The Eighth Annual Feminist Theory Workshop, co-sponsored by the UB Institute for Education and Research on Women and Gender — informally known as the Gender Institute — will be held March 21-22 at Duke University.

The Gender Institute will award travel grants of up to $750 per person to cover airfare and hotel costs to two UB faculty members and two UB graduate students who want to participate in the workshop. The free registration includes meals and admission to all workshop lectures and seminars.

Keynote speakers will be:

• American feminist theorist Karen Barad, best known for her theory of Agential Realism, which reconceptualizes the process by which objects are examined and knowledge created in scientific activities. She is the author of “Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.”
• Penelope Deutscher, professor of philosophy, Northwestern University and a specialist in feminist and 20th-century French philosophy, and continental philosophical approaches to the study of bioethics, biology and corporeality. She is the author of “How to Read Derrida,” in which she discusses extracts from the full range of Derrida’s work.
• Karen Engle, Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law, University of Texas, Austin, where she founded and co-directs the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice. She writes and lectures extensively on international human rights law and is the author of the award-winning “The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development: Rights, Culture, Strategy” (2010).
• Alondra Nelson, professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Columbia University. Her writing deals with the intersection of technology, literature and new media, and how these lenses can be used to address the continuing impacts of African Diaspora. She is among a small group of critical theorists studying and discussing “Afrofuturism,” an emerging literary and cultural aesthetic influenced by Samuel Delaney (former Butler Professor of English at UB), Octavia Butler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rene Cox, Jonzun Crew and Sun Ra. Among her books is “Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination” (2013).

Kari Winter, director of the Gender Institute, says those interested in participating must submit a curriculum vita and a one-to-two-page letter of application that summarizes their interests in feminist theory and explains why attending Duke’s Feminist Theory Workshop would enhance their research and/or teaching. Preference will be given to applicants with a strong research agenda in, and teaching commitments to, the field of feminist theory.

The deadline for applications is Feb. 3. Awardees will be notified by Feb. 10. Queries should be addressed to Winter at kwinter2@buffalo.edu Applications should be sent to ub-irewg@buffalo.edu.

For more information, visit the workshop's website.