University at Buffalo

September 24-28, 2007  

Mark your calendars for Gender Week 2007!  Join us in celebrating the Gender Institute's 10th Anniversary Year with a variety of multidisciplinary events and speakers.  Please click on the "read more" link below for detailed information about currently scheduled events and bookmark the Calendar page to keep track of the  evolving schedule.  Our Related Events page lists current future related programs.  All Gender Week events are free and open to the public. 

Gender Week 2007 will include several UB-sponsored faculty and graduate events; visit the Speakers page to find out more about our presenters.

In partnership with the Humanities Institute, our keynote speaker, Sarah Schulman, will give a brief history of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, its influence on policy, a tour through the ACT UP Oral History Project, and show a trailer for the feature documentary in progress.

BREAST IMPLANTS--ABSOLUTELY SAFE?  On Tuesday, September 25, Carol Ciancutti-Leyva and a number of UB faculty members will present a three part presentation on the biosafety of the materials used in implants, the psychology of the motivation for their use, and the making of a documentary which tells the experiences of women who have had them.  Ciancutti-Leyva will discuss and screen her film Absolutely Safe.  Robert Baier & Anne Meyer, from the Industry/University Center for Biosurfaces and School of Dental Medicine, will discuss the safety of the materials used in bioimplants:  "Don't confuse the gel with the shell."  And Lora Park, Asst. Prof in the Department of  Psychology,  will discuss "Self Esteem  and Physical Attractiveness.”  A box lunch will be provided for the first 50 guests--feel free to attend part or all of the program!

Sciences keynote speaker Sue Rosser, Dean and Professor, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, Georgia Institute of Technology will give a seminar on "The Science Glass Ceiling: Academic Women Scientists and the Struggle to Succeed."  Dr. Rosser, who is an expert on the NSF ADVANCE program, will also meet with faculty who have been involved with ADVANCE applications.  Dr. Rosser's seminar explores the responses of 450 women scientists and engineers to e-mail questionnaires that reveal the obstacles, barriers, as well as the encouragements the women face from to some of the obstacles, such as policy changes that might transform the cultures at both small liberal arts colleges and larger research institutions to enhance their careers. 

  Visiting speaker Dawn Martin-Hill, Ph.D. will present her documentary "Onkwa'nistenhsera: Mothers of Our Nations," chronicling the struggle of Indigenous women to reclaim the knowledge of their foremothers and to end violence against women.  Loriene Roy, the President-Elect of the American Library Association, will discuss her work on information access, literacy and education of indigenous communities, especially issues relating to women. 

Jennifer Morgan, Ph. D., Associate Professor of History and Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, will present on her work as a highly regarded scholar of women and slavery in colonial America and the Caribbean.  UB Assistant Professor Yoshiko Nozaki, Educational Leadership and Policy, will showcase her research on "The Japanese Textbook Controversy over the Military 'Comfort Women': History, Epistemologies, and Peace & Justice Education". 

The Graduate Student Committee will sponsor the second annual Liberation Bake-Off, calling all kitchen wizards to free themselves and others by sharing their favorite baked goods and recipes.  All entries will be sampled in the Student Union Lobby and prizes will be awarded to the most liberating item.  Please contact Susannah Bartlow at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to participate.

The Gender Institute will also co-sponsor HUMAN TRAFFICKING, the Humanities Institute Conference to be held October 26-27, 2007. Our support for a conference covering a very gendered topic is given as part of the Gender Institute's 10th anniversary celebration.  The conference seeks to examine the known and forgotten histories as well as the present new forms of human trafficking in its manifold manifestations, ranging from slavery, sex traffic, forced and child labor, the recruitment of child soldiers, and migration, to international adoption and trading in body parts. 

All Gender Week events are free and open to the public--we hope to see you there!