2014-2015 Graduate Scholars Colloquium an Interdisciplinary Forum for Ideas by Rachel Greenspan PH.D
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SUMMER 2015 WWW.WOMENSTUDIES.DUKE.EDU - PAGE 4 - - PAGE 12 & 18 - - PAGE 16 - - PAGE 18 - Senior Stories Visiting Scholars Postdoctoral Subnatures & A very impressive Class Lee Edelman and Renata Fellows Culinary Cultures of 2015 Salecl present at Duke Meet our 2014-15 An FHI Humanities Writ postdoctoral fellows Large Program 2014-2015 Graduate Scholars Colloquium An Interdisciplinary Forum for Ideas By Rachel Greenspan PH.D. CANDIDATE, PROGRAM IN LITERATURE he Women’s Studies Graduate Scholars Colloquium well as other urgent questions in the field of Feminist Studies. provides a site of vibrant intellectual exchange for In addition to graduate students (MA, PhD, and professional T graduate students across the disciplines engaged in the students), Women’s Studies core, graduate, and affiliated faculty study of gender and its multiple social, cultural, political and participate in the colloquium. Currently, the Graduate Scholars material implications. The colloquium is designed to address a community has more than 50 active participants. range of issues emerging out of the work of its participants, as -Continued on Page 14- WS Newsletter range of other professions, pages of this newsletter over including graduate school. the years. Reading the many Director’s The number of undergraduate applications has kept the students in our classes has faculty busy, but has also kept remained consistent over the us aware of the new currents Column years and the Program now in our field. The faculty have hopes to expand its reach seen how each others’ research through more collaborations projects have generated with other programs. The interest and have tapped a graduate certificate program lively pool of candidates. continues to grow and We have had residential the graduate students are fellows in the following areas: populating many fine positions transnational sexualities; around the world, and not race, art, and visual culture; only in academia. Their feminism and freedom; the accomplishments have been future of the feminist 1970’s; widely recognized at a variety the question of species; of colleges and universities. feminism and science; and …Thank you all for the privilege to work with you and talk with you over these years… At the University of Michigan, international psychoanalysis. NYU, Princeton, U Mass We see all the postdocs who Amherst, Dartmouth, the have remained in academia Ranjana Khanna have been changes, losses, College of the Atlantic, UT (which is 90% of them) gains, and many achievements MARGARET TAYLOR SMITH Dallas, to name just a few, regularly as they keep in touch DIRECTOR OF WOMEN’S STUDIES for the faculty, graduate Women’s Studies graduate with us from the universities at students, undergraduate certificate holders from Duke which they are now teaching, t the end of Spring students and staff in the University have taken on come to our conferences and semester 2015, I program. I am delighted to the task of guiding the next workshops, and send us their A am stepping down report that the program is generation. publications. as the Margaret Taylor Smith thriving. Director of Women’s Studies. Since 2008 we have had at While Tina Campt left us for I took over the directorship Our undergraduate students least two postdoctoral fellows Barnard College in New York from Robyn Wiegman in have gone on to careers in in residence annually who City, Robyn Wiegman shifted July 2007. The health of the medicine, law, journalism, have contributed well to the her primary appointment program was already good at publishing, fashion, non- intellectual life of the program. into the Literature Program, that time. Since then, there profits, teaching, and a whole You have met many in the and we have an entirely new 2 of 24 staff with Kim Carlisle, Kelly renovate the parlors downstairs Schwehm, and Sheila Devis, this year. I worked with Kim WOMEN’S STUDIES we have nonetheless grown, Carlisle and Lynn Joyner with hiring at every rank. on this project, and you will SPRING 2015 EVENTS The new additions over the hear more about it in the next last few years are Kimberly newsletter. The parlors remain JANUARY 15 Lamm and Gabriel Rosenberg in the same spirit, but have In Print: A celebration of gender-related who are Assistant Professors been beautifully updated and publications by Duke faculty. in Women’s Studies, Frances also now have technology, Hasso is Associate Professor, which makes them state of JANUARY 26 and Elizabeth Grosz is the Jean the art rooms. In addition, the Graduate Scholars Colloquium: Ali Mian O’Barr Professor of Women’s Women’s Studies Program will (Religion), “ Displaced Ornaments: The Feminine Studies. They, in addition to be moving downstairs adjacent Between Immanence and Transcendence.” Kathy Rudy, Kathi Weeks, to the parlors. We will be in and Ara Wilson continue to some of the most beautiful FEBRUARY 10 research and publish widely, offices on campus, and our Julian Gill-Peterson (Rutgers), “The Invention of the and of course to teach. new site will give the Program Transgender Child: Sex, Eugenics, and Aesthetics.” more space and more visibility. Our annual feminist theory FEBRUARY 13 workshop has become the Last but not least, Women’s Sara Clarke-Kaplan (UCSD), “Is that your Mama primary venue for the ongoing Studies has now become on the Pancake Box? Black Reproductivity discussion of feminist theory. the permanent home for the and the Politics of Freedom.” We routinely bring in faculty sexuality studies program. and students from 15-20 Reflecting this, the name FEBRUARY 16 different countries and 40-60 will probably change to the Stephanie Clare (Syracuse), “Earthly Encounters: different institutions. We fund Program in gender, Sexuality, Feminist Theory in a More-Than-Human World.” 10-17 international students to and Feminist Studies. join us and through that have FEBRUARY 24 had new ideas floated for the I thank you all for the privilege Renata Salecl, “Subjectivity in the 21st Century: future of feminist scholarship. to work with you and talk with From Anxiety to Ignorance,” Psychoanalysis We have had numerous mini- you over these years, and I in an International Frame series. conferences and speakers that wish my successor, Priscilla have kept us stimulated, and Wald, Professor of English FEBRUARY 23 has established Duke as a and Women’s Studies, success, Graduate Scholars Colloquium: Steffen Kaupp venue for research in feminist, pleasure, and stimulation. (German Studies), “(Un)GenderingGermanness: On gender, and sexuality studies Dysfunctional Families and Disrupted National Identity broadly conceived. in Post-War and Post-Unification German Fiction.” Thanks in part to our former MARCH 19 Program coordinator Melanie Graduate Scholars Lunch Seminar with Lee Edelman Mitchell, we received funding (Tufts), “No Future” and “Sex, or the Unbearable.” from Mary Jones and the Mary - CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 - Duke Biddle foundation to 3 of 24 WS Newsletter Senior Stories BIAUNCA MORRIS he path that led me to women’s studies was an accidental one of trial and error. Upon entering Duke, T I was always told that freshman year was the time to explore multiple options and try anything that interest you. The only certainty I had freshman year was that I was going to law school; the path that would lead me there was not as concrete. My interest in women’s studies had always been dormant in my life… My interest in women’s studies had always been dormant in systematically used to justify double major in public policy my life since childhood when I noticed the different treatment oppressing women in almost and women’s studies spring of the sexes but I shrugged it off as something that was “just every realm of life from the semester of my sophomore how life is”. It wasn’t until fall semester of my sophomore private, domestic sphere to the year. I had found my path. year, when I took my first two women’s studies courses, that public, economic market and I realized the gravity of these differences and their impact even the legal system. I plan to continue to use my on day-to-day female life. Women, Gender, and Sexuality in knowledge of the formal and U.S. History taught by Professor Sarah Deutsch and Money, Fall semester, sophomore year informal gender inequalities Sex, and Power by Professor Kathi Weeks opened my eyes was a semester of awakening at the private and institutional to new possibilities of how the world could be. I had never where I began to make the level, along with the context imagined a U.S. history written from the female perspective. It connections of my women’s and constraints of policy never even occurred to me where our interpretations of history studies to my public policy making to shape my career in and historical referencesderived. I learned from Week’s major and my prelaw path. The the legal field. Money, Sex, and Power course how this history has been next semester, I declared my 4 of 24 CARALENA PETERSON came to be a Women’s Studies major my second semester junior year. I think the biggest turning point was reading IGloria Steinem’s Revolution From Within, as it really helped me to see the ways in which feminist and womanist thought can have an impact on our day-to-day worlds. The personal truly is political. I became a Women’s Studies major because I realized, I didn’t want to just be treating the side effects of a patriarchal society. I wanted to understand the structure—the contradictions and disempowering demands enforced through gender roles, constrictions, and expectations—and be able to work from there. I didn’t want to just be treating the side effects of a patriarchal society. On a personal level, my Feminism is the core reason studies and experiences during I possess the self-confidence my pursuit of my Women’s and self-love I so cherish Studies major are what helped today.