“Imagining Ourselves: A Global Generation of Women”
A Symposium at Skidmore College ~ February 10, 2007


IMOWHosted by Skidmore College and the International Museum of Women, a global, web-based museum based in San Francisco, this symposium is designed to introduce the museum and its special online project, Imagining Ourselves: A Global Generation of Women, to an audience of Women's Studies directors, deans, teachers, students, and museum directors within our region and the immediate area beyond. 
 
The museum and the Imagining Ourselves project have exciting curricular and activist potential, the project asking a new generation of women “What defines your generation?” In the words of project director, Paula Goldman, the responses “draw upon the thought of young women worldwide to reveal a generation of women poised to take the reigns of global leadership like no other generation in history…[the project] seeks to unite and mobilize young women to make a difference…”

Paula Goldman will attend our symposium and address us regarding its goals and achievements to date. Moreover, we shall spend some time considering the opportunities and challenges presented by the phenomenon of a virtual museum, a subject which may be of particular interest to museum directors and which adds significant nuance to the aims of “Imagining Ourselves.”

The symposium has two primary objectives:

  • To introduce participants to the museum and to showcase the accomplishments of the Imagining Ourselves project. We believe this will be of considerable interest to those seeking to enhance global awareness within their curricula. We will ask participants to think in concrete terms about the ways in which the virtual museum and project might be used both inside and outside the WS classroom as an educational tool.
  • The project invites international interaction among young women. What does this mean? How do we do it? Symposium participants will strategize collectively about how to generate interest and activism among young women.

The symposium will take place on February 10, 2007, from 9:30 – 4:15, in the Tang Teaching Museum/Art Gallery on the Skidmore campus in Saratoga Springs, NY, 30 miles north of Albany. Skidmore College will provide lunch and childcare for those attending.