Feminist Legal Studies Queen's
Winter Term 2026 Lectures
Monday, January 19, 2026
1-2:20 pm
In-person only event
Register here
Nadeen Awad | Articling Student, Savards LLP
Zinaida Miller | Professor of Law & International Affairs, Northeastern University
Lisa Kelly | Associate Professor, Queen's Law
Topic: The Children of Genocide
Abstract:
This talk brings social reproduction theory to bear on genocide. Drawing on scholarship that understands genocide not as a single catastrophic event but as a process unfolding over time, we examine how efforts to destroy a group operate through sustained attacks on the conditions and labour that make possible the reproduction of life, culture, and community. Placing children and childrearing at the centre, the speakers show how the targeting of education, family life, language, and land has functioned as a core mechanism of attempted group destruction in both the Israeli genocide against Palestinians and the Canadian genocide against Indigenous peoples. Drawing on Mai Taha’s concept of “insurgent social reproduction,” the talk also highlights how everyday practices of care, domestic labour, and nurturing life—especially under conditions of occupation—can become acts of political resistance and struggle against colonial and genocidal violence.
Bios:
Nadeen Awad is a recent graduate of Queen’s University, Faculty of Law (Class of 2025). Nadeen is currently articling at a prominent criminal defence firm in Toronto, where she is developing her advocacy skills and gaining experience in delivering compassionate, client-focused legal services.
Throughout her studies, Nadeen explored the intersections between criminal justice and international legal frameworks, particularly how law can serve as a mechanism for protection and social justice. During law school, Nadeen organized multiple speaker panels featuring leading legal scholars and experts in international law. She also served as a Student Caseworker at the Queen’s Prison Law Clinic, providing legal services to a vulnerable population. Beyond her academic work, she has volunteered with organizations that support refugees and immigrants, assisting newcomers as they navigate the legal and social challenges of resettlement.
Driven by a commitment to advancing human rights and social justice, Nadeen aims to build a career that bridges criminal and international law, advocating for systemic justice, accountability, and meaningful reform.
Professor Zinaida Miller holds a joint appointment in the School of Law and the International Affairs Program of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. She teaches courses in human rights law and in criminal justice. Along with Professor Martha Davis, she is a founding faculty co-director of the Center for Global Law & Justice.
An expert in transitional justice and international human rights, Miller’s research focuses on inequality, structural violence, and critical approaches to international law, including in Palestine/Israel, South Africa, and Rwanda. Her scholarship has been published in journals including the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Transnational Legal Theory, Cornell International Law Journal, and International Criminal Law Review and in edited collections including the forthcoming Race and Transitional Justice (Oxford Univ. Press) and The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice (Oxford Univ. Press, 2025). She is co-editor of Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda (Cambridge University Press, 2016), which explores the emphasis on punishment and prosecution in the human rights movement, particularly in states emerging from conflict. Her current scholarship investigates the relationships among temporality, rights, and justice, including the uses of the past in legal and political struggles over racial and economic inequalities.
Prior to joining Northeastern, Miller was Associate Professor of International Law and Human Rights at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, where she taught courses in public international law, international criminal law, race and international law, and human rights. She previously held a post-doctoral fellowship in global governance, funded by the Erin Jellel Collins Arsenault Trust, at McGill University’s Institute for the Study of International Development.
Miller was co-chair of the American Society of International Law’s Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Interest Group from 2017 to 2020. She currently serves on the Advisory Council of Harvard Law School’s Institute for Global Law & Policy and as a faculty member of the IGLP Global Scholars Academy. Miller received her AB from Brown University, JD from Harvard Law School and her MALD and PhD in International Relations from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Lisa M. Kelly is an Associate Professor at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law, where she teaches criminal law, evidence, criminal procedure, and sexual and reproductive justice. She studied history and political science at the University of British Columbia (B.A) and is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law (J.D.) and Harvard Law School (S.J.D.), where she was a Trudeau Scholar. Kelly’s doctoral dissertation – Governing the Child: Parental Authority, State Power, and the School in North America – analyzed legal struggles over race and school discipline from the late-nineteenth century through the present. Before joining Queen’s, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia Law School and the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York City. She previously served as a law clerk to Justice Marshall E. Rothstein of the Supreme Court of Canada. Kelly has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow, and a Fellow of the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School.
In 2018, she received the Stanley M. Corbett Award for Teaching Excellence.
Background readings:
Zinaida Miller, “Temporary Measures” London Review of Books (19 November 2025).
Mai Taha, “Insurgent Social Reproduction: The Home, the Barricade and Women’s Work in the 1936 Palestinian Revolution” (2025) 42:4 Theory, Culture & Society 101.
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Unchilding and the Killing Boxes” (2021) 23:3 Journal of Genocide Research 490.
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: Supplementary Report: Genocide (Ottawa: Privy Council Office, 2019) at 12-19.
Fall Term 2025 Lectures
Monday, September 22, 2025
1-2:20 pm
Hybrid Event
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Pearl Eliadis | Associate Professor (professional), Max Bell School of Public Policy; Full Member, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill University
Topic: Safer Spaces, Stronger Selves: Gender Justice in Housing and Human Security
Abstract:
The word “homelessness” seldom comes to mind when thinking of women fleeing violence. But rising housing insecurity and overlapping housing crises are creating gender-specific risks. This talk will share research underway through the interdisciplinary Quebec Homelessness Prevention Policy Collaborative, and its legal reform project that uses a human rights-based approach to law to drive social change.
Bio:
Pearl is a senior human rights lawyer and has taught law and policy at McGill University for 13 years. In her international practice, she has worked on human right issues in eight countries and been actively engaged with CIvil Society on a range of gender issues, including the elimination of violence against women. Current areas of interest are the intersection between the right to adequate housing, the right to be free from violence and gender equality. Pearl co-leads the Legal Reform Project of the the Quebec Homelessness Prevention Collaborative and has recently published policy analysis on the relationship between second stage housing and human security.
Background readings:
Law Reform Opportunities in Quebec for Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence
Investing in Safety and Stability - The Urgent Need to Support 2nd Stage Shelters for Women Escaping Violence
Monday, September 29, 2025
1-2:20 pm
Hybrid Event
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Astara van der Jagt | Director of Programs, Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW); Founder/CEO, EquiShift
Topic: From Silence to Systems Change: Collective Strategies to End Femicide and Gender-Based Violence
Abstract:
Every 48 hours in Canada, a woman, girl or gender-diverse person is killed in an act of femicide. This lecture examines gender-based violence (GBV) prevention locally in Ottawa, nationally across Canada and internationally within movements to end femicide. It will explore systemic barriers rooted in colonialism and exclusion, alongside new strategies for coordination, accountability and community-led change. Drawing on Ottawa’s three-year GBV Action Plan, the session highlights bold, community-driven approaches to ending femicide.
Bio:
Astara van der Jagt (she/her) is the Director of Programs at the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW) and Founder/CEO of EquiShift, a social impact initiative advancing equity and systems change. At OCTEVAW, she leads community-driven strategies to prevent gender-based violence (GBV), including the development of City of Ottawa's three-year GBV Action Plan. With a decade of experience in research, policy advocacy, and program management, Astara works at the intersection of equity, safety, and community organizing, centering collaboration, intersectionality, and survivor voices in building accountable and transformative systems.
Background readings:
The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability's #CallItFemicide Report.
The City of Ottawa's Community Safety and Well-Being Plan 2021-2031
Monday, November 10, 2025
1-2:20 pm
Hybrid Event
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Dr. Heidi Cramm | Professor in the School of Rehabilitation, Queen’s University
Topic: Garnet Families: Creating a research ecosystem centring defence and public safety families
Abstract:
In 2022, Dr. Cramm consolidated her research program under the interdisciplinary and international Families Matter Research Group (FMRG) (https://garnetfamilies.com/fmrg/). The concept of “Garnet families” has become a unifying framework for the group’s research, network and partnership activities.
Garnet families experience a unique combination of lifestyle factors — risks, identities, logistics and mobility — that interact dynamically throughout the life course. Most members of the FMRG team have personal connections to Garnet families, viewing their research as a form of service to that community. These connections deepen their commitment and provide insights that enrich the work.
Dr. Cramm serves as project director for the SSHRC-funded Garnet Families Partnership (2024–31), an international collaboration among Garnet families and those who study, serve and support them. Using a collective impact approach, the partnership aims to strengthen networks, expand knowledge and build capacity.
Bio:
Heidi Cramm is a Professor in the School of Rehabilitation. dedicated to better understanding and addressing the mental health and wellbeing challenges faced by Garnet Families—military, veteran, first responder, and public safety families—through research.
Background readings:
Cramm, H., Cox, M., Norris, D., Reid, N., Tam-Seto, L., Dekel, R., ... & Mahar, A. (2025). Lifestyle dimensions of public safety personnel families: There’s no life like it. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 35(2), 268-277.
Supporting Canada’s Public Safety Personnel: An Action Plan on Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries
Richmond, R., Campbell, M., Delaney, L., Ricciardelli, R., & Cramm, H. (2024). Where and how do organizations support families? Work-family conflict and the identification of current initiatives for family-forward policies, practices, and programs. Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health, 10(1), 3-6.
Recommended Additional Resources:
DuBois, D., Leroux, J., George, S., Khokhar, F., & Cramm, H. (2024). Military suicide prevention: Do families matter?. Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health, 10(2), 178-183.
Https://utppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2023-0055
Richmond, R., Ricciardelli, R., Macdermid, J., & Cramm, H. (2025). Developing families-forward innovations in public safety personnel organizations. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 138, 152581.