Chris Banyas
Life Editor
Idaho State University is home to students from over 60 countries, each bringing with them a wide variety of racial, ethnical and religious differences.
These students devote themselves to one or more of the courses of study offered by the many colleges representing all manner of disciplines.
All of these students from all of these places live and study harmoniously together, dealing with and overcoming whatever differences their dissimilarities may lead to.
But there is another aspect of this population that represents a further diversification, one that will be the focus of the eleventh annual Gender & Sexuality in Everyday Life Conference.
“The conference has been going for 11 years, but we kind of revamped it last year,” said Stephanie Richardson, assistant director of the Janet C. Anderson Gender Resource Center. “It used to be just done by the gender center but we reached out to partner with the College of Arts and Letters and brought them in and with that it’s now an academic conference where we can focus on research in gender and sexuality.”
This new approach to the conference came out of the discussions of a small coffee group comprised of ISU faculty from different disciplines.
Mona Xu in psychology, Jeffrey Callen in political science, DJ Williams and Jeremy Thomas in sociology, and Amanda Zink in English all participated, along with Richardson.
The conference will take place March 5 and 6 and is co-sponsored by the ISU Cultural Events Committee.
In the early years, the conference was titled “The Art of Gender in Everyday Life” and featured various speakers who would be brought in as well as an art show.
Usually there is a cost involved with the presentation of materials at a conference, but here, it, like public attendance, is free.
Audrey Giles from the University of Ottawa will be the keynote speaker at the event.
“She does work with gender and indigenous persons in Canada. So a lot of her work is what we would call intersectional in the sense that it considers gender and sexuality, but especially gender and race, ethnicity and culture,” said Jeremy Thomas, assistant professor in the sociology department. “She’s worked with indigenous persons including some of the Eskimo groups.”
The conference is not limited to the students or faculty of ISU.
“In many ways we’re very much interested in involving and connecting with ISU across the board, so all different colleges, departments, different administrative units, students in all of those different groups,” said Thomas. “We’re also interested in connecting with our local community, Pocatello and Southeast Idaho.”
When it comes to diversity, discussion is one of the essential avenues that different groups may utilize to interact with and learn about one another.
“We are also very interested in encouraging discussions about gender and sexuality across all of our units here at ISU,” said Thomas. “So while there is certainly a distinct academic focus, there are very tangible and applicable outcomes that we hope for especially along the lines of helping different groups understand one another and work together.”
For many, being on the outside and looking into the diversity that exists within gender and sexuality, especially in regard to the various labels, acronyms and groups, can be overwhelming.
“It should be understood, or it’s helpful to understand, that it’s not like the identities are used across the board in some consistent manner, but that different people feel more connected to particular descriptions,” said Thomas. “Our intent and a general intent in using some of those acronyms is to suggest that we’re open to a variety of self and or group interpretations and that we’re interested in a variety of perspectives.”
Abstract submissions are now being accepted and will be until Jan. 15, 2015.
Submissions should be emailed to ude.usinull@ocnegusi.
All submissions related to gender and/or sexuality will be considered and could include anything from spirituality and gender, to sex and the law, to gender stereotypes and gender roles.
