More than 70 speakers and presenters from around the world will be part of Media, Gender and Religion, a University of Colorado Boulder conference to be held Jan. 7-10.
CU-Boulder’s Center for Media, Religion and Culture (CMRC) will host the conference. All plenary sessions are free and open to the public with no registration required. They will be held at Old Main Chapel and the Center for Community on campus.
“At a time when religion is at the center of public debate, this conference brings together renowned scholars to explore a range of issues related to the politics of gender, sexuality, and identity in the media,” said center Director Stewart Hoover, a professor of media studies in CU’s College of Media, Communication and Information.
Scholars and experts at the conference will discuss a wide range of topics including purity culture and reproductive rights; Islamic piety and fashion in Indonesia; African American religions and youth culture; and Kim Kardashian and discourses of race, nation and empire.
Conference highlights that are free and open to the public:
Thursday, Jan. 7
- Sarah Banet-Weiser will discuss “Empowering the Gendered Body: Purity, Abstinence, and Reproductive Rights” at 6:30 p.m. in Old Main Chapel. Banet-Weiser is a professor and the director of the School of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
Friday, Jan. 8
- Monica R. Miller, a prominent expert on religion and hip-hop, will discuss “Chariots of the (Black) Godz? Virtual Omnipresence, Digital Demagoguery, and New OnLines of Flight” at 9 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 8, in the Flatirons Room at the Center for Community. Miller is an assistant professor of religion and Africana studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Saturday, Jan. 9
- Screening and panel discussion of the film Tales of the Waria about transgender women in Indonesia. The film will be shown at 9 a.m. in the Flatirons Room at the Center for Community.
- Kathryn Lofton, chair of religious studies at Yale University, will speak on “Kardashian Nation: Race and Empire in the American Family” at 6:30 p.m. in the Flatirons Room at the Center for Community.
This is the sixth international conference hosted by CMRC. It is co-sponsored by CU-Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information and Department of Religious Studies.
The conference Twitter hashtag is #cmrcgender2016. Learn more at the CMRC website. For more information about the conference, including a complete schedule, visit the conference website. Conference plenaries will also be livestreamed on this livestreaming webpage.
Find Center for Community directions and parking information. Find a map to Old Main Chapel. Paid parking is available on University Avenue north of Old Main.
Contact:
Stewart Hoover, 303-250-0576
stewart.hoover@colorado.edu
Deborah Whitehead, 303-408-2258
Deborah.whitehead@colorado.edu
Elizabeth Lock, CU-Boulder media relations, 303-492-3117
elizabeth.lock@colorado.edu
