This year, we kick off our virtual Homecoming week with a Back to the Classroom event featuring Dr. Michele Byers and Dr.Tatjana Takševa to celebrate important milestones in the Saint Mary's Women and Gender Studies Program.
About the Talk
This talk will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the SMU Women and Gender Studies Program by providing a brief history and a timeline of the program at SMU. Through a number of examples from recent news, media and culture, the talk will engage provocatively the question “who is Women and Gender Studies for?” and highlight the ongoing and growing relevance of the program in the 21st century, both locally, and globally.
The talk will also introduce the new minor in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS), the only one of its kind in Atlantic Canada.
The webinar is free to attend.
About the Presenters
Dr. Tatjana Takševa
Dr.Takševa is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Culture, currently Acting Coordinator of the Women and Gender Studies and the chairperson of the Academic Senate. She came to SMU after completing her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 2004, and having previously studied at the University of Belgrade and the University of Skopje, in the former Yugoslavia. Her current research is situated at the intersections of motherhood, feminism, nation-building and the politics of identity, and is interdisciplinary in nature. It utilizes concepts and methodologies drawn from discourse analysis and literary studies, philosophy, sociology, psychology and psychoanalysis, political science, cultural studies, anthropology, and the history of ideas. She has published on a wide range of topics within women and gender studies dealing with feminist theory and trauma studies, feminism and the ethics of care, mothers and mothering in conflict zones, sexual violence during conflict, motherhood and consumerism, maternal ambivalence and the meaning of empowered motherhood in a variety of cultural contexts
Dr. Michele Byers
Michele Byers is on sabbatical! Otherwise she is professor in Women & Gender Studies and program coordinator of the MA in Women & Gender Studies and the new Minor in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. Michele is a critical, interdisciplinary scholar of media and popular culture, and gender and sexuality studies. She is most well known for her work in critical television studies. Her recent projects include work on the Degrassi TV franchise and a series of essays on serial killers in popular television (with colleague Rachael Collins, Criminology). This is her 21st year teaching at SMU.
Please note that a link to the webinar will be provided the day before the event.