176 PERFORMANCE AND GENDER TO COLLIDE AT CONFERENCE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Nov. 28, 2006
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081


Discussions, Performance Art, Feminist Films to be Featured at MTSU Gathering

(MURFREESBORO) -- “Performing Gender” will be the embedded theme for the 2007 Interdisciplinary Conference in Women’s Studies Feb. 22-24, 2007 in the James Union Building. The conference, which is conducted once every two years, will feature noted speakers, a film series, performances and presentations of scholarly papers.
Jill Dolan, author of Presence and Desire: Essays on Gender, Sexuality, and Performance, and Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater, will be the gathering’s keynote speaker. Dolan’s work bridges the theory/practice gap through work in performance studies, queer theory, and post-structural feminism. Her blog, The Feminist Spectator, can be accessed at http://www.feministspectator.blogspot.com.
Marissa Richmond, historian and president of the Tennessee Transgender Action Committee, will be a featured speaker. Richmond will explore the many permutations of “Performing Gender” by discussing transgender history, highlighting the contributions of transgender leaders and organizations over the years. In 2002, Richmond received the Trinity Award from the International Foundation for Gender Education and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tennessee Vals, the largest transgender group in the mid-south.
A special feature of the conference will be playwright and performance artist Deb Margolin’s new full-length work. Margolin is a founding member of Split Britches Theater Company and has been awarded an OBIE Award for sustained excellence of performance and the Joseph Kesselring Prize for playwriting. She is the author of seven full-length performance pieces, which she has performed off-Broadway and throughout the United States.

Conference registration will be $75 ($85 on-site) for non-students and $30 ($35 on-site) for students, unemployed, and underemployed individuals. The conference fee will be waived for the students, faculty, administration and staff of MTSU.
For further information on the conference and registration, please visit
http://womenstu.web.mtsu.edu/ and click on “Women’s Studies Conference” or call the Women’s Studies Program at 615-898-5910.

--30--

ATTENTION, MEDIA: For photos of some of the principal speakers at the Women’s Studies Conference, contact Gina Logue in the Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.