News & Events
Care & Joy in Precarious Times Conference
Care and Joy in Precarious Times: The 3rd Annual WGSS Interdisciplinary Conference
The USF Department of Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality Studies invites the USF community to attend the Care and Joy in Precarious Times Conference on February 21, 2025, at the USF Tampa campus.
As Audre Lorde once wrote, Lorde was writing about living with breast and liver cancers and about her life and work as a queer Black woman. Honoring Lorde鈥檚 legacy in the contemporary moment asks us to rethink the possibilities of care and joy that emerge from authenticity, community, accountability, resistance, and resilience.
Care & Joy in Precarious Times asks us to rethink questions such as: What does it mean to care for the self? How can we care for ourselves and one another responsibly? In what ways does joy show up in times of precarity? What kinds of self-reflection and responsibility do these uncertain times call for? In what ways are care and joy acts of resistance or preservation? In what ways are acts of care and joy mutually constituted? In what ways can acts/outcomes of care and joy transcend embodied labor? In what ways might care and joy be politicized?
Important Dates
- Notifications of submission acceptance: January 21, 2025
- deadline: February 13, 2025 (registration is free)
- Conference: February 21, 2025
Keynote Event: Refuse & Reclaim with Sheree Greer and Slam Anderson
12:30-1:30pm
TECO Hall
An interactive poetry reading that invites you to refuse participation in oppressive systems and reclaim your sense of self, your identity, and your livelihood through self-care, play, and rest.
Sheree L. Greer is a writer, teacher, and arts administrator living in Tampa, Florida. She is the author of two novels, Let the Lover Be and A Return to Arms (both Bold Stroke Books). Her work has been published online and in print at the Bellevue Literary Review, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Burrow Press Review, LezTalk Anthology, VerySmartBrothas, Autostraddle, The Windy City Times, Bleed Literary Journal, Current: An Anthology for Jackson, Mississippi, Windy City Queer Anthology: Dispatches from the Third Coast, and others. In 2014, she founded Kitchen Table Literary Arts to showcase and support the work of BIPOC women and femme-identified nonbinary writers and poets. Sheree holds an MFA at Columbia College Chicago and is a VONA/VOICES alum, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice grantee, Yaddo fellow, and Ragdale Artist House Rubin Fellow. Her essay, "Bars" published in Fourth Genre Magazine, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and notably named in Best American Essays 2019, and her essay, "None of this is Bullshit" was published at The Rumpus and featured in "Memoir Mondays.鈥� A frequent collaborator with the 2nd Story Theatre Collective, Sheree teaches for several literary arts centers and organizations, namely The Porch in Nashville, TN, and Story Studio Chicago, where she serves as core faculty in memoir and was voted 鈥淚nstructor of the Year鈥� for 2023.
Slam Anderson is the Outreach Director for The Kitchen Table Literary Arts, a workshop facilitator, spoken word artist, slam poet and writer. Slam has competed in national and regional poetry slams in Charlotte, NC, Oakland, CA, Greensboro, NC, and others. She has presented at several child welfare conferences around the country including, the 2021 National CASA Conference in Seattle, WA, 2021 Office of Respondent Parents鈥� Counsel Annual conference in Colorado, Springs, the 2022 Texas CASA Lived Experience Conference in Denton, TX; the 2024 National American Academy of Pediatrics Conference in Orlando, Fl, and others. Slam is a graduate of the 最新天美传媒 (Tampa, FL) with a B.A in Creative Writing; and a current Graduate student in the Master of Social Work program. She is a native of Alachua/Gainesville, FL.
Conference Location & Time
Locations of TECO Hall (in DAC) and FAO 296.
The main hall for registration and the keynote event for the Care & Joy in Precarious Times Conference will be TECO Hall, located in the David C. Anchin Center on the USF Tampa campus. Conference panels will be hosted in TECO Hall and FAO 296.
The conference day will be from 9:00am-5:00pm.
Schedule
The conference schedule will be available here on by February 1, 2025.
Registration
for the conference. The Care & Joy Conference is free to attend.
Disability Accommodations
If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in a WGSS event, please contact us at 813-974-5520 at least five (5) working days prior to the event.