This week, the Barnett Center Collaboratory — located in Room 141 of Sullivant Hall, at 1813 N. High St. — will host the “Feminism in the Americas Symposium,” an interdisciplinary event presented by the FREE Center and the Center for Latin American Studies. Credit: Vivian Yang | Lantern Reporter
A feminist symposium blending art and academia will inspire in-depth conversations about gender, power and international connections on Ohio State’s campus.
The “Feminisms in the Americas Symposium,” hosted by the FREE Center and the Center for Latin American Studies, will take place in Sullivant Hall’s Barnett Center Laboratory Thursday from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to noon.
Hannah Grace Morrison, associate teaching assistant in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and a featured artist at the event, said the symposium will bring together scholars, artists and social activists from across the Americas to explore feminist thought and practice throughout the region.
Morrison said they will open the event with a poem they wrote that is centered around the theme of community — one of the symposium’s key topics of discussion.
“It is a way for me to open up the floor to all the different needs of the communities that are going to be represented at the symposium — opening up with a poem that talks about coming together in solidarity and finding ways that we can work for the communities, all of the communities, and making sure that people feel safe, and happy and healthy,” Morrison said.
Morrison said that in their role as an educator, they always incorporate critical reflection into language and learning instruction, something they hope to share more about at the symposium.
“I hope to share the ways that I incorporate a kind of critical reflection in language learning that doesn’t assume things about people, or especially gender and sexuality, especially people’s life experiences,” Morrison said. “I think that a big portion of my character as an instructor is just having people do some critical self-reflection as they learn about themselves in the new language.”
Claudia Cabello Hutt, a professor at George Mason University who will participate in the event, said though the challenges women face differ based on factors like culture, ethnicity and socioeconomic background, issues like poverty and gender-based violence are global concerns.
Considering this reality, Hutt — who specializes in women and gender studies, along with philosophy — said the symposium’s focus on transnational feminist networks is crucial.
“It is very important to understand that even though women around the world face very particular challenges — according to where they live, their race, their ethnicity, their social class or access to education — there are some challenges that affect a lot of women around the world,” Hutt said. “So, we know, for example, that women face a disproportionate amount of poverty across the world, or that women face an enormous amount of physical and sexual violence. So, those are things that connect us transnationally and what we should be fighting together and coordinating efforts on.”
When discussing art’s role in feminist communication, Hutt said it is not only a tool for expressing ideas, but also a powerful form of social intervention.
“Art and creative communication — for example, movies, music, graffiti, performance art — reach many more people than academic papers and books,” Hutt said. “I like to see feminists that are creating art and movies and all these things, so we can represent women in a more interesting way.”
Morrison said the symposium is designed not only to provide a platform for scholars, artists and students to engage in in-depth discussions on feminist issues, but also to serve as a bridge for interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue, enabling participants from diverse backgrounds to foster emotional resonance.
“I hope that we all approach the events with a radical form of listening, that we listen to each other’s needs,” Morrison said. “I think that solidarity efforts function through our own radical silence, which is being able to quiet our own insecurities and needs for a moment and listen to the needs of the people around us.”
The symposium is free and open to the public. For more information about registration and the event schedule, visit the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies webpage.
