Northern Illinois University Law Professor to Present at International Conference on Law, Gender and Sexuality at Keele University in England

May 16, 2005 

DeKalb, IL-Northern Illinois University Law Professor Elvia Arriola will be among a select group of faculty from the United States presenting at the Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality. The Centre's second annual conference titled "Theorising Intersectionality," is sponsored by Keele and Kent Universities in England. The two-day conference will be held at Keele University from May 21-22 in Newcastle, England, just north of London. The conference aims to explore the social juncture where relations of gender or sexuality meet other social relations, including ethnicity, faith, race, age, disability, and class.
As part of a distinguished group of panelists, Arriola will present, "Unpacking Anzaldua's Mestiza Consciousness for a Latina Lesbian Legal Theory: Or Latinizing Robson's Lesbian Legal Theory?" Professor Arriola will explore the works of Professor Ruthann Robson, a lesbian legal theorist at the CUNY University Law School; Latina lesbians who broke ground for the voices of women of color in the eighties with such landmark studies as This Bridge Called My Back; and other related legal cases to show how Latina/o cultural attitudes about gender and sexuality impact the Latina lesbian community.

As an Associate Professor of Law at NIU, Arriola teaches gender and the law, constitutional law, civil rights litigation, and a research seminar on women, law and the global economy. She has been a member of the NIU Law Faculty since 2001. Her publications range widely on subjects that deal with civil rights, women, queer legal theory, and human rights. Arriola has been published in numerous law journals including the Harvard Latino Law Review, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, and Georgetown Journal of Gender and Law. She received her law degree from the University of California-Berkeley School of Law and her master's degree in history from New York University.

 
 
For more information, contact:
Melody Mitchell
Director, Alumni Events & Public Relations
815/753-9655l