> Global experts focus on transgender issues
Global experts focus on transgender issues
Contact:
Susan Stryker, 510.205.5180 (cell); susan_stryker@sfu.ca
Esther Harrison, women’s studies, 778.782.4023; rwwchair@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.4323
Susan Stryker, 510.205.5180 (cell); susan_stryker@sfu.ca
Esther Harrison, women’s studies, 778.782.4023; rwwchair@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.4323
April 30, 2008
A conference that will centre its attention on transgender embodiment is drawing academics and activists from around the world to SFU this week.
Transsomatechnics: Theories and Practices of Transgender Embodiment – A Transdisciplinary International Conference, runs May 1-3 at SFU Vancouver’s Harbour Centre campus.
“Transgender issues are usually considered relevant to only a small group of people, but they actually provide us with a great opportunity to address much broader social concerns – such as biomedical technology or the formation of social policy towards minorities,” says conference director Susan Stryker.
Stryker, a leading historian, theoretician and political activist on transgender issues in the U.S., currently holds the Ruth Wynn Woodward Professorship in Women’s Studies at SFU.
The event brings together scholars working in the growing field of transgender studies, with a wider community of researchers interested in body-technology relationships.
The term somatechnics refers to the means by which the body is formed and transformed, physically, symbolically and socially.
“Many people consider transgender body modification to be weird, wrong or extreme,” says Stryker. “Part of the rationale for situating transgender practices within the rubric of ‘somatechnics’ is to show that body modification is a persistent part of culture, something that everybody does – whether it is trimming our nails, tattooing our skin or surgically altering our genitals.
“Why and how we modify our bodies, or the bodies of others, is far more significant that the fact that we modify our bodies.”
Participants will focus on the challenges to conventional humanities and social sciences posed by the increasing visibility of transgender phenomena.
More than 125 scholars are scheduled to present papers. Sessions will include discussion of sexuality and gender diversity in First Nations communities, and an overview of transgender history in Vancouver.
Transsomatechnics: Theories and Practices of Transgender Embodiment – A Transdisciplinary International Conference, runs May 1-3 at SFU Vancouver’s Harbour Centre campus.
“Transgender issues are usually considered relevant to only a small group of people, but they actually provide us with a great opportunity to address much broader social concerns – such as biomedical technology or the formation of social policy towards minorities,” says conference director Susan Stryker.
Stryker, a leading historian, theoretician and political activist on transgender issues in the U.S., currently holds the Ruth Wynn Woodward Professorship in Women’s Studies at SFU.
The event brings together scholars working in the growing field of transgender studies, with a wider community of researchers interested in body-technology relationships.
The term somatechnics refers to the means by which the body is formed and transformed, physically, symbolically and socially.
“Many people consider transgender body modification to be weird, wrong or extreme,” says Stryker. “Part of the rationale for situating transgender practices within the rubric of ‘somatechnics’ is to show that body modification is a persistent part of culture, something that everybody does – whether it is trimming our nails, tattooing our skin or surgically altering our genitals.
“Why and how we modify our bodies, or the bodies of others, is far more significant that the fact that we modify our bodies.”
Participants will focus on the challenges to conventional humanities and social sciences posed by the increasing visibility of transgender phenomena.
More than 125 scholars are scheduled to present papers. Sessions will include discussion of sexuality and gender diversity in First Nations communities, and an overview of transgender history in Vancouver.
Backgrounder:
Conference Keynote speakers include:
• Mauro Cabral teaches biotechnology and ‘corporeality’ at Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina. He is a leading international human rights activist on gender and sexual orientation issues.
• Afsaneh Najmabadi is a prominent scholar of Islamic feminism at Harvard University, whose most recent research focuses on transsexuality in contemporary Iran.
• Nikki Sullivan is an associate professor in the department of Critical and Cultural studies at MacQuarie University in Sydney, Australia, director of the Somatechnics Research Centre, and a leading philosopher of embodiment and body modification.
• Vivian Namaste is acting head of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in Montreal, whose sociological work on transgender and transsexual populations in Canada helped establish HIV education and support programs nationwide in the 1990s.
• Bobby Noble, formerly of UBC, is now at York University in Toronto and focuses on such areas as female-to-male transgender people, masculinity and the ‘drag king’ subculture.
Conference Keynote speakers include:
• Mauro Cabral teaches biotechnology and ‘corporeality’ at Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina. He is a leading international human rights activist on gender and sexual orientation issues.
• Afsaneh Najmabadi is a prominent scholar of Islamic feminism at Harvard University, whose most recent research focuses on transsexuality in contemporary Iran.
• Nikki Sullivan is an associate professor in the department of Critical and Cultural studies at MacQuarie University in Sydney, Australia, director of the Somatechnics Research Centre, and a leading philosopher of embodiment and body modification.
• Vivian Namaste is acting head of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in Montreal, whose sociological work on transgender and transsexual populations in Canada helped establish HIV education and support programs nationwide in the 1990s.
• Bobby Noble, formerly of UBC, is now at York University in Toronto and focuses on such areas as female-to-male transgender people, masculinity and the ‘drag king’ subculture.