2013: Switch Point Stories: Tales of Sex, Race, and Sexuality
This conference focuses on switch points among sex, race, and sexuality. It is called Switch Point Stories - instead of using the more conventional language of inter-sectionality - to call to mind the criss-crossing stories continually passing through an old-fashioned telephone switchboard. Panelists tell stories from a variety of disciplines, speaking in a variety of genres including memoir and spirituality.
Building on insights from preceding conferences at Santa Clara and Ohio State Law Schools on sex, race and sexuality, Switch Point Stories explores new approaches to inequalities in sex, race and sexuality by presenting a range of discourses that seek to address problems occurring at switch points among identity categories. Panels include legal academic discourse alongside stories from science, government, community organizing, and religion, often using memoir to illustrate the human impact of law and policy. As a whole, the conference strives to spark new understandings about how legal rules and practices collude with inequality, and what kinds of actions can improve government.
Sponsored by the Women, Leadership & Equality Program; LGBT Alliance; Black Law Students Association; Latino/a Law Student Association; Women's Bar Association; Law Students for Reproductive Justice; and the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class.