2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

The journal’s open-access Feminist Public Intellectuals Project brings feminist public intellectuals into conversation with academic experts, activists with scholars, in an effort to spark debate and critical feminist discourse. “Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism” examines books that have had wide-ranging impact, soliciting short commentaries from leading feminist public intellectuals and activists; “Currents: Key Concepts and Controversies” features essays by prominent scholars engaging a key concept or debate, which is accompanied by an expansive multimedia digital archive; and “Ask a Feminist” opens a dialogue between activism and academia on pressing political and social issues. Through this multipronged approach, the project endeavors to build a critical mass of feminist public intellectuals and to engage students through multiple media. 

Signs has also used digital techniques to reflect on the history of feminist scholarship: The fortieth anniversary virtual issue, Signs@40, features an interactive visualization of a topic model of journal’s archive, which allows in-depth exploration of the changes in the content of the journal over time, inviting new questions and interpretive possibilities while shedding new light on questions that have long animated feminist scholarship. 

Panelists will discuss how these projects use digital media to genuinely reimagine what role a journal can play in relation both to the academy and to activism, to reach new audiences and disseminate feminist knowledge more broadly, and to provide pedagogical resources that combine accessible scholarly content with other media.