Session

Session 3. International Adoption

Chair, Frayda Cohen, Anthropology and Women's Studies, University of Pittsburgh

Barbara Yngvesson, Anthropology, Hampshire College, “Gifts and Returns: Transnationalizing the Family of Transnational Adoption”

Sara Dorow, Anthropology, University of Alberta (Canada), “'I’m not an alien’: Narrating Race, Space, and Kinship in Chinese Adoption”

Sandra Patton-Imani, Study of Culture and Society, Drake University, “Mother Lands and Racial Landscapes: Korean Birth Mothers and Korean American Adoptees Imagining Each Other”

Session 4. Adoption and its Challenges

Chair: Marianne Novy, English and Women's Studies, University of Pittsburgh

Signe Howell, Anthropology, University of Oslo. "Adopting and Raising Adopted Children in Norway."

Judith Schachter (Modell), Anthropology, Center for the Arts in Society, Carnegie-Mellon, "Circulating Children: Lessons from Hawaii for International Adoption:

Sally Haslanger, Philosophy and Women’s Studies, MIT, “Family, Ancestry, and Self: What is the Moral Significance of Biological Ties?”

Session 5.

Introduction: David Herring, Law, University of Pittsburgh.

Keynote: Dorothy Roberts
Law / Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, 
“Adoption and Culture: The Difference  Politics Makes”

Session 6. 1. Men Write Adoption Memoirs

Chair: Faith Adiele, English, University of Pittsburgh

Ralph Savarese, English, Grinnell College, from Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption

Peter McCullough, English Renaissance Literature, Lincoln College, Oxford University, “Opening Adoption Closets: Sexuality, Class, and Place”

Ned Balbo, Writing, Loyola College of Maryland, poetry and prose

Craig Hickman, from Fumbling Toward Divinity: The Adoption Scriptures

Session 6. 2. Adoption in Russia

Chair, Irina Livezeanu, History, University of Pittsburgh

Lilia Khabibullina, Social and Cultural Anthropology,   University of Barcelona, “Rethinking Family and Children in the Global Circulation of Russian Orphans”

Rick Wirick, from One Hundred Siberian Postcards

Robert McCall and Christina Groark, Office of Child Development, University of Pittsburgh, “Changing the Orphanage Culture to Improve Children’s Development”

Session 6.3 Adoptive Parents’ Language

Chair, Carol Singley, English, Rutgers University-Camden

William FitzGerald, English, Rutgers University-Camden, “Rhetorical Constructions of Identity in Transnational Adoption: Reading and Performing the ‘Waiting Period’ Online”

Juliette M. Ludeker, English, Purdue University,  “From Unplanned to Miracle: The Use of Metaphor in Adoption Webpages”

Miriam Klevan, Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, “Meant to be Ours: The Uses of Fate in the Narratives of Adoptive Parents”

Session 7.1 Open Mike

Chair: Jan Beatty, Creative Writing, Carlow University

Preference will be given to those not already on the program, then to creative writing by those on the program for scholarly writing.

Session 7.2 Opening Birth Records: FIlm and Memoir

Chair: Jill Deans, Office of National Scholarships, University of Connecticut

Jean Strauss, filmmaker, will show and discuss her film "Vital Records".

Ruth Nemzoff, International Studies, Bentley College; Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University, "How Feminism Changed the Adoption System"

Session 8. Evening of Adoption Memoir, Poetry, Film

Lead by: Emily Hipchen, English, University of West Georgia

Nancy McCabe, English,  University of Pittsburgh at Bradford;

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, English, University of Southern California;

Jeanne Marie Laskas, English, University of Pittsburgh;

Jean Strauss, filmmaker,  The Triumvirate; 

Sheila Ganz, from “Handbook on Healing for Birthmothers”; 

Jan Beatty, Creative Writing, Carlow University;

Mary Anne Cohen, editor, Origins: A Birthmothers’ Newsletter