"Teaching Gender, Race, and Feminism in Troubled Times" WGSS Fall 2026 Series
The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department (WGSS) is pleased to announce its Fall 2026 Series, “Teaching Gender, Race, and Feminism in Troubled Times.”
Each lecture or film begins at 3 p.m. in Humanities 354. Live Zoom also available.
This series is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by the Department of WGSS, the New York Writers Institute, University Auxiliary Services, and other partners across campus.
September 14, 2026
New Tech, Old Biases: AI’s Impact on Gender, Race, and the Classroom - Mutale Nkonde, Founder of AI for the People
Mutale Nkonde is a researcher at the Center of Digital Humanities at Cambridge University and founder of AI for the People, a national non-profit that advocates responsible approaches to AI development.
As part of this work, she has taken part in advisory services to the Biden-Harris White House, Tik Tok and provided testimony at the United Nations. She also holds fellowships at the Berkman Klein Center of Internet and Society at Harvard University, the Digital Civic Society Lab at Stanford, and at the Oxford Internet Institute, at which she is now affiliated.
September 28, 2026
First They Came for My College (Patrick Bresnan, 2026)
This new documentary tells the story of the political right-wing takeover of the New College of Florida, the first public college to be “transformed by a political coup,” thus setting a precedent for academic censorship and political interference, specifically targeting interdisciplinary programs like Gender Studies, which was forced to close in 2023. This is both a cautionary tale and an inspiring lesson on how, despite these challenges, students and faculty still found ways to fight back.
October 5, 2026
Who’s Afraid of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies? Academic Censorship and the Targeting of Race and Gender College Courses – Amy Reid, Freedom to Learn Program Director of PEN America
Please join us for a talk by Amy Reid to hear about how direct and indirect forms of academic censorship are narrowing options for America's students.
Amy Reid is the Program Director for PEN America’s Freedom to Learn Program. She works with other PEN America staff and with colleagues from across the country to push back against government censorship in higher education. She is an ardent advocate for public education and the liberal arts.
Before joining PEN America, Amy was a professor of French language and literature and director of the Gender Studies Program at New College of Florida. In 2023 to 2024, she served as Chair of the Faculty and as the faculty representative on the NCF Board of Trustees, working to safeguard the principles of academic freedom in the Florida State University System. The story of the “hostile takeover” of New College is told in the 2026 documentary First They Came for My College.
October 19, 2026
What are We Teaching Toward? Black Feminist Pedagogy, Afrofuturism, and the Work of Possibility in Troubled Times – Aiesha Turman, Teaching Faculty of Writing and Critical Inquiry at the University at Albany
Dr. Turman holds an Interdisciplinary PhD with a major in Humanities and Culture with certificates in Creative Writing and Women’s and Gender Studies from The Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Her dissertation, There’s Always Been an Afrofuture: Black Women’s Literature as Technology of Protest, explores the Black feminist literary genealogy of Afrofuturism and is part of her broader interests in Black pasts as the key to Black Futures.
November 2, 2026
Beyoncé’s Lemonade Lessons: Pop Culture, Politics, and Pedagogy – Janell Hobson, Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany
Dr. Hobson holds a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from Emory University and has been teaching at the University at Albany going on 25 years. She is the author of three books, including Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture; Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender; and When God Lost Her Tongue: Historical Consciousness and the Black Feminist Imagination. She also writes regularly for Ms. Magazine, authored its popular cover story “Beyoncé’s Fierce Feminism” (2013), and is the current co-chair of the Ms. Scholars Committee as well as the guest editor of two Ms. projects: The Harriet Tubman Bicentennial Project (2022) and this year’s Founding Feminists series (2026). Dr. Hobson is currently working on a book project on Harriet Tubman and editing a new volume on Radical Refuge: A History of Home and Community Building as Black Feminist Praxis (forthcoming with Routledge in 2027).
November 16, 2026
Building Archives with Learning and Research Pathways in Women's & Gender Histories: A publisher's perspective
Nathalie Duval is Senior Director of Product Management for ProQuest Digital Collections, where she leads product strategy and development initiatives that support research, teaching and learning. She brings decades of experience working on digital collections with academic libraries, publishers, and scholars — including the National Archives in the UK, BnF, Ms. Magazine and Women and Social Movements — to develop and deliver digital resources that advance scholarship and student success. Nathalie holds a DEA (first year doctoral program) in Comparative Literature from the University of Paris, Nanterre and an MA in Publishing from New York University. She lives in upstate New York.
November 30, 2026
MA Final Project Fall Showcase – featuring two MA candidates completing their degree in WGSS in Fall 2026:
Gender-Based Violence in Public Transport and Crowded Spaces in Bangladesh – Sabrina Akhter Eva
Sabrina Akhter Eva is an international graduate student from Bangladesh pursuing a Master of Arts in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. Her research and work focus on gender, social justice, sexuality, migration, disability, accessibility, inclusion, and equity, with particular interests in gender-based violence, women’s experiences in public spaces, migrant communities and the experiences of Rohingya women. She is also interested in exploring how gender and sexuality intersect with displacement, migration, identity, disability, accessibility and access to rights and resources. Building on these interests, she will be joining the New York State Executive Chamber as a Health Equity Policy for People with Disabilities Intern, where she will support initiatives that advance health equity, accessibility and inclusion for New Yorkers with disabilities.
True Crime: Women in Trouble – A Feminist Pedagogical Intervention in Media Literacy and Criminal Justice Narratives – Katherine Owens
Katherine Owens is a graduate student in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, focusing on feminist pedagogy, public humanities, and community storytelling. As part of her MA work, she designed an undergraduate course, True Crime: Women in Trouble, which integrates feminist theory and criminology through collaborative, justice‑centered learning. She also works as a Learning Designer at L.L.Bean, where she brings more than twenty years of experience in people-centered leadership, HR and DEI practice to the creation of accessible, inclusive training materials. During her tenure at UAlbany, Katherine completed a semester-long research and public education project with the National Park Service’s Stonewall National Monument and remains committed to connecting academic inquiry with real-world practice in her Albany community.