About the Series
The first annual Women Studies colloquium was held March 22-24, 2000. With the support of the Alice McLellan Birney Women Studies Fund, the cross-disciplinary study area in Women, Gender, & Sexuality presents a colloquium each spring in connection with Women’s History Month. Since 2000, the WGSX Colloquium has become an established tradition at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. This successful annual program has regularly drawn large audiences to events that have offered powerful interdisciplinary combinations of scholarly discourse and artistic expression (including film screenings, theatrical performances, and exhibitions) to discuss a topic critical to women’s lives.
THIS YEAR’S THEME – The Joy of Resistance: Finding Hope in Activism
The colloquium (March 19-20, 2025) will focus on transformative justice and pleasure activism. While activism is often paired with organized mass protest, a topic we have addressed during previous colloquia, this time we propose to explore the question of “how do we find hope and joy in the face of hopelessness and injustice?” Our starting point is Grace Lee Bogg’s motto, “We must transform ourselves to transform the world.”
2025 WGSX Colloquium Committee: Ximena Postigo-Guzman and Betül Basaran (co-chairs)
WGSX Coordinator: Argelia González Hurtado
EVENTS
“Mycelial Methodologies: What fungi teach us about interconnected approaches to collaborative and creative practices”
Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez
Wednesday, March 19 | 4:45 – 6:00 pm
Cole Cinema, Campus Center
“Resentment and Repair”
Sukaina Hirji
Wednesday, March 19 | 7:30 – 9:00 pm
Cole Cinema, Campus Center
Margaret Brent Lecture and Award Ceremony: “Already Free: The Courage and Joy of Fugitive Practice”
Autumn Brown
Thursday, March 20| 4:45 – 6:00 pm
Nancy R. and Norton T. Dodge Performing Arts Center Recital Hall
What if a vibrant, multiracial movement for justice is within our grasp? What practices make it possible for us to not only build this movement, but to be its courageous membership? In this lecture, Autumn Brown will illuminate a pathway to cultivate mutual resilience in our organizing and community work, so that we can more effectively resist the ideology of racial capitalism and racial practice. From her depthful study of fugitivity, Brown will offer a set of practices for moving in formation, sustaining human connection as we navigate a time of rapid change, and most importantly, refusing the politics of despair.
Student Talkback
SMCM’s students and the guest speakers
Thursday, March 20 | 7:30 – 9:00 pm
Cole Cinema, Campus Center