Update: January 2012 Uring Her Long and Distinguished Career, Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
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director’s commentary CSWu p d atJANUARY e2012 Celebrating Sondra Hale appy New Year! I would like to begin this year by congratulating Professor Sondra Hale on her retire- Hment and thanking her for all her contributions and service to CSW. She can still continue her important research and teach if she wants, but she never has to go to another meeting! In addition to her many other accom- plishments, Professor Hale has long been an integral part of CSW. She served on the CSW Faculty Advisory Committee since 2000, but her involvement in the Center goes back to CSW’s earliest days. She held one of the very first Research Scholar Appointments and was a member of the news- letter’s Editorial Committee in 1990 and 1991. Hale has contributed to conferences, symposiums, and performances sponsored by CSW, including “Research in Motion: Affili- ated Scholars Exchange,” “Women at Work II,” and “Capitalist Development and the Liberation of Women: First World, Third World.” Hale was also central to the move by CSW 1 director’s commentary CSWu p d atJANUARY e2012 to become more actively and visibly involved in the public international exchanges between CSW, Women’s Studies, her 1996 research on “The Gender Politics of Social Move- policy arena. At one such forum in 1990, she presented and women’s/gender studies institutions in Middle East/ ments: The Case of Eritrea.” She has served on committees “Revisioning Education: Knowledge and Action in the 21st North Africa and Muslim South Asia. Its primary goal was to for the selection of research scholars and for the awarding of Century,” wherein she called for an action agenda to create a facilitate dialogue on emerging theories, concepts, pedago- grants. And, she has been a moderator a Thinking Gender. more multicultural, women-centered university. gies, and curricula as related to contemporary social and I would like to thank Professor Hale for all she had done In the Winter, 1990 newsletter, Hale wrote about her political issues within the field of women’s/gender studies. for CSW, for the CSW community, and for me. I am particu- longtime relation with the Women’s Building in “The Los During that time, Hale also arranged for UCLA, through larly grateful for her sage advice over the past six years and Angeles Women’s Building: An Enduring Institution” and in CSW, to host the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, hope she enjoys some free time in 2012. She has certainly the Fall 1991 newsletter, she wrote a personal reflection for which she served as co-editor from 2006 to 2009. earned it! –Kathleen McHugh about the lawsuit involving the Women’s Studies Program at From 2004 to 2007, she was also co-facilitator of the California State University, Long Beach, and a conservative, “Migrating Epistemologies” workshop series on feminist, fundamentalist religious group. postcolonial, and transnational theories. Professor Hale was Hale also served as the coordinator and principle inves- also very active in CSW sponsored research. Through faculty tigator of the UCLA Global South Gender Initiative (GSGI), grants, CSW help fund her research on “State Ideology, co-sponsored by CSW and the Women’s Studies Program Islamic Fundamentalism, and the Sexual Division of Labor– at UCLA. I began my directorship while Professor Hale was the Sudan Case,” research that she presented at a CSW- stewarding that program and we worked together on it, sponsored lecture in 1989 and then at the 1991 United Hale taking the opportunity to mentor me on grant-writing, Nations conference titled “Identity Politics and Women: negotiating, and raising money for the GSGI. GSGI fostered Cross-National Perspectives” in Helsinki. CSW also supported 2 january 2012 CSWCSW uu p p d d at at e e Tillie Olsen Grants Awarded for 2012 3 CSW u p d atJANUARY e2012 4 Sondra Hale Honored CONFERENCE SALUTES AN EXTRAORDINARY PROFEssOR WHO IS RETIRING FROM TEAchING TO WORK ON OTHER PROJECTS by Susan McKibben ARING, BOLDNESS, SELF-critiQUE, IN- ference offerings themselves moved seamlessly demonstrated not only Hale’s longtime presence TEGRITY, HUMOR. Over and over again, between these two poles. on the leading edge of numerous scholarly fields, students, colleagues, and friends used Hale was initially a co-organizer of the confer- but also her continuing influence on today’s new Cthese words to describe Sondra Hale at the “Gen- ence herself, along with Susan Slyomovics and scholars. der, Art, and Social Movements in the Middle Carole Browner of UCLA, and Sherine Hafez of The conference began not with Hale’s best- East and Global South” conference at UCLA on UC Riverside. When she announced her retire- known accomplishments in academia but with an October 28th, which honored her upon the occa- ment, however, the other co-organizers decided overview of some of her lesser-known activities. 1 sion of her retirement from full-time teaching. the conference would be the perfect opportunity Attendees enjoyed an opening slide show depict- “She embodies theory and practice,” said Women’s to honor their colleague with panels addressing ing Hale playing competitive tennis, performing Studies Ph.D. student Rana Sharif. Unlike some some of the specialties to which she has made as a ventriloquist and stand-up comic, and partici- scholars, Hale has always viewed theory and substantial contributions: Sudan Studies, Middle pating in marches and street demonstration as an practice, academics and activism, as inextricably East Women’s Studies, and Transnational Gender activist for many social justice causes. The presen- connected and mutually informing, and the con- Studies. Initially the conference was to address tation also highlighted her work in the arts as a 1. The conference was organized by the UCLA G.E. von Grunebaum Center for Near emerging issues and the work of younger scholars. poet, a critic, and a curator of Sudanese art as far Eastern Studies and was cosponsored by Dean of Social Sciences Alessandro Du- back as the 1960s. It was this work in the arts that ranti, Department of Anthropology, Center for the Study of Women, Department By combining these objectives with a theme of of Women’s Studies, African Studies Center, and the UC Riverside Department of tribute to Sondra Hale, however, the conference Susan Slyomovics asserted was among Hale’s most Women’s Studies. 5 UCLA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN ✪ csw update: january 2012 uring her long and distinguished career, Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. She also contributed to DSondra Hale has been an important causes ranging from protests against the war in Vietnam to last figure in fields from genocide and women’s year’s Occupy UCLA movement. rights to social movements. Before retiring, Hale has received many accolades in recognition of her work. Hale had taught at UCLA in various capaci- In 1993, she was given the Luckman Distinguished Teaching ties since 1986. Her Westwood roots, how- Award, UCLA’s highest honor for teaching. Hale has also received ever, stretch back to her undergraduate days, awards from the National Science Foundation, the National En- when she graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in English. Hale spent dowment for the Humanities, and the American Association of several years abroad after graduating, teaching English at the University Women. More recently, in 2011 Hale was given lifetime University of Khartoum. Inspired by her experiences in Sudan, achievement awards from the Association for Middle East Wom- Hale returned to UCLA, where she earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees en’s Studies and the Salmmah Women’s Resource Center, Sudan’s in African Studies and Anthropology, respectively. Over the next foremost women’s organization. The latter of these, recognizing few decades, Hale taught at several institutions, including a brief Hale’s devotion to the Sudanese women’s movement, is especial- return to the University of Khartoum as a lecturer in the anthro- ly notable, as the organization usually does not honor foreigners. pology department. Hale also published prolifically on a variety The Salmmah award was timed with the re- of topics related to issues in human rights and gender, particu- lease in Arabic of her book, Gender Politics in larly in Sudan and the Middle East. In addition to teaching, Hale Sudan: Islamism, Socialism, and the State (1996). has chaired the Women’s Studies programs at California State The first study of Sudanese gender studies to University, Long Beach; California State University, Northridge; be translated from English to Arabic, it details and UCLA. An outspoken activist during her career, Hale founded the position of women in Sudanese culture in or cofounded the UCLA African Activist Association, Feminists in terms of the relationship between gender and Support of Palestinian Women, the Darfur Task Force, California state, Sudanese women using Islam to construct their identity, Scholars for Academic Freedom, and the U.S. Committee for the and the barriers women face in Sudan. – Josh Olejarz 6 UCLA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN ✪ csw update: january 2012 ...all spoke of Hale as a caring mentor who helped her students navigate graduate school while nurturing their intellectual work and their commitments to community and to justice important academic contributions. At the time reifying either Orientalism or the false dichotomy come,” commented Rana Sharif. Hale began studying Sudanese art and art his- between the masculine/public and the feminine/ With plans to continue much of her activism, tory, visual anthropology was hardly recognized, private.2 Her proposed methodology, which, she research, and artistic activity, Hale’s retirement though it has since become better appreciated as asserted, was derived in part from Hale’s work, in- promises to look much the same as her intensely an important subfield of the discipline.