GRACE Conference 2019

GRACE: Gender and Cultures of Equality in Europe (www.graceproject.eu ) is an ‘Innovative Training Network’ within the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Programme. The GRACE project inquires into the ways cultures of equality are made and remade within and at the borders of Europe. In the largest cross-European collaboration of its kind, involving 15 early stage researchers and a wider group of 100 scholars based in over 10 countries, we have for the past three years systematically investigated what ‘equality’ means in the European context today. These studies range from the examination of documentary cinema, theatre, poetry slams and science fiction, to a focus on women in boxing, disabled and trans visual poetics and the analysis of the role of social media and reproductive health apps in social change. Together these studies provide a unique lens through which we can think about the processes and practices, as well as the challenges and dilemmas, that create, enable and contest cultures of in/equality.

We are excited to announce the GRACE Conference 2019 entitled, ‘Gender and Cultures of In/Equality in Europe: visions, poetics, strategies’ which will take place in Utrecht from 7-9th March 2019, to incorporate International Women’s Day 2019. The event celebrates the achievements of the GRACE Project’s work over the last three years and provides opportunities to explore the themes of the GRACE research through a range of activities, including a series of public talks by GRACE researchers and other distinguished international scholars; the launch of the GRACE feminist smartphone app; the opening of the GRACE exhibition on cultures of in/equality; the presentation of project films and a special screening of Goya award winning film maker Isabel de Ocampo’s new film, You Will Be A Man, introduced by the director herself.

Keynotes & Contributors include:

• Beatrice Allegranti (Award winning choreographer, Associate Professor in Dance Movement Psychotherapy & Director of Centre for Arts Therapies Research, University of Roehampton)
• Elisa A.G. Arfini (International Relations Officer, Associazione Orlando, Bologna)
• Elleke Boehmer (Professor of Literature, University of Oxford)
• Rosemarie Buikema (Professor of Art, Culture & Diversity, Utrecht University)
• Isabel Carrera Suárez (Professor of English, University of Oviedo)
• Suzanne Clisby (Senior Research Fellow, Director of GRACE and Co-Director of GlobalGRACE, University of Hull and Goldsmiths, University of London)
• Lilla Crisafulli (Professor of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Bologna University)
• Rebecca Finkel (Reader, Events Management, Queen Mary University)
• Jasmina Lukic (Professor of Gender Studies, Central European University)
• Adelina Sánchez Espinosa (Professor of English, Granada University)
• Susan Stanford Friedman (Virginia Woolf Professor of Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• J. Neil Garcia (Poet, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman)
• Maria Hlavajova (Artistic Director, BAK, a base for art, knowledge, and the political)
• Maria Lugones (Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Women’s Studies, Binghampton University)
• Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay (Gender & Rights Senior Advisor, Royal Tropical Institute)
• Frances Negrón Muntaner (Professor of English & Comparative Literature, film maker, Colombia University)
• Isabel de Ocampo (Goya award winning feminist film maker)
• Nirmal Puwar (Reader in Sociology, Goldsmiths University of London)
• Aleksandra Różalska (Head of the Women’s Studies Centre & Assistant Professor at the Department of American Studies and Mass Media, University of Łódz)

‘Gender and Cultures of In/Equality in Europe: visions, poetics, strategies’ presents an exciting opportunity to engage with critical questions on the production of cultures of equalities and what equalities mean in contemporary Europe. The event will take place on 7-9th March 2019 in Utrecht at Utrecht University, Centraal Museum, and the major feminist art institute, Casco, and we are delighted to invite you to register to attend this event.

Registration is free but essential as space is limited. Please register here. Update: registration is now closed.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 675378