke Center, Brown University, 2 p.m.
• "The Body as Property: A Feminist Revision," by Rosalind Petchensky, professor of Political Science at Hunter College, 3:30 p.m.
The conference is co-sponsored by the campus Diversity/Affirmative Action Office; the College of Letters and Science; the Center for Comparative Research in History, Society and Culture; the Humanities Institute; the Women's Resources and Research Center; Afro-American Studies; Asian American Studies; Chicano Studies; East Asian Studies and Native American Studies.
Individuals may attend the entire conference or individual sessions. For more information, call (916) 752-4686.
Media Resources
Susanne Rockwell, Web and new media editor, (530) 752-2542, sgrockwell@ucdavis.edu