Activities 2007-2008

October

Welcome Session

On the 2nd of October of 2007, a welcome session for GEMMA students and Professors was hold. The goal of the meeting was the overview of the courses and activities planned for the 2007-2008 academic year. At the same time, this meeting was also a good opportunity for students and lecturers to get to know each other and exchange their first impressions of the newly created Erasmus Mundus Master´s Course.

Feminisms without Borders Intercultural Week

Also, in October 2007 the Women's and Gender Studies Institute of the University of Granada organized the Intercultural Feminisms Without Borders Week where all GEMMA alumni were welcomed. The intercultural week aimed to analyze the cultural construction of gender from different perspectives, with the input coming from invited scholars of recognized national and international prestige in the field of gender studies. The inauguration session was given by Professor **Chandra Talpade Mohanty**.

Invited Scholar

Rosa Cobo Bedía, Lecturer at the Sociology Department at the Universidad de A Coruña, visited the University of Granada and argued the following topics within the Feminist Theory module (Teoría Feminista: Igualdad, Diferencia y Diversidad):

• “The Systems and Politics of Gender” (Los Sistemas y las Políticas de Género)
• “Theories of Globalization and the Women”. Multicultural and Multiethnic Diversity (Teorías de la Globalización y las Mujeres. Diversidad Multicultural y Multiétnica)
• Download the class materials (pdf)

November

The official launch of GEMMA

On the 14th of November 2007, GEMMA was officially launched in the central headquarters of the University of Granada, Hospital Real. Approximately forty people among those involved in the organization of the programme, local Coordinators and students who attended the event. The Director of the Women´s Institute of the Work and Social Affairs Ministry, Rosa María Peris Cervera, chaired the event together with the Vice-rector of the International Relations Office of UGR, Manuel Díaz Carillo, and the Commissioner for the European Higher Education Area, Antonio Sánchez Pozo; the Director of the Women´s Studies Institute of the UGR, Pilar Ballarín Domingo; the Coordinator of GEMMA, Adelina Sánchez Espinosa, and the Co-director of the project, Margarita Sánchez Romero.

Invited Scholars

Stella González Arnal, lecturer the Gender Studies Department of the University of Hull (United Kingdom), lectured on the following topics within the Feminist Theory module (Teoría Feminista: Igualdad, Diferencia y Diversidad)::

• Masculinity (Masculinidad)
• Theories of Identity: Black Feminism (Teorías de la Identidad: Feminismo Negro)
• Theories of the Sexual Difference (Teorías de la Diferencia Sexual)
• Postmodernism and Feminism. Butler (Postmodernismo y Feminismo. Butler)

Katherine O’Donnell and Mary McAuliffe, **, lecturers from the University College (Dublin), are part of the Women’s Education, Research and Resource Centre based in Ireland, were visitors in the Feminist Methodology module, part A.

• Katherine O’Donnell gave a conference on Feminist Standpoint Theory:
• Download the materials (pdf)
• Mary McAuliffe gave a conference on Methodology, Gender, Collective Memory and History.
• Download the materials (zip)

January

Invited Scholars

Mª Socorro Suárez Lafuente and Isabel Carrera Suárez, professors and members of the Women´s Studies Seminar and Coordinators of GEMMA at the University of Oviedo, visited GEMMA Granada within the Feminist Methodology module in its part B. Professor Suárez taught Cultural and Intersectional Reading of Texts and Images from the perspective of feminist postmodern theories (Lectura Cultural e Interseccional de Textos e Imágenes). Professor Isabel Carrera gave classes on the reading of texts and visualization of images from the feminist postcolonial theories.

February

Invited Scholars

Feminist Methodology module part C, coordinated by Carmen Gregorio Gil, hosted Dr. Assumpta Sabuco I Cantó, from the Social Anthropology Department of the University of Seville, who gave a conference on visual ethnography.

The same module also hosted Paloma Ruiz Román, lecturer at the University of Granada and member of the research group “Otras Perspectivas Feministas en Investigación Social”, whose conference subject was ciberfeminism and net-art (Ciberfeminismo y Net-Art).

March

Visiting Scholar

Montserrat Cabré, from the University of Cantabria, gave two lectures within the Gender, Body and Women in History: Health Practices and Scientific Discourses XVI-XX century course (Género, Cuerpo y Mujeres en la Historia: Prácticas de Salud y Discursos Científicos, Siglos XVI-XX) whose Coordinator is Dr.Teresa Ortiz from the University of Granada. The lecture titles were:

• The Construction of Sexual Difference in the Origins of the Institutionalization of Medical Knowledge: Theories on the Body of a Woman. Female Authorship and Authority in the Medieval and Modern Medicine. (La Construcción de la Diferencia Sexual en los Orígenes de la Institucionalización del Saber Médico: Teorías sobre el Cuerpo de la Mujer. Autoría y Autoridad Femenina en la Medicina Medieval y Moderna).
• Women´s Caregiving and Relations of Authority. Mothers, Godmothers, Matrons and Midwives: the Assistance at Giving Birth in Medieval and Modern Europe. (Los Cuidados de Salud de las Mujeres y la Relación de Autoridad. Madres, Comadres, Madrinas y Matronas: La Asistencia a la Maternidad en la Europa Medieval y Moderna).

April

Invited Scholar

Dr. Pilar Ballarín, coordinator of the Women´s Education in Contemporary Spain elective course, invited Ana Sánchez Bello, PhD in psychopedagogy and professor of the Faculty of Education at the University of A Coruña. The title of professor Sánchez Bello´s class was the Reproduction of the Sex-Gender System in the Educational Context (Reproducción del Sistema Sexo-Género en el Contexto Escolar).

May

Invited Scholar

Amalia García Pedraza, PhD in History and the archiver of the Ilustre Colegio Notarial de Granada, organized the visit to the Historical Protocol Archive of Granada, an extracurricular activity within the practical part of the Gender, Class and Race in the Colonial America course, coordinated by professor Mª Ángeles Gálvez Ruiz. The visit to the archives provided an insight on the types of documentary resources and the documental typology of the specific area of women´s history studies.

June

Visiting Scholars

Teresa del Valle Murga, lecturer at the Department of Philosophy of Values and Social Anthropology at the University of País Vasco, was another distinguished scholar invited by Carmen Gregorio Gil, coordinator of the Feminist Methodology course (Metodologías Feministas). Her seminar, titled “Etnography in the Memory (Etnografía de la Memoria)” focused on reviewing feminist perspectives in social anthropology.

• Download the class summary (zip)

Guided Visit to the Alhambra

Ana Hernández Walta, MA in Fine Arts and collaborator of GEMMA in the coordination office at the University of Granada, was in charge of guiding students and lecturers in approaching the Alhambra in a very special  and feminine way.

“Feminine Spaces” are environments created for and occupied by women such as the harem, the Queen’s Dressing Room (Torre del Peinador de la Reina), the Tower of the Captive (la Torre de la Cautiva) or the Tower of the Princesses (la Torre de las Infantas). But there is also another approach to this magnificent monument, where looking and understanding the words that run across the walls lead us to understand the feminine nature of the purple Alhambra of the Sultan, being the latter the male element of the poetic binomial. In wandering through the Alhambra and reading fragments of feminine poetry, both GEMMA students and lecturers had the opportunity to experience the symbiosis between poetry and the architectural symbolism: being able to become familiar to this unknown conception of the Alhambra.