The 26th Annual Colloquium on Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies: March 25–26

26th Annual Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Colloquium 

March 25 and 26, 2026.

With the support of the Alice McLellan Birney Women Studies Fund, the cross-disciplinary study area in Women, Gender, & Sexuality presents a colloquium each spring in connection with Women’s History Month.

About the Series

The first annual Women Studies colloquium was held March 22-24, 2000. With the support of the Alice McLellan Birney Women Studies Fund, the cross-disciplinary study area in Women, Gender, & Sexuality presents a colloquium each spring in connection with Women’s History Month. Since 2000, the WGSX Colloquium has become an established tradition at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. This successful annual program has regularly drawn large audiences to events that have offered powerful interdisciplinary combinations of scholarly discourse and artistic expression (including film screenings, theatrical performances, and exhibitions) to discuss a topic critical to women’s lives.

THIS YEAR’S THEME – Speaking Back: Language as Rebellion.

The WGSX Colloquium (March 25–26, 2026) centers on “Speaking Back: Language as Rebellion,” examining the power of language—understood broadly as speech, narrative, embodiment, symbolism, aesthetics, and cultural practice—as a catalyst for social change. The colloquium explores how language in its many forms shapes and reinforces gendered identities, cultural norms, and social hierarchies, while also highlighting how women and gender-diverse individuals strategically “speak back” to systems that marginalize or silence them.

Through critical dialogue and the sharing of scholarly, activist, and artistic perspectives, the event interrogates language’s dual role as both a tool of oppression and a powerful site of resistance, celebrating the creative ways communities reimagine meaning-making in their ongoing struggles for equity, justice, and freedom.

EVENTS 

Speaker: TBA
Wednesday, March 25 | 4:45 – 6 p.m.
Cole Cinema, Campus Center

Speaker: TBA
Wednesday, March 25 | 7:30 – 9 p.m.
Cole Cinema, Campus Center

Speaker: TBA
Thursday, March 26 | 4:45 – 6 p.m.
Cole Cinema, Campus Center

SMCM’s students and the guest speakers
Thursday, March 26 | 7:30 – 9 p.m.
Cole Cinema, Campus Center

For more information, contact the 2026 WGSX Colloquium Committee: Argelia González Hurtado and Samantha Wrisley (co-chairs), Stephanie Reyes and Brian Smithson.