Several Clarkson University Professors have teamed up with two professors from Canadian Universities to organize an interdisciplinary symposium at Trent University from September 26 to 29.
Clarkson University Department of Humanities and Social Science faculty members Claudia Hoffmann, Lisa Propst, and Annegret Staiger and Psychology faculty member Jennifer Knack worked with Jenn Cole of Trent University’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and Sarah Kastner of Queen’s University’s English Department to deliver “Challenging Barriers of Expression and Promoting Social Change: Interdisciplinary Conversations on Power, Activism, and the Academy.”
The upcoming symposium brings together approximately thirty scholars, artists, and representatives of advocacy organizations, and it cuts across the disciplines of literature, film, theatre, digital arts, anthropology, history, and psychology, among others. This symposium is an opportunity for interdisciplinary and international conversations about contemporary and historical power inequalities and the resulting challenges for scholars and practitioners studying and engaging with vulnerable populations and silenced voices.
The symposium is part of the work of the Impossible Projects Working Group, an interdisciplinary group of emerging and established scholars whose work seeks ways to combat marginalization and inequalities. The Impossible Projects Working Group was formed in 2016 at a Clarkson David A. Walsh ’67 Arts and Sciences Mini-Conference that was organized by Clarkson faculty Jennifer Knack, Steven Pedersen, Lisa Propst, and Trent University faculty member Jenn Cole.
The event has been sponsored by the Clarkson University Vice President for Research and Scholarship, the Clarkson University Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Clarkson University Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Clarkson University Centre for Canadian Studies, the Trent University President’s Office, the Trent University Provost’s Office, the Trent University Vice President of Research and Innovation Strategic Initiatives Fund, the Trent University Dean of Arts and Sciences, and Catharine Parr Traill College.