This lecture revisits a few themes in Buried in the Red Dirt: Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine (Cambridge 2022) given the contemporary historical moment. It considers legal dimensions of abortion in Islamic jurisprudence and in laws operable in Palestine from the British colonial period to the present; the continuing hyperbolization and targeting of Palestinian sexual and reproductive life; and contemporary sexual and reproductive healthcare for Palestinians, including abortion access, under colonization and genocide. Palestinians continue to recognize that their futurity depends less on the biological reproduction of specific families than reproduction of generations of collective memory and resistance, a reality that has intensified since 2023.
"Gender, Empire and Al" is a symposium and design workshop to both reflect on critical questions and design generative paths forward to addressing them. The day will start with a keynote by award-winning journalist and MIT alumna, Karen Hao, on her book "Empire of Al". Select MIT faculty will facilitate discussion groups to unpack problems outlined in Hao’s talk and possible solutions. Over lunch, we will hear from our second keynote speaker, Paola Ricaurte, who leads the Latin American Feminist Al Research Network and was named as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in Al in 2025.
In the afternoon, we will hold hands-on design workshops to tackle specific issues like reproductive justice, Al and propaganda, technofasciscm, and biases in medical imaging. Attendees will also have the option to propose and work on designs of their own creation. We believe that together we can solve complex issues and generate more just and feminist visions for Al and society.
Please join us in screening “Can I Get a Witness” followed by a Q&A with special guests!
Synopsis: Kiah has just finished all the high school she’s going to do and is getting ready for her first day on the job. She’s an artist and she’s actually got a gig as an illustrator. This kid named Daniel is going to show her the ropes. Her mother, Ellie, trying hard not to helicopter-parent, spends her days prepping to get ready for an empty nest.
It’s the future, and everything is beautiful. We’ve mitigated climate change. We’ve eradicated world poverty. We have true trans species democracy. All just by rolling back technology a little bit, and all humans agreeing to end life by 50. It’s not so bad. You have a great life, and you get to choose how you’d like to go… before you consume too much.
Please join us in the free screening of "the Right Track: true survivor journeys" followed by a Q&A session with special guests.
Synopsis: Through the eyes of those who live it, this documentary spotlights the fight to end sex trafficking and human exploitation across North America. At its heart is the Survivor Model—a transformative approach that decriminalizes prostituted individuals while imposing strict penalties on pimps, traffickers, and sex buyers.
Discover the courage it takes to escape “the life” on and off the track and the momentum needed to end sex trafficking for good. The Right Track is a must-watch for anyone invested in human dignity and justice.
Djamila Ribeiro will highlight black feminist authors in Brazil and examine how they contributed to breaking hegemonic standards in academic circles. Djamila will provide context about several racist myths in Brazilian history and how pivotal feminist authors helped debunk these fallacies.
Workplaces have traditionally been viewed as “straight spaces” in which queer people passed. As a result, historians have directed limited attention to the experiences of queer people on the job. Queer Career rectifies this, offering an expansive historical look at sexual minorities in the modern American workforce.
This talk will consider how contestation around science and medicine appears in litigation and the role of courts in validating controversial, and often incorrect, ideas about abortion from fetal personhood, maternal life, and the safety of abortion.
This talk traces the political power of motherhood and childrearing in Arabic thought between 1850 and 1939. It shows how writers used ideas about childrearing (tarbiya in Arabic) to address key issues in modern social thought, such as freedom, labor, and democracy.
Learn how symbols intersect to represent and unite through alter art. Lennon Hernandez Wolcott will discuss historical and cultural elements to create an Ofrenda (an Offering), through personally crafted mini ofrenda shadow boxes (Nichos) and review the elements for Día de los Muertos (water, wind, earth, fire). Each participant will be shown how to make elements of a Nicho box and then assemble them to create their own.
Please join us in this book talk with Prof. Bruno Perreau. In “Spheres of Injustice”, Perreau studies anti-discrimination policies and politics in France and the US. He shows that reactionary groups abuse the notion of minority by demanding to be protected just as minorities are, while the notion of a “protected class” risks at times encouraging competition among minorities and the very concept of minority is being transformed.