An International Conference
Pre-conference Workshop | February 20, 2025
Beyond the Binary: A Workshop on Gender-Just Language in Language Instruction
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
5733 S. University, Chicago IL 60637
12:00 PM – Welcome and Registration
12:30 PM – Session 1
Worst-case scenarios
Facilitated by Celia Bravo and Ana Flavia Marcelino
In this hands-on session participants will explore strategies for addressing challenging scenarios that may come up when teaching gender-just language.
1:30 PM – Session 2
How to transform our teaching materials to be more inclusive
Facilitated by Alba Girons
We will look at some ways to create materials that include non-binary language at all teaching levels. Participants are encouraged to bring their own teaching materials for collaborative adaptation.
2:30 PM – Coffee Break
3:00 PM – Session 3
Collaborative Work to Change Teaching Practices
Facilitated by Bel Olid and Nico Portugal
Members of the Exploratory Teaching Group on the Inclusion of Non-binary Language at University of Chicago will present their work. Following the presentation, participants will explore how to create collaborating synergies to make our teaching more inclusive.
Snacks and beverages will be served
Conference Program | February 21-22, 2025
Friday, February 21
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts 915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637 Room 901
12:30-12:45 – Welcome!
Session 1: 12:45-2:45
Decolonial Intimacies: Reimagining Gender, Family, and Eroticism Within and Across Species Chair: Andrea Reed-Leal
- Leora Isabel Baum (University of Chicago) Embodying Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminism, Desire, and Politics in the Body in Contemporary Adaptations of Primero Sueño
- Tomas Siac (CUNY Graduate Center) To f*ck/grab Bini: an overlook of Marosa di Giorgio’s entanglements between fungi and humans
- Valeria Bogacheva (Duke University) Decolonizing Identity: Gender and Resistance in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s L’Enfant de sable
- Camille Froidevaux-Metterie (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne) De-gendering Pregnancy and Parenthood in order to reinvent Family
2:45-3:00 – Coffee Break
Session 2: 3:00-4:30
Transgressing Gender in French Literature Chair: Larry Norman
- Minyar Ben Taleb Ahmed (Sorbonne Nouvelle University / University of Tunis) Le franchissement des frontières des genres dans les textes d’Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam
- Julie Lamote Demeurs (Toulouse II Jean Jaurès University) ‘Madame née Secret’: Reversing the gendered norms of the French language in Jean Genet’s Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs
Keynote Address: 4:45-6:00
- Kiki Kosnick (Augustana College) Toward a Poetics of Gender-Just French: Queer Approaches to Reading and Teaching Innovative Literary Texts
Reception to follow at the Logan Center
7:30 – Dinner for Conference Participants (location TBD)
Saturday, February 22
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality 5733 S. University, Chicago IL 60637 Community Room
8:30-9:00 – Breakfast
Session 3: 9:00-10:30
Across the Binary: Translation, Gender, and Diasporic Negotiations Chair: Marie Berg
- Oriane Chevalier (University Clermont Auvergne) Feminist Translations of Chinese Poetry into French and Spanish: Judith Gautier and Marcela de Juan
- Igor Facchini (University of Bologna) Lost in a Binary Translation: Interpreting gender fairness from English into Romance Languages
10:30-10:45 – Coffee Break
Session 4: 10:45-12:15
Romance Language Pedagogy Chair: TBD
- Bel Olid (University of Chicago) Non-Binary Language in RLL Classes: Some Notes on Why and How
- Héctor García-Chávez (Loyola University) The “X” as a liberatory pedagogical tool in the Spanish language
12:15-1:30 – Lunch provided on-site for participants
Session 5: 1:30-3:00
(Playful?) Transgressions Chair: Carlos Halaburda
- María Inés La Greca (National University of Tres de Febrero) Queering our Tongue: Argentine Feminist and LGBTQ+ Activists against the Spanish Normative Gender Binary
- Rachel Galvin (University of Chicago) ‘ni ne ne ni ne na ni ná’: Linguistic Dissidence in Queer and Trans Caribbean Poetry
3:00-3:15 – Coffee Break
Session 6: 3:15-4:45
Language, Gender, and Global Entanglements Chair: Quentin Vaganay
- Atim Mackin (Harvard University) La romance en woubikan: genre et sexualité minoritaires dans le français ivoirien
- Devin Johnson (Indiana University, Bloomington) A Newfound Sense of Community: YouTube Comment Sections As “Safe Spaces” for Conversations on the Sociocultural Constraints of Senegalese Women
Closing Round Table: 4:45-5:15
The conference organizers gratefully acknowledge the support of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, the Center for Latin American Studies, the France-Chicago Center, the Pozen Center for Human Rights, the Logan Center for the Arts, and the Franke Institute for the Humanities. This event would not have been possible without their interest.
