FIT was a hosting partner in this year’s World Conference on Women’s Studies, April 25 to 27 in Bangkok. The conference, now in its fifth year, convenes hundreds of scholars—academics, activists, policy makers, influencers, journalists, and nonprofit leaders—from more than 30 countries to explore a range of issues related to women. This year’s theme was “Activism, Solidarity, and Diversity: Feminist Movements Toward Global Sisterhood.”
Melissa Tombro, professor of English and Communication Studies, helped plan the conference, reviewing papers and panels, writing elements of the printed program, and organizing panels. Tombro also delivered a lecture titled “Activist Writing: Participatory Writing and Protest Texts,” about the power of women’s writing as activism. She included work by FIT students who created activist and performative writing and participated in community causes.
Assistant professors Nada Ayad and Katelyn Burton Prager also spoke at the conference. In “Egypt as Other in Sudanese Literature: The Challenges of a South-South Conversation,” Ayad examined representations of Egypt in Sudanese literature set after Egypt’s independence from British colonial rule but before Sudan’s independence from Egypt. In “Authentication Error: Monetizing the Female Body and the Implications of Digital Gender Norms,” Prager investigated the rhetorical and ethical concerns of the Instagram influencer and the ways the gendered body has become a product.