“Build as We Fight: Radically Reimagining Social Justice”

WGSS Group 2024 Image

The Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Portland State has a long history of merging activism, education, and scholarship. As LGBTQ+ lives and core feminist issues of reproductive justice are facing sustained attacks both nationally and globally, our work rooted in women of color and queer of color theory and activism is more vital than ever. With the support of a $100K grant from the Mellon Foundation as part of their Affirming Multivocal Humanities Initiative we will host a series of public talks and interdisciplinary events, capped by a symposium in Winter 2025 on the theme “Build as We Fight: Radically Reimagining Social Justice.” Our aims with this series are to revitalize our connections on campus and in the wider community and support radical programming that will create safe and cutting-edge spaces for LGBTQ+ folks and other marginalized communities to obtain identity affirmation, collective care, and knowledge. We invite you to join us as we imagine together more just futures for all.


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Melon Foundation Grant at the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Department

Past 'Build As We Fight' Events

Event Detail of Flowers

Crafting Resistance to Settler Colonialism EVENT

Title: Crafting Resistance to Settler Colonialism: Practices of  Solidarity Through Art

Guest Panelists:
Mona Huneidi filmmaker
Jenna Saadeh, embroidery artists
Smokii Sumac, poet
Sharita Towne, interdisciplinary community artist

May 23, 2024 @ 4 pm

Mellon Walk of the Heroines 2024

PSU WALK OF THE HEROINES 2024

Title: Dreaming Disability Justice in a Time of Genocide, Organizing and Hope

Guest Lecturer  Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

May 7, 2024 @ 4 pm

 

 

Mellon Found. Release Picture 2024

Embracing the Label “Ungovernable” through Queer and Feminist Resistance

Against the grain of “dominant culture,” Portland State University is creating space for identity affirmation, collective care, and knowledge sharing. 

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Students and professors in class

‘Build as We Fight’: Mellon grant will help PSU reimagine social justice in Pacific Northwest

Portland State’s Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies — one of the oldest programs of its kind in the Pacific Northwest — was born out of on-the-ground activism in the mid-1970s by students, faculty, staff and community members.Following a year marked by activism in 2020, the department...
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