Announcements – Take Back the Night; Call for Papers on Hip-Hop and Motherhood; Jewish Community Stands with Domestic Workers

The Jewish Community Stands with Domestic Workers: The Shalom Bayit Public Forum

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal announce “The Jewish Community Stands with Domestic Workers: The Shalom Bayit Public Forum,” to be held on Thursday, April 23, 2009 @ 7:00PM at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, located at 257 West 88th Street, New York City.

Co-sponsored by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Uri L’tzedek, Congregation Kolot Chayeinu and many other Jewish communal organizations, this event will demonstrate the widespread support from Jewish leaders and the New York City Jewish community for domestic workers’ rights.

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice has been organizing with Domestic Workers United (DWU) for five years to pass the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in New York State, which has recently passed in both the Assembly and Senate Labor Committees. The Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights addresses the longstanding exclusion of domestic workers from labor protections, reflects the unique conditions and demands of the industry in which they work, and clarifies employers’ obligations. The passage of the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights will be a historic win for justice.

For more information, visit the Jews for Racial & Economic Justice Website or the Domestic Workers United Site.

Take Back the Night

COLUMBIA/BARNARD TAKE BACK THE NIGHT
April 16th, 2009
March starts at 9pm, Barnard Gates (117th & Broadway, NYC)
Speakout starts at 11pm, LeFrak Gym, Barnard College

“Tonight is a night of survival, in the most active sense of the word”
The mission of Take Back the Night March and Speakout is to break the silence about sexual violence by inviting the Morningside Heights community to gather together, as survivors, allies, family, friends, neighbors and strangers, to support each other and protest the violence that affects all of us. The march is an opportunity to re-claim the streets of New York City, the neighborhood of Morningside Heights, and the Columbia campus as safe spaces. After the march, we host a Speakout, during which community members speak anonymously about their experiences. The march is wheelchair accessible. Free childcare will be provided. ASL signer will be present during pre-march rally.

For more information contact TBTN.at.Columbia@gmail.com

Call for Papers on Hip Hop and Motherhood

Mothering and Hip-Hop Culture CALL FOR PAPERS FOR EDITED VOLUME

Demeter Press is seeking submissions for an edited collection by Maki Motapanyane and Shana Calixte to be published in 2011.

Motherhood is an experience that has been ever-present yet invisible in the global music genre of Hip-Hop. Yet this aspect of women’s experiences within the movement has garnered little or no interest from journalists, writers and scholars of Hip-Hop culture.

Nor do we have any understanding of how mothers who remain Hip-Hop enthusiasts negotiate their relationship to the culture of Hip-Hop and its music with their children. What are the spaces that motherhood occupies in Hip-Hop? Are there ways of understanding mothering in Hip-Hop along a historical continuum? What are some of the ways that motherhood complicates the very masculinist discourses around hip hop?

How can we create an empowered and feminist Hip-Hop mothering, what would it look like and how would it challenge the status quo? How are mothers engaging with Hip-Hop, both locally and globally?

The aim of this collection is to give motherhood within Hip-Hop culture an intellectual point of entry into an existing field of
academic debates. Themes that submitted proposals engage may include:

* Hip-Hop histories
* Masculinity
* Misogyny and violence
* Consumerism and capitalism
* The globalization and/or transnationality of Hip-Hop
* Cultural appropriation
* Political subversion
* Cultural diversity
* Feminist mothering
* Heterosexualities
* Queer identities and sexuality
* Aesthetic continuity and change
* Representation and the marketing of identities
* Other themes not mentioned here

We seek both creative and academic submissions that tackle the complex ways in which motherhood and Hip-Hop frame these and other discussions. Abstracts are welcome from a variety of academic disciplines and perspectives.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Abstracts: 250 words in length.
Deadline for Abstracts: August 1, 2009
Papers: 15-18 pages
Deadline for Papers: January 7, 2010

Please submit proposals to: Maki Motapanyane at maki@yorku.ca and Shana Calixte at scalixte@laurentian.ca