The Scholar and Feminist Conference: Fem

For fifty years, the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s Scholar and Feminist conference has provided a vital forum for leading feminist thinkers to test ideas and ignite debates on the most pressing issues of their time. This course offers a special opportunity for students to engage with the Scholar and Feminist at a historic moment: in February 2026, BCRW will host the 50th conference. We will use the history of the Scholar and Feminist conference as a guide to trace the making of feminist knowledge over the past fifty years. In addition to reading about the scholarly context of the conference, students will do archival work in preparation for attending and analyzing the anniversary gathering. Students will engage with key feminist debates that have been part of the conference’s history. They will consider how conferences function as spaces of research production and movement-building, exploring how the lessons of past controversies and solidarities can inform feminist scholarship and action in the present. Readings will draw from BCRW’s Scholar & Feminist Online and the Barnard archives, alongside key theoretical feminist texts, to consider how movements, controversies, and institutional struggles have shaped the field. Together, we will ask: how has the conference created new possibilities for scholarship and activism, and why are these questions urgent in a moment when feminist knowledge and institutions are under attack?