Feminist Horror Symposium

What better way to celebrate Halloween than with a feminist horror symposium that draws inspiration from the groundbreaking scholarship of Johanna Isaacson's book ?

How can horror films serve as a lens to think critically about the conditions of feminized, racialized, and classed people under late capitalism? Might horror, especially hauntings, offer a productive space in the quest for change and justice, given the history and legacies of colonialism? What does a feminist horror genealogy look like, and how does it link different generations of women–Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Gen Z-in their strategies for fighting against gendered capitalism?

Join feminist faculty and students as we consider these questions and more during a day-long symposium that will include a student-run feminist horror film trailer competition judged by the Film Production Society and a feminist haunted house by Planned Parenthood Generation Action.

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Latinx/é Feminists in Dialogue About the Myth of La Llorona

Rosanna Alvarez is a braided storyteller, artist, and poet. She is the author of Braided [Un]Be-Longing, co-founder of EASTSIDE Magazine, and co-editor of The Early Works of Luis Miguel Valdez in El Excentrico Magazine. Her work appears in various journals, and she proudly embraces her role as a multifaceted rezongona. She also teaches Chicano and Chicana Studies at SJSU and Gavilan College.

Maribel Martínez (no pronouns/use name) is a Queer Chicanx of P'urhépecha heritage, brainiac, storyteller, and dream warrior from East San José, CA. Maribel shapeshifts between public policy, higher education, and the arts. Maribel performs and writes short stories, poems, plays, napkin memoirs, and may even sing you a Mexican bolero or ranchera. Maribel is a member of Macondo Writer's workshop, Califas en Comunidad writer’s group, Primeras Paginas playwright’s circle, The Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute (MALI) Silicon Valley, and was a founding member of La Peña’s Hybrid Performance Experiment Ensemble and The Queeceañera Project SJ. Maribel is a recipient of the inaugural Movimiento de Arte Y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) Cultura Fellowship, the California Arts Council Emerging Artist award, and a Center for Cultural Innovation grant. Maribel’splay for young audiences, Becoming (MAR), premiered at Teatro Vision in 2022 and was broadcaston CreaTV San Jose. Its sequel Mar in the Middle had a staged reading at the School of Arts and Culture in 2023. The final installation of the Mar trilogy is currently funded by Horizons Foundation and will premiere at the end of 2024. Maribel’s short play “Out for Finals” was part of the San Jose City College inaugural playwrights festival in 2024. Maribel’s work has been published in the Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento, EASTside Magazine, Journal X, and Beyond Queer Words: Queer Anthology. Maribel is currently a Cultural Bearer fellow with the Bay Area American Indian Two Spirit (BAAITS) organization and will produce a performance piece on the meaning of Two Spirit. Maribel has a BA in Political Science (minor, Sociology), an MA in Applied Anthropology, and multiple certificates in public policy. Maribel was the founding manager of San Jose State University, Cesar E. Chavez Community Action Center, and the founding manager of the County of Santa Clara Office of LGBTQ Affairs, the first office of its kind in the United States. Maribel credits her community-engaged approach and deep listening skill development from her early training as a community organizer with the United Farm Workers Union, SEIU, and People Acting in Community Together.

Florencia Marchetti is a multimodal thinker and maker, a documentarian, a dialogic facilitator, and a migrant mother living in Tiohtà:ke/ Montréal. Born in Cordoba, Argentina during times of political upheaval, she focused her doctoral research on the atmospherics of terror produced by the military dictatorship that ruled her country with an iron fist during her early childhood. Their dissertation manuscript explores the political and affective resonances of violent pasts in everyday lives through creative, experimental and sensorially attuned compositional practices. They are a PhD candidate in Humanities at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, Concordia University, hold an MA in Social Documentation from the University of California in Santa Cruz and a bachelors in Social Communications from the National University of Cordoba (Argentina). Her documentary and scholarly works have been showcased in local and international art, community and conference settings.

Imperial Horrors: Comics with Trinidad Escobar

Trinidad Escobar is a poet-cartoonist from the Bay Area, California. She is Autistic & ADHD, and a former independence coach for people with developmental disabilities. Trinidad is the artist of comic books like Ode to Keisha, Arrived In My Hands, Crushed, and the forthcoming graphic novel Of Sea and Venom (2026). Her comics journalism and comic strips have been featured in publications like The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and more. She loves ghost stories and cute animals. Trinidad lives in Milpitas with her writer son and surfer partner.

Keynote: Johanna Isaacson, author of Stepford Daghters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror

Johanna Isaacson writes academic and popular pieces on horror and politics. She is a professor of English at Modesto Junior College and a founding editor of . She is the author of (2022) from Common Notions Press and (2016) from Repeater Books. Her book, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is forthcoming from Die Die Books.

Host or Publisher Film & Theatre Department at San José State University