Sonoma State University

Hidden Sonoma: Laboring Bodies and Silenced Voices

This year’s Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) Summer Institute will take place July 19 – July 22 at Sonoma State University, located in Sonoma County, an area internationally known for its rolling green hills and exquisite wine. The Sonoma region markets itself as a bucolic paradise, a place where one can temporarily escape the issues that, now more than ever, divide our country. There is, however, a hidden side of Sonoma. The ancestral home to the coastal Miwok, Pomo and Wintun peoples, Sonoma Valley is marked by a history of violence, persecution, and subjugation driven by a desire to control its fertile land. Those who own the land and those whose laboring bodies bear the burden of the industries that drive the local economy have shaped ­its history and social and political institutions. However, the value of the contributions that Chicanas, Indigenous, and Latinxs make to Sonoma systematically has been erased. The hidden side of Sonoma mirrors the situation of our gente in the rest of the country. Our bodies are exploited and trespassed and our bodily autonomy is subject to legislation. Our images are used strategically in a performance of diversity, but we are ignored when we decry this tokenization. Often, our attempts to challenge and expose our condition simultaneously are discounted and demonized. Yet, despite all the barriers that have been constructed to keep us in place, we have and will continue to resist, subvert, challenge, and transform.

The 2017 MALCS Summer Institute will showcase work and scholarship focused on gender non-conforming, transgender, queer, Chicana, Latina, Afro-Latina, Asian-Latina, Native American and Indigenous individuals and communities challenging and resisting structures of oppression in local, national, and international contexts. We welcome panels, roundtables, performances, workshops, and individual paper proposals that address this year’s theme and/or any of these topics:

• Intersectional feminismos
• Indigenous epistemologies
• Current political climate and action[s]
• Feminista praxis and epistemologies
• Land, spaces, and the body
• Re/Claiming truths
• Self-care and healing
• De/Coloniality
• Voice and resistencia
• Spiritual activisms

Individual paper and panel, workshop, roundtable, performance or art exhibit proposals must be submitted no later than April 14, 2017 (previous deadline was March 31, 2017). Proposers will be notified of acceptance by May 14, 2017. Questions about the submission process may be sent to institute@malcs.org.

All proposals must include the following:

• 250-word proposal narrative that clearly addresses this year’s theme
• 75-100-word abstract suitable for publication in the conference program book

Submissions for panels (3-4 people) must include proposals and abstracts for each paper and the name, address, phone number(s), e-mail address, and institutional affiliation of each participant.

Audio/visual needs.

Contact person’s name, address, phone number(s), e-mail address, and institutional/community affiliation.

Individual paper proposals may be submitted here. Panel, workshop and roundtable proposals should be submitted using this form.

Please note that you will have to login with your MALCS member email and password to access the submission pages. If you don’t remember your password, you can have it reset. If you are not currently a member, you can sign up for our sliding scale membership. If you are unable to afford membership at this time, please contact our Membership Coordinator.