Academic Forum 02. November 2011

International Conference: Strands and Plaits – Culture, Society and Environment

The Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (RIKK) at the University of Iceland, in collaboration with EDDA – Center of Excellence, will host an International Conference on 4-5 November 2011 to celebrate RIKK’s 20th anniversary and the University’s centennial. The conference is held in conjunction with the International Conference Bodies in Crisis, at the University of Iceland on 2-4 November 2011. Please click here to view the conference programme.

The conference is organized into 20 seminars with the interdisciplinary participation of scholars in women’s and gender studies. The conference will include a special focus on gender and the environment; gender and the economic crisis; gender and security; gender and health; gender, culture and the arts. To mark the occasion of the University’s centennial, panels will be held dedicated to the 100th anniversary of women’s rights to higher education and to hold public offices and to women’s contribution to the founding of the University of Iceland.

Keynote speakers are the following:

  • Joni Seager, Professor of Global Studies at Bentley University: Death by Degrees: Making Feminist Sense of the 2° Climate Change Target
  • Cynthia Enloe, Research Professor at the Department of International Development, Community and Environment, and Women’s Studies at Clark University: The Strauss-Kahn Affair: The Cultures and Structures of Masculinity
  • Beverley Skeggs, Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London: Rethinking Respectability: the moral economy of person value?

RIKK’s Anniversary Conference is the fifth conference on women’s and gender research to be convened at the University of Iceland. The first conference was organized in 1985 by a group of feminist academics working in the field of women’s research in Iceland. They later went on to found the Center for Women’s Research (now RIKK) at the University in 1991.

The conference is hosted in collaboration with The Center for Equality, Women’s History Archives, Institute of International Affairs, Institute for Sustainable Development, EDDA – Center of Excellence and the GEST – Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme at the University of Iceland.