Labor and Employment Research Fund

Over fifty scholars—researchers from all the UC campuses with Women’s Studies programs, professors from major Ivy League and state universities, and participants from Canada, Britain, Korea, and South Africa—came to UCSB for a three day conference on “Intimate Labor” the first weekend of October. In conjunction with the conference, Eileen Boris, the co-organizer, held a first-year seminar; the fifteen students from the seminar attended the sessions; so did graduate students and faculty from UCSB and other campuses (particularly UCLA and UCB) who were not on the program, as well as the general public for the opening keynote on Thursday evening and some plenary sessions. Overall attendance averaged 80 per plenary and keynote session, with the first two sessions—Thursday open keynote to the public hitting around a hundred persons and Friday morning keynote/first panel, over hundred to overflow into the corridors the McCune Conference room at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, where most of the conference took place.