WGSS Student Research Symposium

What is the WGSS Student Research Symposium?

The WGSS Symposium is a day-long program featuring student scholarship, creative work, and ideas underrepresented in Illinois State University’s traditional curriculum. Graduate and undergraduate students have the opportunity to share their research with other students and faculty from the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and affiliated departments. The Symposium accepts works related to the study of women, gender, and sexuality, as well as intersections with race, class, coloniality, and other forms of difference.

Students who present at the Symposium:

Add their presentation experience to their resumes and graduate school applications
Network with faculty and students from other departments and universities
Receive scholarly feedback on their research

All events are free and open to the public. For more information please contact Jamie Anderson.

Event Information

Friday, April 24, 2026 - Bone Student Center's Circus, Old Main, and Founders Rooms, 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM

Abstract Submission Form for 2026 Symposium

Registration will open soon.

The 29th Annual Symposium:

"Queer Extinctions: Or Learning How to Last"

Sarah Ensor symposium keynote

2026 Keynote Speaker Sarah Ensor

Sarah Ensor is an Associate Professor of English at UW–Madison, where she is also a faculty associate in the Nelson Institute’s Center for History, Culture, and Environment. Her work engages the intersections between queer and environmental thought in American literature from the nineteenth century through the present. Her most recent book, Queer Lasting: Ecologies of Care for a Dying World, asks what contemporary environmental thought’s seemingly necessary emphasis on the future has rendered unthinkable, and looks to scenes of queer extinction for alternate grammars of continuance and care. With Susan Scott Parrish, she co-edited The Cambridge Companion to American Literature and the Environment, which was published in 2022. Before arriving in Madison, she was an Assistant Professor of English at Portland State University and the University of Michigan.

Climate and Inclusion Statement

The organizers of The Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Student Research Symposium are committed to providing a harassment-free symposium experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, national origin, ethnicity, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference at the discretion of the conference organizers.

Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

Verbal comments that reinforce social structures of domination related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, ethnicity, religion
Sexual images in public spaces
Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following
Harassing photography or recording
Sustained disruption of talks or other events
Inappropriate physical contact
Unwelcome sexual attention
Use of a recording device (mobile phone, camera, etc.) to capture images or presentations, chats, demonstrations, etc. taking place during the annual conference
Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior

Land Acknowledgement

Illinois State University was built on and has benefitted from the land stolen from multiple Indigenous Nations. These lands were the traditional birthright of Indigenous Peoples who were forcibly removed and dispossessed of their land by settlers. Normal, IL is on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskasia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe Nations. As settlers, we recognize that we have a responsibility to continue to learn, teach, and understand Indigenous histories and present-day realities as they pertain to these Nations as well as to confront the ongoing violence of settler colonialism.

The WGSS Symposium is sponsored by:

The Alice and Fannie Fell Trust
Harold K. Sage Fund
College of Arts and Sciences
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program

Group of people celebrating WGSS 50th anniversary around a table with a commemorative cake.

A group of people talking at a round table in an indoor setting.

Past University Research Symposia

WGSS Digital Poster Collection

2025 WGSS Symposium

Keynote Speaker Dr. Nada Elia

Friday, April 25, 2025
Prarie Rooms, Bone Student Center

The Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Student Research Symposium is a day long celebration of student scholarship, creative work, and ideas that are underrepresented in Illinois State University's traditional curriculum.
All events are free and open to the public. For more information please contact Jamie Anderson (jlande4@ilstu.edu).

2025 Program Book Dr. Nada Elia's Profile