newsletter of the ucla Center for the study of women

by Candace Moore and Vivian Davis CSW Q&A Felicity

NussbaumHER upcoming CSW Senior Faculty Seminar will consider “Actresses as rival queens”

urrently working on CExceptional Virtue: Actresses and Perfor- mance in the British Theatre, 1700-1780, and editing (with Professor Saree Makdisi, De- partment of English) a volume that will provide historical context for The Arabian Nights, Professor Felicity A. Nussbaum, Department of English, will share “The Rival Queens of Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres, at new work on the subjectivities of Restoration- a Gymnastic Rehearsal.” era female actresses as part of the CSW 1 in this issue

, 24-25 18-20

21-23

4-11 DEPARTMENTS

12-17 7

2 FROM THE DIRECTOR

CSW in Space—

Since CSW moved out of Hershey Hall, CSW Director, Associate Director, all of it has been split between offices in the CSW administrative and publica- Public Policy and in Rolfe Hall. The ad- tions staff (except for Van DoNguyen, ministrative offices are in Public Policy, who remains in Rolfe because of her while the publications unit is in Rolfe. position in Women’s Studies), and work This year, thanks to the untiring ef- space for seven research assistants and forts of Assistant Dean Marc Mayerson work-study students. The whole pro- and Facilities Planner Donald Simp- cess should be completed sometime in son, who took countless calls from me early spring. We’ll have an Open House and patiently pursued many different so that everyone can come and see our avenues and possibilities for rooms of new Center. Meanwhile, we have many CSW’s own, CSW will become a unified exciting programs this year. Fall quar- rather than a split center with all of ter, our programming theme is Wom- our offices located in Public Policy. At en, Art, and Activism: Perspectives this writing, construction of new office from the Americas. Please come and space for CSW is proceeding in 1500 join us for some of these events. We Public Policy in a space adjacent to our are looking forward to a very dynamic current offices. We expect to be able academic year! to move into these offices by Thanks- − Kathleen McHugh giving, at which time renovation will begin on 1400H. When completed, the entire space will have offices for the

3 What is the future of feminism in the face of post-feminist discourse?

What does it mean to be a feminist, an artist, an activist in the context of the Americas?

How can art effect alindo political change? G Reginaé Jos

OCT07 4 CSupdateW Women, Art, and Activism Perspectives from the Americas

Dedicated to the memory curatorS of Yolanda Retter Vargas Charlene VillaseÑor Black Jennifer Flores Sternad

CSW is pleased to introduce our programming focus for Fall 07: “Women, Art, and Activism: Perspectives from the Americas. “ The series of events will feature women activist-artists and cul- tural critics whose work focuses on feminist and other socially engaged art practices throughout the Americas. How can art ef- fect political change? What is the future of feminism in the face of post-feminist discourse? What does it mean to be a feminist, an artist, an activist in the context of the Americas? In addition to lectures, speakers will engage in more intensive exchanges with students and faculty, plus artists, activists, and other members of the community in workshops, conversations, and video screenings. Events include presentations by artists Regina José Galindo and Jenny Jaramillo, a talk by poet/activist Gioconda Belli, and a panel discussion−featuring Vivian Gornick, Sharon Rudahl, Devra Weber, and moderated by Alice Wexler−about Dangerous Woman, a new graphic biography of Emma Goldman.

OCT07 5 CSupdateW TUESDAY, November13 Women, Art, and Activism UCLA FACULTY CENTER, 4 pm Perspectives from the Americas

with an introduction by Mónica Mayer RECORRIDO Regina José Galindo IN SPANISH with ENGLiSH TRANSLATION

Guatemalan artist Regina José basin down, stepped into it and Mónica Mayer is a visual Galindo received the Golden then out again, and then conti- artist whose artistic practice Lion award for best young artist nued walking, leaving a trail of aims to understand and affect at the 51st Venice Biennial in bloody footprints behind her. systems−from the patriarchal to 2005. Her award-winning work, Her footprints traced her path the artistic. Her work deals with Himenoplastia, was a video that from the Constitutional Court memory and interaction. In documented the artist undergo- building to the old National 1989 Mayer and Victor Lerma ing surgery to reconstruct her Palace, marking her protest of founded the project Pinto mi hymen. Galindo had the opera- the decision to allow the former Raya, whose principal compo- tion without anaesthetic and in military dictator General Ríos nent is an important periodical the same precarious conditions Montt to run for president in archive that currently includes in which many working-class 2003. Regina José Galindo was over 180,000 articles. In addi- women in Guatemala undergo recently published by Vanilla tion to her extensive experience this surgery. In her 2003 per- Edizioni and Prometeo Gallery. as a professor and guest lecturer, formance Quien Puede Borrar Galindo’s poetry appears in nu- Mayer has also been the colum- Las Huellas? / Who Can Erase merous poetry anthologies and nist for the culture section of El the Traces? Galindo walked journals, and she is the author Universal since 1988. She is the barefoot through the streets of Personal e Intransmisible, a author of four books, including of Guatemala City, carrying a collection of poetry published in Rosa chillante: mujeres y perfor- white basin filled with human 1999 by Coloquia, Guatemala. mance en México. blood. She repeatedly set the OCT07 6 CSupdateW WEDNESDAY, November14 ROYCE 314, 4 pm Women, Art, and Activism Perspectives from the Americas DANGEROUS WOMAN Panel on the new graphic biography of Emma Goldman, featuring Vivian Gornick, Sharon Rudahl, and Devra Weber, and moderated by Alice Wexler

Co-sponsored by the Chicano Studies Research Center

Sharon Rudahl is an artist and Vivian Gornick is the author 1919-1939 (UC Press, 1994) and illustrator. Her work has been of eight books, among them The edited La Historia de Vida del widely published and exhib- Situation and the Story: The Art of Inmigrante Mexicano by Manuel ited in the U.S. and Europe, Personal Narrative, an acclaimed Gamio. (Editorial Porrua, CIE- including the "Great Women memoir, Fierce Attachments, and SAS/UC MEXUS joint publi- Cartoonists" exhibit at the two influential collections of es- cation, 2002). Secessionist Gallery in Vienna. says, Approaching Eye Level and She will discuss influences on The End of the Novel of Love Alice Wexler is a CSW Re- her style and her appreciation of search Scholar and the author the visual storytelling devices of Devra Weber is an Associate of Emma Goldman : An Intimate 1930s cinema. Professor in the Department of Life and Mapping Fate: A Mem- History at UC Riverside. She has oir of Family, Risk, and Genetic published two books: Dark Sweat, Research. White Gold: California Farmwork- ers, Cotton, and the New Deal,

OCT07 7 CSupdateW FRIDAY, November16 Women, Art, and Activism UCLA FACULTY CENTER, 4 pm Perspectives from the Americas WORLDS OF WORDS Through the Looking Glass Gioconda Belli Co-sponsored by Spanish & Portuguese Department

Gioconda Belli, a renowned book of poetry Mi íntima mul- and prolific woman writer and titud (2003), and her novel The defender of human rights from Inhabited Woman (1988) are only Central America, will trace the some of her many works that development of her thinking have received literary prizes and through her work. Chosen as honors. Belli's recent historical one of the most notable citizens novel inspired by Spain's Queen of the twentieth century in Juana of Castille-“Juana la loca”- Nicaragua and elected Mem- and published simultaneously as ber of the Royal Academy of El pergamino de la seducción and the Spanish Language, her life The Scroll of Seduction (2006) was and literary career are closely a bestseller in Spain. intertwined with her country's history. Her memoir The Coun- try Under My Skin (2002), her

OCT07 8 CSupdateW MONDAY, November19 Women, Art, and Activism ROYCE 314, 4 pm Perspectives from the Americas ALCANCES DEL Jenny Jaramillo ACTO PERFORMÁTICO IN SPANISH with ENGLiSH TRANSLATION

was the artist-in-residence at Cuenca International Biennial; Chile”; and “Space for Artist,” a the Rijksakademie van Beel- in the sixth Havana Biennial public art project in Amsterdam. dende Kunsten in Amsterdam, (1997); and in the Estandartes Her artistic production comple- with a fellowship she received in International Biennial, “ES ments her work teaching art in 1998 from the Dutch Ministry 2000,” in Tijuana. She has also several universities in Ecuador. of Foreign Relations (BUZA/ been invited to participate in DCO/IC). She has also partici- the following exhibitions and pated as an artist in residence collective projects: “Políticas de in the international program la diferencia: Arte Iberoameri- for RAIN PROJECT, “Open cano de fin de siglo, exposición Circle,” in Mumbai, India itinerante por algunos países (2000); in the Irish Modern de América Latina”; “Salón Jenny Jaramillo received a Art Museum in Dublin (1997); de Arte Contemporáneo en degree in fine arts from the and in “Fine Arts Work Center” Cochabamba-Bolivia”; “Primer Universidad Central in Quito, in Provincetown (1994). She encuentro internacional de Ecuador. From 1998 to 2000 she represented Ecuador in the 2004 Performance en Santiago de

OCT07 9 CSupdateW Women, Art, and Activism Perspectives from the Americas about the curators

Charlene Villaseñor Black is Wilson National Fellowship Since 2001 Jennifer Flores at UCLA in the Department Associate Professor in UCLA’s Foundation, the Andrew W. Sternad has been doing research of Art History. Jennifer is the Department of Art History, Mellon Foundation, the Nation- on militant art practice, focusing organizer of the traveling con- where she teaches courses on al Endowment for the Humani- on the work of Latina/o artists ference and public event series visual culture in Latin America ties, and the Fulbright Founda- in the U.S. and artists and media Tránsito(ry) Público | PUB- and Spain as well as theory tion. In 2006, she co-organized collectives in Latin America. LICo TRANSITorio. She is and method. Her scholarship, with her graduate students the She received a Bachelor’s degree currently a lecturer in the MFA focused both on the colonial and working group Visiones: Art and in Literature from Harvard Public Practice Program at Otis early modern periods as well Activism in the Americas, to fos- University. Upon graduating, College of Art and Design and as contemporary art, employs ter dialogue between students, she spent a year in Argentina co-curator of the 2008 Mexi- feminist and postcolonial theory. faculty, artists, activists, and and Chile doing research on Cali Biennial. Her interviews She has published widely, in members of the community. contemporary performance and and essays have been published such venues as Encyclopedia interventionist art as a George in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian Latina, Art Journal, Studies in Peabody Gardner fellow. While and Gay Studies, Contemporary Medieval and Renaissance His- living in Argentina, Jennifer was Theatre Review, Aztlán, interRe- tory, The Sixteenth Century Jour- the South American Coordina- view, Journal of American Drama nal, and others. Her recent book, tor for the School of Panameri- and Theater, and online at www. Creating the Cult of St. Joseph: can Unrest and a guest curator latinart.com. Art and Gender in the Spanish for the first DEFORMES Empire (Princeton, 2006), won Performance Biennial in San- the College Art Association tiago, Chile. She has worked Millard Meiss Award. She has at the UCLA Chicano Studies been the recipient of numer- Research Center since 2003; in ous grants, from the Woodrow 2006, she began graduate studies

OCT07 10 CSupdateW Women, Art, and Activism Perspectives from the Americas Yolanda Retter Vargas

Yolanda Retter Vargas passed identity, on her later commitment Combining her love of books She edited and contributed to away on August 18, 2007. An to activism. After graduation with her interest in identity many gay history books, in- activist and scholar, Vargas was from high school, she enrolled politics, she went on to earn a cluding Queers in Space: Com- fiercely committed to advocating at Pitzer College in Claremont, master’s degree in library science munities, Public Places, Sites of for lesbians of color. Her life- California, when it was still a at UCLA (1983) and a master’s Resistance (1997). Her Lesbian time commitment to women’s women’s college. degree in social work at UCLA History Project website is a issues centered on the impor- (1987). Her thesis focused on highly respected archive, which Coming out as a lesbian in 1969, tance of maintaining visibility Latina lesbian identity de- documents and celebrates les- the year of Stonewall, Retter and preserving herstory. velopment. In the early 1990s bian herstory. Vargas spent much of the 1970s she moved to New Mexico, Born in Connecticut, Retter helping to organize the nascent In the late 1980s and early where she earned a doctorate Vargas spent most of her child- lesbian liberation movement. She 1990s, Vargas ran the Los An- in American studies with her hood in El Salvador, where her was a founding member of Lesbi- geles Public Library Chicano dissertation, “On the Side of father worked for a program anas LatinaAmericas in 1974 and Resource Collection, where she Angels: Lesbian Activism in Los of the State Department. She of Lesbianas Latinas in 1980 and created the first “Latino biogra- Angeles, 1970-1990.” was named Yolanada for her was also involved in Lesbianas phy” database. From 2003, she Peruvian mother. To honor her Unidas. Through her volunteer involve- served as Librarian and Ar- mother, she added her mother’s ment in Connexxus Women’s chivist at the Chicano Studies After graduating from Pitzer maiden name, Vargas, to her Center/Centro de Mujeres, she Research Center at UCLA. with a degree in sociology, Retter own in the early 1990s. was part of a successful effort worked briefly as a prison guard She is survived by her partner, to bring an important archive The racism that she experienced at the California Institution for Leslie Stampler. −the June L. Mazer Lesbian upon her return to Connecticut Women in Corona and managed Collections−from Oakland to had a formative effect, as did her a halfway house for displaced Los Angeles. early efforts to shield her lesbian women in Los Angeles.

OCT07 11 CSupdateW Poking in the Wound or Reclaiming History?

Documentary Films as Gendered Historical Memory in Post-Dictatorship Chile and Spain

by Judy Branfman

On Dec 10, 2006, General Augusto Pi- nochet, Chile’s notorious dictator from 1974 to 1990 and commander of the military until 1998, died. On the streets of San- tiago, two counterposing groups assembled: Pinochet supporters on the one side who cheered his memory as the savior of the Chilean economy, and on the other, those who celebrated the real possibility that Chile would finally break through its cul- has become an increasingly public discus- La Cueca Sola (2003), Marilú Mallet, Les Films de ture of silence, liberate buried memories of sion, a process that has been variously l'Atalante | Photo by Pablo Gomez Pinochet’s reign of violence and repression, described as “ahistorical,” “poking in the and reinvent Chilean culture with human wound,” or “reclaiming history.” These rights at its core. histories and issues were explored in The complex enterprise of retrieving the the fall of 2006 in two presentations at historical memory of the violent repression UCLA that focused on the role of wom- in Chile (as well as in Spain, Argentina, en documentary filmmakers in revealing and many other countries struggling with traumatic memories and “giving language the long process of “democratization” after to state terrorism” in post-dictatorship decades of repressive dictatorships/regimes) Chile and Spain. Macarena GÓmez-

OCT07 12 CSupdateW Barris, Assistant Professor in effects of social trauma. Her of torture, sexual torture, dis- documents the process of the Departments of Sociol- talk, “Enacting Traumatic appearance, and forced exile uncovering the skeleton of ogy and American Studies Memory: Marilú Mallet’s produce a breach,” and the disappeared leftist Fernando and Ethnicity at USC, and ‘La Cueca Sola’,” explored work of victims and survivors Olivares and follows his fam- Los Angeles filmmaker CM how gender subjectivity is as “finding ways to integrate ily’s journey to identify his Hardt, each in their own way, expressed in terms of both rupture into the ongoing body and bury discussed the challenges and trauma and memory in the practice of everyday life.” his bones. possibilities of documentary work of three Chilean docu- In her talk, GÓmez-Barris These documentaries in- films that present the project mentary filmmakers: Marilú discussed the importance of clude the dramatic testimony of remembering and denying Mallet, Patricio Guzman, and documentaries that attempt of female former-prisoners historical events. Silvio Caiozzi. to “interrupt, constitute, and and family members that had Each of these filmmakers imagine gendered subjectivi- largely been ignored until Coming to Terms got their start in film during ties and possibilities,” even the release of the films. For the Unidad Popular govern- while they at times also example, in an unforgettable with The Past ment of Socialist President reproduce static gender roles. scene Fernando’s almost- Invited to give a talk at the Salvador Allende (1970-1973), Chile, Obstinate Memory mute mother, who has been Center for the Study of which supported film pro- (1997) by Patricio Guzman ill since his disappearance Women, Macarena GÓmez- duction and documented the was the first film GÓmez- twenty years before, tells her Barris shared work from her huge changes taking place in Barris discussed. In it, the heartbreaking story in sounds forthcoming book, Where Chile under Allende’s lead- filmmaker is seen returning to only her caregiver can under- Memory Dwells: Culture and ership. The vibrant cultural Chile from exile to screen his stand. GÓmez-Barris con- Democracy in the Aftermath of movement that developed epic film of Allende’s Chile, tends that “one of the central Chile’s Dictatorship (forthcom- during that period laid the Battle of Chile, to audiences assumptions and pitfalls of ing, University of California groundwork for dynamic of diverse ages and occupa- these films is making female Press). Her book proposes cultural expression in the tions, capturing on film their subjectivity synonymous with − that culture and the arts play Chilean exile communities reactions tears, shame, con- victimization,” and that Guz- − an important role in the that formed after Pinochet’s tempt, silence, rage, fear to man’s subjects “narrativize struggle over historic memory, violent coup in 1973. this still repressed history. The for the camera their suffering particularly for those whose GÓmez-Barris defines second film GÓmez-Barris without linking their stories identities have been shaped trauma in her work as “the analyzed was Silvio Caiozzi’s to their social activism.... by political activism, state moment of rupture of state Fernando Ha Vuelto (Fer- without giving them the violence, and the resulting terrorism, where the practices nando Returns, 1998), which power of enunciation about OCT07 13 CSupdateW what living with this violence a more personal approach to looks like.” reclaiming the past, particularly GÓmez-Barris argues that visible in La Cueca Sola (2004). the military state’s efforts to The title itself is taken from enforce a code of silence and an act of cultural resistance force women back into tradi- on the part of Chilean women, tional roles was accomplished who transformed the nation’s by stifling social movements traditional dance of courtship, where women were becom- la cueca, into a version women ing leaders, policing women’s dance alone (la cueca sola), leav- bodies, and by making Pi- ing the viewer to imagine the nochet’s wife a spokesperson missing partner and by exten- for the military state. “Power’s sion the thousands of disap- work here [was] to invoke the peared. Throughout the film triangle of patriarchy, nation, the five featured women move and heterosexual family bonds between their own memories and values within a regular- of torture and/or loss, their ized context of disappearance, diverse healing processes, and been imprisoned, recounts her La Cueca Sola (2003), Marilú Mal- torture, and political disap- their current involvements in story in La Cueca Sola. One day, let, Les Films de l'Atalante | Photo pearance, especially targeted at the rebuilding of Chile. While six years after her release from by Pablo Gomez male revolutionary subjects.” GÓmez-Barris defined Mallet’s prison into exile in Belgium, Yet women were the first broader project as “thread[ing] she “just fell down” and couldn’t to take to the streets to resist the histories and ongoing or- get up. She had never told any- Pinochet’s brutality and protest ganizing of a multiply defined, one about her experiences of the disappearance of thou- decentered revolution,” these torture, recognizing that many sands of their family members, words also seem to describe her Chileans “didn’t believe the sto- posing a highly visible contra- own pursuit. ries of abuse until Pinochet was diction to his role for women Illustrating the gendered ap- arrested.” Therapy became cen- in “a country of brothers” (his proach to reclaiming personal tral to her physical and emo- favorite slogan). GÓmez-Barris experience that GÓmez-Barris tional “rebuilding.” The very focuses on Marilú Mallet as explores, schoolteacher Mo- day of Pinochet’s arrest in 1998, a filmmaker who has taken nique Hermosilla, who had she began to gather with other OCT07 14 CSupdateW female former-prisoners who the beginning of Spain’s tran- in Spain” drives the passion- CM Hardt together eventually filed a suit sition to democracy, Hardt ate search that is the core of against the government for traveled to Spain to find out her film. illegal captivity and torture. how her grandfather had Stepping back, Hardt’s As GÓmez-Barris stated, died in the small mountain family can be seen as a meta- the women in La Cueca Sola village of El Valle in 1949. As phor for Spain, struggling and others like them “attenu- uneducated about the Span- mightily for twenty years to ate the space between living/ ish Civil War and Franco’s forgive and forget despite dead, visible/invisible, for- 36-year reign of terror as intensifying efforts, includ- getting/remembering.... The most of her Spanish cousins, ing Hardt’s, to reclaim its gendered body of survivors of she became one of the first history of violent repression. concentration camps and tor- documentary filmmakers to Illustrating GÓmez-Barris’s ture, and understanding their search out hidden stories of concept of “reversing the grandmother admits that she complex lives and personal Franco’s Spain, and in the dissolution of the self that was the one who identified and social struggles, is a route process expose the trauma, occurs in conditions of crises” her son’s tortured body. In ad- to a reconstructed present.” silences, and fear that still is Hardt’s grandmother, the ditional footage not included confront and at times take quiet but determined heroine, in the film, Hardt’s young Poking in center stage in such efforts. who gradually and pain- cousins (who, like Hardt, Soon after Hardt’s arrival fully responds to her grand- grew up in the United States) the Wound in El Valle, her grandmother daughter’s search by talking tell her, “It’s not going to In the fall of 2006, UCLA’s reveals that her grandfa- about what happened in 1949 change anything - it’s some- Department of Spanish and ther was killed, not by the for the first time and stand- thing very ugly,” and “This Portuguese presented “Images lung hemorrhage listed on ing behind Hardt despite isn’t history!” Against Amnesia: A Win- his death certificate, but by growing opposition from the At times the film plays like dow into Memory - Docu- Franco’s Civil Guard. He had rest of the family. Hardt’s a small-town drama. Vil- mentaries on the Historical been secretly housing mili- uncles become furious with lagers and family members Memory of Spain,” which tants who were active in the her, and her 97 year-old refuse to talk with Hardt, or included Death In El Valle by guerilla war against Franco, great-grandmother asserts whisper long-held opinions Los Angeles filmmaker CM and Hardt’s promise to her that her son’s death was a about who turned her grand- Hardt. In 1992, almost twenty grandmother that she will natural one, pleading, “Oh father in to the Civil Guard. years after Spanish dictator make a film that “tells the good God, leave me alone!” The story develops as she Francisco Franco’s death and world what really happened Later, however, Hardt’s great- meets one of the guerillas OCT07 15 CSupdateW the passion that drove her to collective of filmmakers participate in the clandestine formed to organize “Im- war on Franco’s regime: “The ages Against Amnesia,” a rich have everything. A poor series which began touring person, a laborer, may be throughout Spain in 2005 very intelligent but can’t get and more recently in Europe ahead. I am with the workers and North America with and people of the pueblo. I stops at venues like UCLA. am not with the rich.” This Touring the films is itself an and her husband’s crime act of intervention in the were enough to warrant two 70-year suppression of Spain’s years of prison in Franco’s traumatic memory and Spain. While including these strengthens current efforts scenes would have strength- to reclaim and learn from ened the film’s dynamics, the the past. In 2001, five years Francisco Redondo, who was shot who hid in her grandparents’ reality of her grandmother’s after Hardt’s film was com- and killed beside this chestnut tree home, and she eventually gradual shift over the fifteen pleted, the Spanish govern- in the town of Bembibre | from confronts the guard who years since the filming began ment finally granted political Death in El Valle, a film by CM oversaw the execution. (according to Hardt, she is recognition to the guerrillas Hardt, a CM Pictures Production While the film tells a now speaking publicly about who, like the men who hid for Channel Four Television, dramatic story, its focus on the film and her involvement in her grandparents’ home, United Kingdom the search leaves out a clear in the resistance to Franco) continued to resist Franco’s sense of what propelled her demonstrates an entirely dif- regime long after the Civil grandparents to risk their ferent promise that this kind War ended. own and their children’s of film holds out, a journey lives. Only the brief but il- that continues long after the luminating interviews (shot film itself has been completed. Pandora’s Box several years after the film It was not until the late As I watched these films, the was completed) in the dvd’s 1990s that numbers of film- silences I have confronted in collection of special features makers began to investigate my own work came back to reveal more. In one, Hardt’s the suppressed history of haunt me. In interviews for grandmother finally shares Franco’s dictatorship. A my film and writing projects OCT07 16 CSupdateW As I watched these films, focusing on activist histories culture and individual psyches L Judy Branfman is a CSW Re- the silences I have con- in the U.S., some involving that most of us can hardly rec- search Scholar whose work often takes family members, I have come ognize it. place at the intersection of public history, fronted in my own work face to face with silences, half I admire the determination grassroots activism, and the arts. She is stories, choices of words that of the filmmakers - Spanish, writing, and working on a documen- came back to haunt me.... deny specificity, and phone Chilean, and others - who are tary film, about the Los Angeles 1920s calls that end abruptly. I have exposing the impact of repres- free speech and labor movements and By now, these silences have even written so-called con- sion and silence on individuals her great-aunt’s precedent-setting free- tracts saying that I wouldn’t and cultures. We in the U.S. become messages to me, speech case. She has received numer- tell anyone, especially chil- have told histories of activism reminders that the silences dren, that we had talked and repression but have rarely ous awards from national and local about a radical past. explored the profound effect foundations (including a CSW Tillie are about something very By now, these silences have the long history of American Olsen Travel Grant) and has taught at UCLA, Franconia College, and Leslie specific, ideas that have become messages to me, re- anti-radicalism has had on gen- minders that the silences are erations of activist individuals College. been almost disallowed, about something very specific, and on our culture as a whole. Sources ideas that have been almost Our stories are not uncon- Quotes are from GÓmez-Barris’s and reminders of what disallowed, and reminders nected. The long reach of the talk unless otherwise noted and of what we lose when we various “red scares” of the are not necessarily quotes from her we lose when we allow allow our fear to determine twentieth-century U.S., includ- forthcoming book, Where Memory the stories we tell. When I ing Joseph McCarthy’s reign Dwells: Culture and Democracy in our fear to determine the the Aftermath of Chile’s Dictatorship tell friends and others about in the 1950s, are part of the (forthcoming, UC Press). stories we tell. the ongoing refusal of po- backdrop to American involve- La Cueca Sola, http://www.wmm.com/film- tential interviewees to speak ment in the Pinochet coup that catalog/pages/c632.shtml about their pasts, they are as overthrew President Allende Chile, Obstinate Memory, http://www.frif. surprised as CM Hardt was and started Chile on its reign of com/new97/chile__ob.html in Spain that people are still terror. The films examined give Fernando Ha Vuelto, http://www.frif.com/ afraid to talk about things clues to possible methods of new2000/fern.html now seemingly so far in the exploring the impacts of these Death In El Valle, www.deathinelvalle.com past. Rarely a matter of death complex stories and struggles, Images Against Amnesia, http://www. in this country, the anti- that might be, as GÓmez-Barris newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7367 radical sentiment and ac- puts it, “route[s] to a recon- Imagenes Contra El Olvido, http://www. companying fear has become structed present.” imagenescontraelolvido.com/ so deeply entrenched in our

OCT07 17 CSupdateW Gods, Heroes, and Demons The Importance of Symbols in Everyday Life

by Mari Womack

Tonight in this very I begin my book Symbols and be repressed to conform to and reflect gender relations. city, someone will die Meaning: A Concise Introduc- social restrictions. Carl Jung I am soliciting articles from tion with this bold state- took a more charitable ap- experts on the artistic tradi- for a symbol. ment. Symbols are powerful proach to the unconscious, tions of the various regions because they evoke emotion. viewing it as the repository of the world as a means of They evoke emotion because not only of repressed desires determining whether there they are multivocal and but of healing impulses. are commonalities in the way polysemic, speaking with Symbols and Meaning draws different groups represent fe- many voices and conveying upon psychotherapeutical maleness and maleness, with multiple levels of meaning. and philosophical traditions respect to how these repre- Many levels are understood to explain why symbols play sentations may be reflected in unconsciously and so cannot such an important role in the the relationships of women be controlled by our con- dynamics of human groups, and men. scious desires. The inability as well as in the psycho- Based on her research to control our responses to logical processes and creative in Japan, the anthropolo- symbols is the source of their impulses of individuals. In gist E. L. Cerroni-Long power to affect our attitudes my edited volume, The Art- has produced an analysis of and actions. ful Body: Reflections on the Japanese representational According to Sigmund Human Form (in progress), art in which she links depic- Freud, dream symbols repre- I will compare the ways in tions of females and males to sent libidinous longings, the which artistic representations the Japanese cultural con- biological desires that must of the human body define cept of formal relationships. OCT07 18 CSupdateW Lysa Divine, a former CSW America, and Northwest In Health and Healing, I Ashante of Africa, mothers Research Scholar, is writing Native American art. With have noted that feminin- and sons form powerful alli- an essay on representations respect to traditional African ity is considered natural and ances. The same is also true of of the divine feminine in the art, I am especially interested integral to the human species, the Iroquois, who live in what African diaspora. Jean-Pol in the concept of twinship. In whereas the male role must is now the northeastern part Franqueuil, a French artist, my book Health and Heal- be defined by culture. Male- of the United States and the is analyzing differences in ing: An Integrated Approach, I ness, for example, is defined southeastern part of Canada, the portrayal of females and analyze the Dogon concept through harsh puberty rites as well as the Nayar, a matri- males in Western European that the ideal birth is that of that strip away the “natural lineal group of Southern In- art. He has suggested that twins. Since this is not always superiority” of women. I have dia. According to the religious portrayals of females often possible, Dogon believe that compared this ritual to the scholar Lex Hixon, the goddess reflect abstract concepts, such females and males are born birth process, in which males tradition in religion is univer- must be expelled from the sal. He relates this universality as the Fates or Virtues. Even with dual natures. portraits of human females female. Contrarily, they must to the biological processes of At this point, I am avoid- may portray them as repre- re-enter the female body to gestation and birth: ing speculation about sentatives of classical themes. produce offspring of their whether there are universals From the most simple, basic point On the other hand, portrayals own. When this biological of view, for several years during in concepts of femaleness and of males most often reflect process is subjected to social infancy and early childhood, both maleness. My eventual analy- female and male children relate in social status. My article will control, it produces a meta- sis awaits the data provided essentially the same mode and with discuss the Asian concept of phor (symbol) of cutting and by scholars in the various the same intensity to the mother balance in female and male tearing, which is often por- love at the core of their daily traditions of art. However, energy, especially as expressed trayed in male socialization as existence. The one we call father is in Indian religious art. I have already noted some a cutting away of the femi- at first simply mother number two, commonalities and dis- with bearded or abrasive face. Every I am still searching for nine. longing is for mother. All suste- parities. The cultures I have experts to prepare articles on Though it is tempting to nance is mother. Even the infant’s the art of Eastern Europe, analyzed so far emphasize a speculate that male rejection landscape, before and after birth, is simply mother. For nine months, China, Southeast Asia, the balance between female and of the feminine is universal, male roles, though the role her heart beat is our rhythm, our Middle East, traditional Af- such does not appear to be primal music. This is the original rican art, art of the west coast of the mother is a universally the case. In some groups, ground, prior to gender differentia- of South America, Central powerful image. as among the matrilineal tion and sharp individuation, to OCT07 19 CSupdateW which Goddess tradition gives us access, not as an infantile regression were made without consult- but as the fruitful soil of reconcili- ing the child. ation, harmony, tenderness without With the support of the boundary, unitive wisdom, and UCLA Center for the Study totality. (1994:3) of Women, I hope to collect According to French anthro- more data on the biologi- pologist Claude Lévi-Strauss cal potential inherent in the (1963), humans universally human body and relate this impose binary categories on to the social categories of their social and conceptual gender. As Lévi-Strauss has universe. As Hixon implies, noted, social categories are imposing social categories organized into binary oppo- onto femaleness and maleness sitions. Biological potential results in an overly simplistic tends to be more variable. In view of female and male gen- anthropological terms, the In The Artful Body: Reflec- References Cited der, and as I have discovered, biological adaptations of the tions on the Human Form, I Hixon, Lex. 1994. Mother of the of female and male biological human body are generalized, hope to explore the cultural Universe: Visions of the Goddess sex. In my research for Health allowing us to survive in a va- categories that are imposed and Tantric Hymns of Enlighten- and Healing, I learned that riety of environments, includ- upon the human body. In the ment. Wheaton, Il: Quest Books. one in five hundred infants ing above the Arctic Circle, process, I expect to discover Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. is born with indeterminate at the Equator, in the Hima- that there are more catego- Structural Anthropology. Claire sexual characteristics. Tra- layas, and at sea level. As a ries for gender and biological Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest ditionally, definitive sexual result, wherever we reside, we differentiation than we had Schoepf, trans. New York: Basic characteristics have been use only a small part of our previously assumed. Books. imposed on these infants by biological capabilities. At the Mari Womack is physicians’ decisions to surgi- same time, all human groups Womack, Mari. 2005. Symbols and a CSW Research cally define sexual differentia- bring the body under social Meaning: A Concise Introduction. Scholar. tion—often without consult- control, whether by dressing Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira ing the parents. Perhaps more it, piercing it, painting it, or Press. importantly, these decisions tattooing it. OCT07 20 CSupdateW Shame and the Porosity of the Self by Karen Lindo J hame is a complex emotion of self- In my work, I am particularly interested in assessment that works as a hidden revealing the ways in which shame can effec- subtext in our ability to negotiate tively lead to more positive human experiences Looking closely at the discrete Sour identity in our relations with each other. of selfhood rather than the debilitating and Shame is the emotive state that most poi- stigmatizing experience of shame from which zones in which shame is said to gnantly underscores the degree to which the we all seek to distance ourselves. To move in exclusively live begins a produc- conception of the self is a perceptual product. this direction, I focus on literary representa- Forever in an interlocking relationship with tions of women of color in the Black and tive process toward engaging the eyes of the other, shame unveils the fluid- Indian diaspora who are culturally scripted with the emotional content ity of our identity as it vacillates dynamically to bear shame in the private sphere. Inter- between our inner (psychic) and outer worlds. rogating the binary paradigm that “naturally” that shapes the conjunctive It is this emotion in particular that exposes the aligns women with emotions and the domestic internal-external value systems porosity of our claim to a clearly defined and sphere and men with the rational and public fixed self. Whether we read shame as an affect sphere is an essential first step toward exposing that allow us to flourish in or an emotion, what becomes clear is that to the way in which women’s perceived absence distinct cultural climates. read for shame is, to borrow the philosopher from the public and more specifically politi- Martha Nussbaum’s term, to create “upheav- cal sphere is falsely constructed in the interest als of thought.” Shame collapses the self/other of a virile uniform national agenda. In other binaries with which we are comfortable and words, to build a national identity in regions exposes our neediness, helplessness, weak- like West Africa, the French Antilles, and the nesses, vulnerability, and mutual dependence Indian Ocean, fixed conceptions of femininity, on each other. and invariably masculinity, are the unchecked

OCT07 21 CSupdateW formulas used to construct the concept of the her desires muffled is in great part modulated that allow us to flourish in distinct cultural nation. Women of color from the Ivory Coast, through the stigma of shame with which she climates. It is her representation that avows that Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Mauritius do their is constantly menaced and/or forced to bear in shame works in a double movement as a site part for national identity by remaining invis- these distinct cultural regions. Each of these of social control and a site of social resistance, ible ‘victims’ of traditional cultural edicts. Their layers under which she has been buried regains masking and revealing, shadowing /shading, absence from the public sphere, in which the presence and pronounced visibility, most notably and enlightening our mutually interdependent sociopolitical issues that concern their well-being in the works of Guadeloupean author Maryse relationships with each other. are debated, is justified by feelings like shame. Condé, Martinican Creole specialist Raphaël One of the ways in which I underscore the These emotions are claimed to impair women’s Confiant, and Mauritian authors Ananda Devi ubiquity of the shame experience in inform- ability to participate in those rational discourses and Shenaz Patel. Because shame is equally ing daily cultural practices is by looking at how which serve nation-building agendas. concerned with image-making, the literary this emotion modulates common expressions endeavors of these authors are able to depict My focus on literary representations of women of of identity through, for example, humor. In those desires that disrupt fixed representations color from the Black and Indian diaspora is fore- the final year of thesis writing, I was fortunate of the Ivoirian, Guadeloupean, Martinican, and grounded by the position of the woman in His- enough to receive the support of the Center Mauritian woman. tory as much as in herstory. History has embed- for the Study of Women and the Department ded the perception of women of color within the To illuminate the shame experience in all human of French and Francophone studies to test Western feminist framework and further compli- relations and thus do away with the false binary the viability of this argument in a Caribbean cated her status because of the colonial apparatus that situates emotions unevenly within the prov- conference in Lugano, Switzerland. In this of oppression that has pressed her person out of ince of the feminine, that is to say, the private forum, I presented a portion of my work on the being. Simone de Beauvoir’s expression “absence sphere, authors like Condé, Confiant, Devi, and topic titled “Slashing la logique et la raison in of response,” used to refer to articulations of Patel help me to reveal how the malleability of Célanire cou-coupé by Maryse Condé.” On this the female experience, is triply charged for the emotions facilitates the diffusion of ideologies, occasion I was able to engage the audience in woman of color. In common parlance we speak in terms like culture and tradition, in the service my thought process by demonstrating how the of her as twice cursed because of her complexion of specifically male dominated socio-political author uses humor to transform the culturally and because of her sex. This formula stops short, and economic interests. Looking closely at the scripted shame experiences that were dictated however, of the third index to her person that re- discrete zones in which shame is said to exclu- across gender and color lines. Recasting the veals the intensity of her dynamism: her desires. sively live begins a productive process toward present day discourses on power, gender, race, She is triply cursed because of her color, because engaging with the emotional content that shapes and sexuality within the context of colonization of her sex, and because of her desires. Keeping the conjunctive internal-external value systems on the Ivory Coast during the 1930s, Condé

OCT07 22 CSupdateW deploys her Guadeloupean female protagonist to Karen Lindo is References Cited play on all expressions of identity that concur- presently a Visiting Beauvoir de, Simone. Le deuxième sexe. rently compete to define a singular identity. The Assistant Professor of Vol. 1 (1949) Paris: Editions Gallimard, dynamic play between shame and humor in the French at Bowdoin 1976. narrative eventually turns on the reader in the College. This past spring she completed Condé, Maryse. Célanire cou-coupé. Paris: text who becomes challenged by the multiple her dissertation thesis, Robert Laffont, 2000. layers that the principal character reveals. The "States of Shame: reader is provoked in his or her convictions by Nussbaum, Martha. Upheavals of Thought: Women, Affect, the very desire for a fixed identity that would Transnationalisms," The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: stabilize the narrative and assure coherence. in the Department of French and Francophone Cambridge University Press, 2003. Establishing an interdependent dynamic rela- Studies at UCLA. Her advisor was Françoise tion between the representation of the female Lionnet. Beyond her immediate preoccupation with protagonist and the reader, Condé reveals how the sociocultural and political implications of the role shame is always at work as a subtext in expres- of emotions in modulating questions of identity both sions of identity, whether we attempt to situate at the personal and national levels, Karen is equally our identity exclusively in terms of race, gen- concerned for the position and function of women der, sexual proclivities, and/or power relations. and children in speaking for the cultural specificities Shame keeps the boundaries between self and in West Africa, South Africa, Mauritius and the other fluid because these boundaries are in French Antilles. Her other research interests include fact fluid. To attempt to do away with shame, the poetics of humor and irony, gender and feminist theory and the place of ethics in literary studies. particularly through stigmatization, is to simply mask what is in fact visible and palpable to us all: our fragility, our weaknesses, our fragmented states of being, and above all, our mutual de- pendence upon each other as men and women across diverse and enriching cultural regions.

OCT07 23 CSupdateW Q&A FelicityNussbaum, continued from page 1 Senior Faculty Feminist Seminar Series. messages given to women in the 1950s. As were courageous thinkers in a way I strive The essay she will present, “’Real, Beauti- an undergraduate I had only one women to emulate. It’s still a risky business, but I ful Women’: Actresses as Rival Queens,” professor, a crotchety Shakespeare specialist think our foremothers found it more difficult isn’t just about staged performance, it’s who nearly turned me away from study- than we do, partly because so many of them about bloodshed too. As Nussbaum puts ing English literature because of her lack of developed their ideas in relative isolation and it, the piece explores “theatrical rivalries pleasure in reading the plays. Not a single without the women’s movement. in which female characters engaged in one of my professors in graduate school was In your upcoming talk, you’ll be discuss- ing the relationships and rivalries between mortal combat and even shed real blood a woman, and I recall having to persuade prominent early English actresses. What first to keep heroic tragedies such as Nathanial the well-known scholar who taught “His- prompted you to investigate actresses in Lee’s The Rival Queens, and other plays tory of Literary Studies” that Elizabeth Restoration and eighteenth-century England? Why is the figure of the actress so important resembling it, viable.” One of the exciting Elstob, an eighteenth-century antiquarian, for studies in eighteenth-century culture? features of this seminar series is that top deserved study. The anti-Vietnam War and It is a curious fact, a fact I take to be more faculty doing work on gender and sexual- civil rights movements were yoked with the than coincidence, that the first woman on ity are matched with respondents from women’s movement in the late 1960s and the legitimate British stage (most probably among their peer group. Professor Sue- 1970s. I took my inspiration for thinking Margaret Hughes) after the theatres reopened Ellen Case, Chair of Critical Studies in about women’s literary history from fellow almost certainly acted as Desdemona in The the Department of Theater, and Professor grad students and dedicated young professors Moor of Venice in 1660, a role which would Anne K. Mellor, Department of English, at my first job who were beginning to think have emphasized the difference between the will join Nussbaum to engage with her that gender was a discipline-changing catego- tragic heroine’s white skin and the painted work and open up a dialog with the audi- ry of analysis, and with whom I developed an blackface of Othello. Masking or veiling of ence. Professor Nussbaum recently shared interdisciplinary women’s studies course. any sort for women, including blacking up, these remarks about her work and the You recently published an article in Tulsa Stud- was often taken to be the sign of the whore. upcoming seminar. ies in Women’s Literature entitled “Risky Busi- ness: Feminism Now and Then.” Are feminist The early actresses, who first came to the stage Your career illustrates a long-term commit- critical frameworks just as risky in the twenty- ment to research in gender. How did that first century as they were in the eighteenth? after the all-male Renaissance theatres, are come about? often regarded as prostitutes because they Feminist critical frameworks were only My grandmother was a suffragette, and earned an independent income and freely beginning to be developed in the eighteenth inhabited the public domain. I thought there my mother often spoke to me about women’s century, and Mary Astell, Eliza Haywood, rights as she struggled with the conflicting had to be more to the story. In fact, their the Bluestockings, and Mary Wollstonecraft sexual behavior varied from the freest to the

OCT07 24 CSupdateW Your talk on October 31 will feature Professors most chaste. Examining the economics of the Sue-Ellen Case and Anne Mellor as respon- UCLA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN theatre reveals that the most talented actresses dents. How has the experience of working presents in a community of feminist scholars affected made substantial sums of money and possessed your own work? real cultural authority. And the theatrical ex- tended far beyond the stage. Most women in I can’t imagine pursuing my work without “Real, Beautiful Women” the eighteenth century, whether professional the inspiration and friendship of these two Actresses as Rival Queens actresses or not, had to learn to be actresses women, as well as the CSW community of in order to successfully perform the prescribed feminist scholars and graduate students, roles for “woman,” and they posed a challenge and the larger national and international Felicity A. Nussbaum to the so-called proper lady. communities. Feminism has now expanded Professor in the Department of English As a Professor of English at UCLA, you live enough to encompass various conflicts and and work in the heart of the entertainment controversies, but we still share many com- industry. Do you see any special connections RESPONDENTS: between contemporary American celebrity mon as-yet-unrealized goals. culture and the Restoration actresses you investigate? L Candace Moore is a doctoral student in Sue-Ellen Case Obviously the pursuit of celebrity pervades Critical Studies in the Department of Film, Professor and Chair of Critical Studies, world culture, and Stella Tillyard has Television, and Digital Media. Vivian Davis is Department of Theater claimed that eighteenth-century London a doctoral student in the Department of English. theatre was “the crucible of celebrity.” Early Anne K. Mellor actresses were among the first celebrities who Professor, Department of English cultivated “public intimacy” to enthrall audi- ences of men and women. But cultivating celebrity is also about making money for the Wednesday industry, then and now, and the way that October 31 actresses and their bodies became sites of 4 pm cultural struggle regarding virtue, conditions of employment, social class, and the nation 314 Royce are the issues that interest me in both periods. www.csw.ucla.edu

OCT07 25 CSupdateW NEWS

Access Mazer Project Organizing and Digitizing the Lesbian Feminist Archive in Los Angeles

The UCLA Center for the Study of Women preserve, and digitize several key Los lesbians and lesbian-feminist organiza- is pleased to announce that we have Angeles-themed collections. tions to better conceptualize and write received a grant from the UCLA Center for women’s and LGBTQ histories in Los Recent histories have painted Los Angeles Community Partnerships, which provides Angeles. These materials will supplement as a central hub of gay rights organizing funding support for UCLA faculty and an historical record primarily focused on during the last century, equal in signifi- staff partnering with Los Angeles non- gay men and give salience to an historical cance to New York City. Yet, much of the profit organizations.T he grant supports moment when lesbian rights and feminist published material on LA’s important ho- a partnership with the West Hollywood- movements were more closely integrated. mosexual figures, community groups, and based June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives— organization focuses on gay men, largely Two graduate students from Informa- the sole archival repository on the West neglecting LA’s lesbian population. tion Studies, T-Kay Sangwand and Janine Coast dedicated to preserving lesbian Liebert, are working on the project under and feminist history. CSW will be working This project will result in greater access the supervision of Kathleen McHugh and with the Archive to inventory, organize, for academics, independent scholars, April De Stefano. and Angelenos to singular materials on

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CSW Archival Materials Now Available for Researchers

The Center for the Study of Women (CSW) The materials document the founding at UCLA is pleased to announce that the and early programs and activities of the first two decades of CSW’s history will be first organized research unit dedicated available for researchers and the public to promoting scholarship on women, to explore beginning in the Fall quarter sexuality, and gender in the University of 2007. Over the summer, University of California system. Included are grant Archivist Charlotte B. Brown and April De applications and funding information Stefano supervised graduate students for extra and intramural grants; women’s Emily Carman and Candace Moore in studies and ethnic studies course ma- the archiving of materials from 1984 to terials and resources, including syllabi, 2006. “UCLA has made an important course planning documents, bibliogra- contribution to Women’s Studies and to phies, filmographies, and a wide assort- research on women nationally. Making ment of reading materials; and assorted these materials available is a crucial first center documents, including correspon- step in documenting the significant role dence, administrative files, event flyers, of faculty, research scholars and graduate awards and publicity information, news- students at CSW and Women’s Studies in letters, conference planning materials, the development of the field,” said Kath- and an events guestbook dating from leen McHugh. 1994 to 2003.

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CSW Update is a monthly PDF/web publication of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women.

EDITOR/DESIGNER Brenda Johnson-Grau UCLA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN

DIRECTOR Kathleen McHugh ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Purnima Mankekar ASSISTANT DIRECTOR April de Stefano FINANCIAL MANAGER Van DoNguyen MANAGING EDITOR Brenda Johnson-Grau ADMINISTRATIVE SPECIALIST Jessie Babiarz ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Andrew Miller EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Amy Chen, Sarah Cho, Vivian Davis, Katie Shields, and Andrew Bliss

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