Women and War Conference at South Texas College

From Tuesday April 18 to Thursday April 20, South Texas College’s Women’s Studies Committee will host “Women and War,” a conference on the local and global impact of war on women.   

The conference aims to heighten awareness of the various aspects of war on women and girls, aspects such as birth defects, violence, rape as a tool of war, refugee rights and international law, and the erosion of women’s rights in Iraq.  The conference also aims to hear and honor women's voices and celebrate their resiliency in the face of adversity.    

Participating in the conference are a number of distinguished panelists, including global activists, academics, community organizers, and students. 

For more information contact:
Jenny B. Clark
872-3510
email: jclark@southtexascollege.edu

John C. Jones
973-7655
email: jcjones@southtexascollege.edu

Location:  

South Texas College’s Pecan Campus Auditorium
Pecan Blvd
McAllen, Texas

Agenda

Tuesday April 18
1:15pm – 1:30pm	Welcoming Remarks –Juan Mejia, Vice President for Instruction, South Texas College
1:30pm - 1:45pm	Film Clip – Beyond Treason – A graphic account of the indiscriminate effects of ammunitions on civilian populations.
2:00pm - 3:00pm	Featured Speaker – Joyce Riley vonKleist, former Capt. (USAF) RN, BSN Ms. Riley will discuss the effects of America’s depleted uranium weapons, which cause illness and cancer in civilians, our troops, and spouses and children of Iraq war veterans.
3:00pm - 3:10pm	Break
3:10pm - 4:00pm	T-Shirt Workshop – participants will create T-shirts with messages of protest about violence against women.
4:00pm - 5:30pm	Film – Calling the Ghosts –  An extraordinarily powerful documentary of two women caught in a war where rape was as much an everyday weapon as bullets or bombs.
6:30pm - 7:30pm	Keynote Address – Yanar Mohammed Ms. Yanar Mohammed is the Director of The Organization of Women's Freedom (OWFI), a group that works to stop the atrocities against Iraqi women and defend their rights.  OWFI has opened the first shelters for women in Baghdad and Kirkuk.  The shelters aid women who are fleeing honor killings and severe domestic abuse.  In addition, she serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the feminist newspaper Al-Mousawat (Equality), which features stories about rape cases in which the alleged perpetrators are members of the U.S. or Iraqi military, along with detailed reports about honor killings and the human rights of all women.  Ms. Mohammed will provide a first-hand account of the lives of women and their families in Iraq since the U.S. invasion and occupation.
7:30pm - 8:30pm	Reception
Wednesday April 19
1:30pm - 2:30pm	Panel – “Rape as a Tool of War” Dr. Samuel Freeman, Political Science Professor, UTPA Mark Burton, ABD, CUNY Graduate Center, Instructor, South Texas College
2:30pm - 3:00pm	Featured Speaker – Justice Linda Yanez, 13th Court of Appeals “Gender Issues in International Law/Refugee Policy”
3:00pm - 3:10pm	Break
3:10pm - 3:40pm	Featured Speaker – Dr. Linda Belau, English Professor, UTPA “A Women’s Account of the Hiroshima Catastrophe”
3:45pm - 5:30pm	Film – The Peacekeepers and Women –  A chilling investigation examining the booming sex-trafficking industry in Bosnia and Kosovo, and the disturbing role of the UN peacekeeping forces and the local military in perpetuating this tragic situation.
5:30pm - 5:40pm	Break
6:00pm - 7:00pm	Featured Presenter – Phyllis Evans, Visual Arts Instructor, South Texas College “Female Genital Mutilation” and clip from film Warrior Marks
7:00pm	Art Exhibition Opening
Thursday April 20
1:30pm - 2:00pm	Featured Speaker – Stephanie Volkoff Green, Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Texas at Austin  “Maternal Identities and Nationalist Rhetoric in the Current United States Peace Movement”
2:00pm - 2:20pm	Featured Speaker/Performance – Beverly Monestier, chairperson, Synergy Foundation “Peace and Understanding through the Arts”
2:20pm - 2:30pm	Break
2:30pm - 3:00pm	Panel – “Dispelling the Myths in Military Recruitment” Counter Recruiters, University of Texas at Austin  Randy Jarvis, Sociology Professor, South Texas College
3:00pm - 3:30pm	Counter-Recruiter Workshop –  “How to Organize on your Campus”
3:30pm - 4:00pm	Featured Speakers – Annette Muniz, Co-founder of MOMS (Mothers of Military Servicemen) and Guy Hallman, Military Families Speak Out
4:00pm - 4:10pm	Break
4:15pm - 5:15pm	Film –  Breaking the Silence – Thought-provoking film that reveals the human consequences of military attacks.
5:30pm - 6:00pm	Poetry Reading -  Beverly Monestier, chairperson,  Synergy Foundation “Peace and Understanding through the Arts”
7:00pm - 8:00pm	Keynote Presenter – Mimi Chakarova, Photojournalist, UC Berkeley  Mimi Chakarova has numerous solo exhibitions on South Africa, Jamaica, Cuba, Kashmir, and Eastern Europe.  Her book Capitalism, God and a Good Cigar: Cuba Enters the Twenty-First Century, published by Duke University Press in 2005, features over 75 documentary photographs of Cuba.  Ms. Chakarova is currently working on two long-term projects that examine the conflict in Kashmir and the sex trafficking of women in post-war Eastern Europe.  Ms. Chakarova is the recipient of the 2003 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for outstanding work in documentary photography and the 2005 Magnum Photos Inge Morath Award for her work on sex trafficking.

*This agenda is tentative on confirmation of some of the participants.  

 

 

Last Updated June 20, 2007