John Meisel Graduate Seminar: "Activism/Academia: Social Justice in the Ivory Tower" - Alana Cattapan

2019-11-22 - Meisel Seminar Poster

About the Seminar: For scholars engaged in social justice research, navigating the ivory tower can pose unique challenges. In addition to publishing, presenting, teaching, mentoring, and working for one’s causes and communities, there can also be pressure to make change within the university itself. In this conversation-focused seminar (and Q&A session), Alana Cattapan will discuss her career-to-date as a feminist activist and interdisciplinary community-engaged researcher. The session will address time management, framing one’s work in ways legible to academic institutions, the benefits and limitations of “pushing back” against disciplinary norms, and the utility of activism as institutional labour.

About the Speaker: Dr. Alana Cattapan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. A longtime feminist researcher and activist, she studies gendered inclusion in policy making, identifying links between the state, reproductive politics, and the commercialization of the body. She is also a Board Member of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, and in the organizing group of Rise Up! A Digital Archive of Feminist Activism. Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, Dr. Cattapan was a faculty member at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan, and a CIHR Postdoctoral Fellow at Novel Tech Ethics in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University.  She is the co-editor of Surrogacy in Canada (Irwin Law, 2018).