Tag Archives: ASAIK

SECRET HISTORIES, PUBLIC POLICIES: LAST CALL FOR PAPERS

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Secret Histories, Public Policies Mark your calendars! The 3rd Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture Conference: Secret Histories, Public Policies will be held at MIT, April 29-May 2, 2010. This will be THE adoption conference. It’s not too late to submit proposals, either. Below are details. Deadline is September 1, 2009. Conference website is here See you there! Conference date: April 29 – May 2, 2010 note new dates!at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 Proposal deadline: Sept. 1, 2009 Organized by the Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture Conference Organizers:Sally Haslanger (MIT), Marianne Novy (University of Pittsburgh), Charlotte Witt (UNH) Adoption has often, though not always, involved secrecy. How has secrecy or openness affected the history, experience and representations of adoption? •How have literature and film portrayed the impact of secrecy and disclosure on adoptees, birthparents, adoptive parents? What is the impact of recent revelations of secret histories in memoir, books such as The Girls Who Went Away, documentaries such as First Person Plural? •How and why did adoption secrecy, and the practices it hides, develop differently in different cultures, countries, and even different states? Where are alternatives to secrecy practiced and how Continue Reading →

AN ANTIDOTE FOR ADOPTION POLITICAL BOREDOM SYNDROME: THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF ADOPTION, IDENTITY, AND KINSHIP CONFERENCE

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I’ll be busy the next couple weeks, but I’ll be checking in. I am, dare I admit it? Conference hopping ! Next week I’ll head out for Pittsburgh to attend the 2nd conference of the Association for the Study of Adoption, Identity and Kinship– Encountering New Worlds of Adoption. Two years ago at the first conference at the University of Tampa I presented a paper on the representation of first mothers in film–Where We Came From– which you can find in the DB November 21, 2005. (Blogger doesn’t do its own links very well.) Later it was published in the PACER Newsletter (Post Ado9ption Center for Education & Research). Speakers and presenters this year include BJ Lifton, Lorraine Dusky, Sandra Patton-Imani, Jill Deans, Emily Hipchen and Bastardette’s old friend, Craig Hickman. (I also wrote about this conference on December 15, 2006) Viewing adoption through literature and art gives a whole new perspective and meaning to just how screwed up adoption really is. I mean, one only has to read (or better yet attend) an Albee play to see that. I am especially interested in Sally Hanslanger (Philosophy and Women’s Studies, MIT), “Family, Ancestry, and Self: What is the Moral Significance Continue Reading →