UWM’s Women’s & Gender Studies is delighted to welcome Dr. Silvia Federici, professor emerita and Teaching Fellow at Hofstra University, as the Vilas Trust Speaker.

Silvia Federici is a feminist scholar, teacher, and activist. She was one of the founders of the International Feminist Collective, which in the 1970s launched the campaign for Wages for Housework. She has taught in Nigeria and was a co-founder of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa. She has also been active in the anti-globalization movement and the movement for the abolition of the death penalty. Her publications include

• Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation
• Revolution at Point Zero
• Re-enchanting the World. Feminism and the Politics of the Commons
• The Patriarchy of the Wage

Selected quotes from Dr. Federici’s work include:

“The history of Europe before the Conquest is sufficient proof that the Europeans did not have to cross the oceans to find the will to exterminate those standing in their way.”
― Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch

 “[V]iolence against women is a key element in this new global war, not only because of the horror it evokes or the messages it sends but because of what women represent in their capacity to keep their communities together and, equally important, to defend noncommercial conceptions of security and wealth.”
― Silvia Federici, Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women

 “But the main reason why we cannot enjoy the pleasure that sexuality may provide is that for women sex is work. Giving pleasure to man is an essential part of what is expected of every woman.”
― Silvia Federici, Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle

If you are interested and want to learn more, mark your calendar!  Friday, December 3, 2021 at 3:30pm, via Zoom.  Registration is required.