Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

California University of Pennsylvania's Women's Studies Program is holding its second annual all-day conference on March 22nd, 2007. This year’s theme is “Women and Work: Changing Economic Influences on Families”. Pietra Rivoli, best selling author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power & Politics of World Trade, which served as a basis for a series on NPR, will be our keynote speaker. We will also have a statewide art contest and exhibition. Although papers on all topics of women’s lives are welcome, our focus will be on the ways in which changes in the workplace are and have affected women and their families in the United States and abroad. Our hope is to bring together scholars employing a variety of approaches to understand systems of patriarchy, inequality, and the experiences of women around the world, past and present. We are especially interested in scholarship examining connections between ideas of women’s “proper” role in the workforce and at home and the socially constructed nature of the “proper” family, especially as these expectations place women in a double bind. Therefore, we encourage contributions from scholars of diverse disciplines and all levels. Panel submissions, roundtables, and individual abstracts are welcome. California University of Pennsylvania is located about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. Please address all queries, submissions, and abstracts to Dr. Andrae Marak / marak@cup.edu / Chair, Audrey-Beth Fitch Conference on Women’s Studies /Women Studies Program, Box 6 /California University of Pennsylvania/California, PA 15419. The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2007.