Join GenCen on February 28 for our Graduate Student Gender Research Colloquium, featuring three PhD candidates who will present their research on gender, global communities, and environmental change.

View the event flyer here.

Join the event at this Zoom link.

Calling all undergraduate and graduate students: submit your writing, research, or advocacy efforts to win $300! GenCen's Paper and Activism Awards recognize students who have written papers or participated in other advocacy work relating to women, gender, and social justice.

Learn more and apply on our website.

We are excited to announce the 2025 Abbott-Haskins Endowed Speaker: Dr. Debanuj DasGupta (Dept. of Feminist Studies, UC Santa Barbara). On March 11, Dr. DasGupta will be presenting "Worlding/Possibilities: Queer Epistolary and Queer Refugee World Making During Disturbing Times."

This talk will highlight exchanges between two friends and across two different subject positions: a researcher who works on queer migrations and a one-time detainee as well as a undocumented immigrant; and a refugee escaping war in Syria and living in Buenos Aires. Both identify as gay, while one identifies as gender queer. They met during a research trip in Buenos Aires and remained in communication with each other while collaborating on a public humanities project. Their letters bear witness to each other’s struggles, gesturing toward the transference of trauma through painful life experiences. Along with letters, the friends exchanged handmade Zines, sketches, words, and airline boarding flights. This talk is a form of assemblage art which reverses the scripts of the global security apparatus that frames queer migrants only as victims worthy of saving. The objects assembled in this intimate archive reveals how, in their attempt to communicate the trauma of displacement to each other, the friends forge new emotional geographies, while seeking to build a livable life with each other.

Date: March 11, 2025

Time: 4:30-6 PM, with reception to follow

Location: MSU International Center, Room 302

Speaker: Mia Michael, Department of History, Wayne State University

Taking Boston, MA as a case study, Mia Michael unearths how supposedly "unorganizable" domestic workers and their allies blazed a trail towards systemic reform of household employment while influencing and exemplifying the broader revival of organized labor into the twenty-first century. 

All presentations take place in the Green Room, 4th floor, MSU Library from 12:00pm - 1:15pm ET, and are available as an online webinar at https://msu.zoom.us/j/97496813137. The password is odwodl.

Our Daily Work, Our Daily Lives

"Our Daily Work / Our Daily Lives" is a joint project that focuses on the artistic traditions of workers and on workplaces as contexts for the expression of workers culture. The richness and diversity of workers' experiences and workers culture is explored and presented through an ongoing series of exhibits, lectures, and presentations; writing and research projects; reunions; and demonstrations and discussions.

The program was established in 1992 and is coordinated by the Michigan Traditional Arts Program at the MSU Museum and the Labor Education Program in the College of Social Science's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations.

Ghassan Hage (University of Melbourne) will deliver the 4th annual Malcolm & Ann Kerr Muslim Studies Community Lecture, a presentation on “Colonial Moralscapes: The Production of Humiliation and the Struggle for Dignity.”

The HEAL Sexual Health Conference aims to bring awareness to and encourage sexual health scientific research along with community engagement and discussion. More specifically, it highlights the work of healthcare, education, and advocacy leaders in our Michigan community and beyond.

This year's focus is sharper, targeting the intersectional realities that shape individuals' experiences and the need to rewrite narratives that have long excluded or misrepresented marginalized voices. We are not just discussing sexual health in general terms; we are diving into the complexities of identity, culture, and experience, ensuring that every voice is heard and every story is valued. Through innovative formats, deeper community involvement, and a commitment to inspiring tangible action, this conference is setting a new standard for how we approach sexual health: one that is inclusive, equitable, and reflective of the diverse world we live in.

The HEAL Sexual Health 2025 Conference will take place at the MSU Union on Saturday, March 22nd, 2025 from 10 am to 6 pm.

Physical Address: MSU Union at 49 Abbot Rd, East Lansing, MI 48824. Parking will be available at the parking ramp near the Union, at 449 E Circle Dr, East Lansing, MI 48824.

For more information, check out the conference website or follow us on Instagram!

How do Arab American and Arab diaspora artists in the United States use their artistic practice to show solidarity with those facing socio-political injustices in the US and around the world? Join the MSU Broad Art Museum, the MSU Muslim Studies Program, and the Association for Modern + Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran + Turkey (AMCA) to learn more about solidarity and Arab American art histories at this symposium featuring presentations by artists, art historians, and scholars from around the world.

Space is limited, so we encourage you to register in advance for this free symposium. You may register for individual events or the entire program.

View the full symposium program here.

Register to attend in person. This symposium will be held at both the MSU Broad Art Museum and the MSU Libraries. 

Register to attend virtually. Please note that all panels will use the same Zoom link, which you will receive upon registering.

Classes over 25 students are invited to join the panels via Zoom.

Aesthetics of Solidarity is the 2025 Association for Modern + Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran + Turkey (AMCA) conference and the 18th Annual Muslim Studies Program Faculty Symposium. The symposium was inspired by themes in the exhibition Nabil Kanso: Echoes of War, on view at the MSU Broad Art Museum from Feb. 15–Jun. 29, 2025. The exhibition Entangled Solidarities, on view at the MSU Libraries from Feb. 7–May 30, 2025, also explores similar themes.

This symposium is a partnership between the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU Broad Art Museum), the MSU Muslim Studies Program, and the Association for Modern + Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran + Turkey (AMCA), in collaboration with MSU Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities, MSU Center for Gender in a Global Context, The Nabil Kanso Estate, and the Arab American National Museum.

Aesthetics of Solidarity has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom. Additional support for this convening is provided by the MSU Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant, MSU Humanities & Arts Research Program (HARP), the MSU Dr. Delia Koo Faculty Endowment, MSU Diversity Research Network Launch Awards Program, MSU Muslim Studies Program, MSU Asian Studies Center, University of Michigan Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC), MSU College of Arts & Letters Ad-Hoc Funding Request, MSU Libraries, and MSU Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Speaker: Samantha Smith, MSU Department of History

For many years, dancers and showgirls had union contracts with the American Guild of Variety of Artists (AGVA). Then in 1980, a full cast of dancers and performers with the "Casino de Paris" fought for unionized representation at the Dunes Hotel and Casino. What happened to the AGVA in Vegas, and what does the organization of dancers and showgirls tell us about labor issues in the postwar period?
 

All presentations take place in the Green Room, 4th floor, MSU Library from 12:00pm - 1:15pm ET, and are available as an online webinar at https://msu.zoom.us/j/97496813137. The password is odwodl.

Our Daily Work, Our Daily Lives

"Our Daily Work / Our Daily Lives" is a joint project that focuses on the artistic traditions of workers and on workplaces as contexts for the expression of workers culture. The richness and diversity of workers' experiences and workers culture is explored and presented through an ongoing series of exhibits, lectures, and presentations; writing and research projects; reunions; and demonstrations and discussions.

The program was established in 1992 and is coordinated by the Michigan Traditional Arts Program at the MSU Museum and the Labor Education Program in the College of Social Science's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations.