Greetings Friends & Colleagues,
We are writing to you on behalf of the Conference Organizing Committee to inform you of:
The University of Ontario Institute for Technology ~ School of Social Science & Durham College ~ School of Justice Studies - First International Human Rights, Critical Race Theory & Social Justice Conference: October 26-28, 2005 at the Renaissance Hotel in the Rogers Centre (formerly the SkyDome), downtown Toronto.
The conference will address a range of critically important themes relating to Human Rights, Critical Race Theory & Social Justice in Canada , the USA , the academy, the courts and the wider community. The primary objective of our conference, is to bring together researchers, scholar activists, scholar student activists, human rights activists and compliance specialists, educators, the legal community, community organizations, government representatives, and community activists. Our coming together is (a) to further engage activists from the margins to the center, to contribute too and further validate the model of scholar activism in universities, advocacy & legal education aimed at eliminating racism, and sexism through liberating human rights educational tools, theory, practice and research; (b) to examine or explore how we may research and live human rights and what a human rights, critical race theorist and social justice agenda and culture might look like; (c) how can we build an inclusive human rights, critical race theory, social justice and peace movement, through dialogue with others who are different from ourselves, respect each other and be respected in return and (d)To build a human rights culture and research links agenda across universities and community alliances.
On October 26th, we welcome you with a lecture by world leader Professor Franklyn Griffiths, followed by a wine and cheese. Professor Griffith's lecture is titled "Civilization and Civility Reconsidered". This address aims to encourage new thinking about human rights, race, and social justice. It does so by critiquing the idea of "civilization" and by urging a renewal of "civility" upon what we are pleased to call Western civilization. The argument unfolds in four stages. First, I examine the origins, in 18th-century Europe, and then some key functions of the idea of "civilization." Second, I consider what we may have lost not only in opting for "civilization" but in setting "civility" aside, which is what we did, as the ideal of Western society. Third, I look at 21st -century reasons for recovering a civility based not so much on shame and fear of being shamed, as on a historical commitment to duty and to diversity, diversity in the natural environment very much included. In conclusion, implications will be offered for thinking anew about the main themes of the conference. As Emeritus of Political Science (UT), Franklyn Griffiths' research and policy interests include Russian and international security affairs, politics in the circumpolar North, and cultural diversity. Among his publications are Khrushchev and the Arms Race (coauthored, 1966), Interest Groups in Soviet Politics (co-edited, 1971), Politics of the Northwest Passage (edited, 1987), Arctic Alternatives: Civility or Militarism in the Circumpolar North (edited, 1992), Strong and Free: Canada and the New Sovereignty (1996), and Built to Last: Conditionality and What It Can Do for the Disposition of Excess Russian Weapon-Grade Plutonium (2002).
At various times he has been Director of the University of Toronto's Centre for Russian and East European Studies, Senior Policy Adviser in the Office of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Visiting Professor at Stanford University, Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and Ignatieff Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto . His consultancies have included the Aga Khan Foundation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada), the Walter and Duncan Gordon Charitable Foundation, and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. Currently he is working on a book about civility and civilization in world politics.
On October the 27th, our keynote address, will be delivered by one of the worlds' leading scholar/thinker on the conference theme. She is no other than, Professor Kimberle Williams Crenshaw - Civil Rights Activist/ Feminist & Professor Franklyn Griffiths. Professor Crenshaw is a Professor of Law at UCLA and at Columbia Law School. Writing in the area of civil rights, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law, her articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, National Black Law Journal, Stanford Law Review and Southern California Law Review . She is the founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory Workshop, and the co-editor of a volume, Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement. Crenshaw has lectured nationally and internationally on race matters, addressing audiences throughout Europe , Africa and South America. She has facilitated workshops for civil rights activists in Brazil and constitutional court judges in South Africa. Her work on race and gender was influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the South African Constitution.
In 2001, Crenshaw authored the background paper on race and gender discrimination for the United Nation's World Conference on Racism. She also served as the Reporter for the Expert Group on Race and Gender, and coordinated the NGO forum to facilitate the inclusion of gender in the WCARConference Declaration. In the domestic arena, she has served as a member of the National Science Foundation's committee to research violence against women, and has assisted the legal team representing Anita Hill. In 1996, she co-founded the African American Policy Forum to highlight the centrality of gender in racial justice discourses. Crenshaw is also a founding member of the Women's Media Initiative and is a regular commentator on NPR's "The Tavis Smiley Show." She was twice awarded Professor of the Year at UCLA Law School and received the Lucy Terry Prince Unsung Heroine Award, presented by the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, for her groundbreaking work on Black women and the law.
Crenshaw received a BA from Cornell University, a JD from Harvard University, and a LLM from the University of Wisconsin . Her topics include, Thieves in the Night: How we Lost our Civil Liberties under the Threat; The Matrix: Just Science Fiction? Think Again!; The Intersectional Paradigm: Race and Gender in Work, Life, and Politics.
In addition, there will be numerous paper, colloquium and workshop presentations by researchers community activists, and practitioners. Participants are also welcome to submit presentation proposals, either as 60 minute workshop or jointly presented 90 minute colloquium sessions.
Presenters may choose to submit written papers for publication before or after the conference to be included in a conference report, in the form of a kit. Parallel sessions are loosely grouped into streams reflecting different perspectives or disciplines.
We are presently working with publishers for conference papers to be published both electronically and in print form. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication, as well as access to the electronic version of the conference proceedings. The deadline for our first round of call for papers/workshops is August 31, 2005. Proposals are reviewed within three weeks of submission.
Full details of the conference, are to be found at the conference website. http://uoit.ca/~crhr.
We do hope you will be able to join us in downtown Toronto at the Renaissance Toronto Hotel at the Rogers Centre in October 2005.
Yours Sincerely,
|
