Mapping Adoption

ASAC's fourth conference expands its concerns to include not only adoption in its many historical and cultural variations but also parallel institutions such as foster care, orphanages, and technologically-assisted reproduction, as well as various forms of forced relinquishment or family separation. Presentations will explore the cultural meanings and political locations of these practices and relationships among them through literature, film and other creative works.
The conference includes keynote presentations by Dan Chaon and Catherine Ceniza Choy; plenary panels on Transracial Adoption with Christine Gailey, Gina Marie Samuels, and Raven Sinclair, and The State and Family Separation with Jacqueline Stevens, Yali Lincroft, and David Smolin; films screenings of Made in India and Ask Us Who We Are; and a performance of the play, Blank, by Brian Stanton.
This conference is one of the many ways the Claremont Colleges seek to promote understanding of the experience and institution of adoption in relation to literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, law, political theory, cultural studies, and other humanistic disciplines. This is a forum for the presentation and discussion of artistic creation dealing with adoption and related issues in poetry, fiction, memoir, film and other disciplines.
Gabriela Grannis, program coordinator for the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children at CMC, says, "As a leading source of interdisciplinary research on issues impacting the intersection of work and family, the Berger Institute is pleased to be able to contribute to and collaborate with groups like the ASAC. The ASAC's creative discourse on adoption and related issues such as family construction is directly related to the work done by the Berger Institute, and we are happy to continue supporting its evolution and growth."