Gendermatters Fall 2017

gendermatters

Mission

2016-2017

The mission of the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies (CWGS) is to create committed communities that address the challenges faced in the areas of gender, sexuality, diversity, and equity. We recognize that ending gender discrimination requires ending the related discriminations against disability, ethnicity, gender identity, race, sexuality, and socioeconomic class.

2017 NEW Leadership™ Texas (See Page 14) Photo credit: Diani Guyton

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TEXASLiberal

Director’s Column

Susan Sage Heinzelman

In 1968, philosopher Hannah Arendt published a collection of essays titled Men [sic] in Dark Times. In the preface she spoke of dark times as those when the light of analysis, civic discourse and truth telling has been extinguished by “the highly efficient talk and double-talk of nearly all official representatives,” by “exhortations, moral and otherwise, that, under the pretext of upholding old truths, degrade all truth to meaningless triviality” (viii). Or might we say, “meaningless Twitter?” In its commitment to social justice and equity, the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies has always pushed back against those who would demean and trivialize the important work of our students, scholars, staff and allies. Now we just have to push harder.

At the local, state and national level, the turn to inflammatory and disingenuous language makes even more critical our obligation to speak, write and act with compassion and empathy. Since November 2016, I have been repeatedly moved by the staunchness of our colleagues and students in their belief that what we do and say does make a difference. And as evidence of this difference, let me just list a few of our most recent achievements: • Provost McInnis has approved Dean Diehl’s request for 3 junior lines to be shared 50-50 with the Center and appropriate departments.

• Dean Diehl has given us permission to work with interested faculty who wish to share 50% of their lines with the Center.

• Curricular and campus advocacy, guided by the faculty of the LGBTQ/Sexualities Research Cluster and led

by Ann Cvetkovich, has resulted in the establishment of the LGBTQ Program, September 2017 (see page 2 for details). We are grateful for the support of the Dean’s office in recognizing the importance of LGBTQ/ Sexualities as an academic area of inquiry.

These two faculty initiatives and the LGBTQ Program will finally create for the Center permanent tenured and tenure track faculty trained in gender studies. Can a Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies be far behind?

• Mexico Initiative Our investment in social justice extends beyond national boundaries: collaborating with LLILAS, the Center has provided ongoing funding for the Marcela Lagarde Cátedra, a twice-yearly seminar for researchers from American and Mexican academic institutions to strategize responses to gender violence in both the US and Mexico. And most recently, with the help of the Embrey Foundation, we have engaged in supporting a program in Oaxaca under the directorship of GESMujer, a non-profit foundation now in its 40th year, that conducts annual seminars to coach indigenous and Afro-Mexican women in how to resist gender violence in their communities.

• WGS BA (2007-2017) It has been 10 years since we launched our BA degree program—and as of August 2017, we have 90 majors—and we keep growing! (Save the date for our 10-year celebration: November 4-5th 2017). And to further strengthen our BA program, we are working ro establish a 5-year BA to MA degree program in Women’s & Gender Studies.

This is my 10th year as Director of the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies; and in some ways, it has been the hardest yet. But thanks to all those—staff, students and colleagues—who continue to shine light on the dark shadows, it has also been one of the most rewarding.

Susan Sage Heinzelman Director, Center for Women’s & Gender Studies 1

Center for Women’s2 & Gender Studies

Launch of the LGBTQ Studies Program We are happy to announce that, after many years of planning, a new LGBTQ Studies Program will be launched in the 2017-18 academic year. The Program will operate under the auspices of the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies and builds from the foundation established by the LGBTQ/Sexualities Research Cluster, which has provided programming and support for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates since its inception in 2004. Over time, the Research Cluster has helped create the LGBTQ/ Sexualities track of the WGS graduate portfolio, the undergraduate certificate and transcript-recognized minor, and the development of new curriculum, including WGS 303 Introduction to LGBTQ Studies and WGS 335 topics course in LGBTQ Studies.

With the increased visibility of the Program, we hope to support LGBTQ life on the campus, working in conjunction with organizations such as the Gender Sexuality Center, PEFSA (Pride and Equity Faculty Staff Association), the President’s Advisory Committee on LGBTQ Initiatives, and student LGBTQ groups. Our aim will be to facilitate the vision for a gender-inclusive and LGBTQ-friendly campus laid out by the GSC.

Ann Cvetkovich

Grayson Hunt

Photo Credit: Srijita Chattopadhyay

We will also be able to consolidate and expand our programming. Our programming for the fall includes trans-genre artist Justin Vivian Bond in conversation with UT faculty (Thursday, Sept. 7, 7-9 p.m., CLA 1.302E), a partnership with PEFSA to showcase the work of RTF faculty member and filmmaker PJ Raval (Tuesday, Oct. 3, 12-1 p.m., CLA 1.302E), a book launch for Curran Nault’s Queercore: Queer Punk Media Subculture (Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Cheer Up Charlies), and our end of semester Happy Hour in December. We are also hoping to add more programming that features the work of our students.

We will also host a major symposium as the official launch of the Program on January 25-26, 2018, which will feature invited visitors in partnership with UT faculty. Confirmed speakers thus far are Rod Ferguson (University of Illinois, Chicago Circle) and Ernesto Martinez (University of Oregon).

Please be on the lookout for the Program’s website, which will launch soon!

The inaugural Director of the LGBTQ Studies Program will be Ann Cvetkovich, Ellen Clayton Garwood Centennial Professor of English and Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies.

Cvetkovich is a long-time faculty member at UT who works on affect, archives, and LGBTQ public cultures. Her books include An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Duke, 2003) and Depression: A Public Feeling (Duke, 2012), and she has been coeditor, with Annamarie Jagose, of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (2004-2011).

Dr. Cvetkovich is writing a book about the current state of LGBTQ archives and the creative use of them by artists to produce counterarchives and interventions in public history.

She recently worked with students in her spring 2017 Queer Archives class to curate an exhibition of Harry Ransom Center collections called Coming Out of the Archives, which is on display at the HRC until the end of September.

On September 1, 2017, Grayson Hunt will begin a part-time position as Program Coordinator.

Grayson completed a PhD in philosophy at the New School for Social Research in NYC before beginning a postdoc at Bard College teaching political and feminist philosophy for the Bard Prison Initiative. Grayson’s current work explores the shared struggle of bisexual and transgender people, in particular the erasure and double standards that propel biphobia and transphobia. Before arriving at UT, Grayson taught at Western Kentucky University and started the university’s first transgender and non-binary student group. Grayson is currently the editor of the Newsletter on LGBTQ Issues in Philosophy for the American Philosophical Association.

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Cátedra for the Study of Gender Violence to Honor Dr. Marcela Lagarde By using the word “feminicide” to describe the violence perpetrated against women and girls in Juárez, Mexico, renowned Mexican anthropologist and scholar Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos created an international awareness of crimes committed with impunity against females in Latin America and Mexico.

“Dr. Marcela Lagarde has been able to convince not just small audiences but entire nations of the existence of systemic unpunished violence directed toward women that has often appeared as state sanctioned,” The University of Texas at El Paso President Diana Natalicio said about the influential feminist who was recently recognized for her immense contributions to feminist scholarship. “Her work and her focus on ‘feminicidio’ in Mexico led to the establishment of an investigatory commission that ultimately resulted in the passing of laws directed at curbing female homicide and recognizing the right of women to a life free from violence.”Lagarde’s work will be the focus of a new program to promote the study of gender violence under the auspices of seven partner institutions, including The University of Texas at Austin.

In March 2017, UTEP President Natalicio and representatives from the Center of Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Humanities of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to join the Marcela

Lagarde y de los Ríos International Cátedra (program) for the Study of Violence, Gender and Peace, established in March 2016 by the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) and the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies (CWGS) at UT Austin.

UTEP, UNAM and CIESAS will collaborate with the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ), the Fundación Guatemala and The University of Texas at Austin to continue Lagarde’s legacy by improving research, teaching, outreach and political impact on issues related to gender violence, consolidating research on gender violence, developing topic-related discourse communities, and promoting academic innovations within discourse communities.

To achieve these goals, the partner institutions will participate in several activities. They plan to hold biannual conferences, promote related research projects, create public policy initiatives, recognize student research through annual awards and publish joint research on gender equality and violence against women.

Global Health Study Abroad in Oaxaca Bridges Health Disparities

The Oaxaca Global Health Study Abroad Program, which is cross-listed with Women’s and Gender Studies, introduces students to scholarship on priority global health topics in relation to issues of health and human rights, migration, and global health equity.

Students learn about the concept of the social determinants of health, and how race, class and gender inequalities impact the health of individuals and populations. Student Lucia Palmer wrote, “My eyes were opened to many issues centered on women’s rights, human rights and health rights while I was in Oaxaca. Issues that I thought I wasn’t very Reproductive Health Rights Training by Young interested in, such as prenatal and postpartum health care, I realized were so much deeper and relevant than I expected. And issues that I was already very invested in, such Indigenous Leaders as gender and domestic violence, were given new angles and complexities in ways that I wasn’t anticipating. I am still inspired by the time I spent there, the work I did, and the people I met, in ways that I’m sure will ripple far into my future and after I leave UT.”

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4 & Gender Studies Center for Women’s

Continued

Weekly seminar discussions with faculty and guest speakers explore issues such as maternal and infant mortality, TB, HIV, gender-based violence, and obesity. Opportunities for hands-on learning and cultural immersion are provided through a variety of experiences. Students spend six-week rotations in local teaching hospitals and clinics or in social service organizations, including a center for gender-based violence and an educational center for street children. As one student points out, “Having a service project really allows us to take ownership of our time here. I love the freedom we are given and the opportunity to exercise our creativity as we brainstorm.” By engaging in service-responsive Photo Credit: Blake Allen projects with these organizations, students gain a deeper understanding of the challenges of working in resource-poor settings. Spanish language training, home stays with Oaxacan families, and cultural activities and site visits to a broad range of local community organizations further enrich student experiences and learning.

The Oaxaca Global Health Study Abroad Program course is co-taught by Melissa Smith, M.D. a family medicine physician with global health expertise and Senior Lecturer at the UT School of Social Work, and Paola Sesia, a medical anthropologist with a Master’s in Pblic Health and Senior Faculty at the Center for Research and Advanced Study of Social Anthropology, CIESAS- Pacifico Sur, Oaxaca.

Free Minds Project

The Free Minds Project, partially supported by CWGS, provides Central Texas adults living on low to moderate incomes with a chance to fulfill their intellectual potential and to “jumpstart” their college education. In the Free Minds Project, students explore new ways of thinking about themselves and about their world by studying important works of literature, history, philosophy, and art. Founded in 2006 by the Humanities Institute, Free Minds has served seven classes of students as well as its more than 80 alumni and developed strong community partnerships with Austin Community College, Foundation Communities, Camp Fire USA, and others.

Free Minds is directed by Amelia Pace-Borah, who can be reached by email at Amelia.Pace-Borah@foundcom.org

The Women’s March

The January 21 Women’s March was a women-led movement providing intersectional education on a diverse range of issues and to create entry points for new grassroots activists & organizers to engage in their local communities through trainings, outreach programs and events. The CWGS community attended women’s marches across the globe!

Austin

Washington, DC

El Paso

Houston

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Indianapolis

London

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2016-2017 Faculty Development Program The Faculty Development Program is designed to assist in recruitment, retention, and promotion of new faculty members whose scholarship and teaching focuses on gender studies. CWGS offers support of various kinds, including research funds. Our goal is to welcome, inform, and support our new colleagues. Both faculty fellows presented a paper during the 2016-2017 FDP Speaker Series.

Erin Lentz, LBJ School of Public Affairs Complicating narratives of undernutrition This project explores overlooked factors that influence women’s nutrition outcomes in rural Bangladesh. Partnering with Nijera Kori, a Bangladeshi landless laborers’ movement, Lentz utilized a community researcher model to understand nutrition within households.

Lentz is currently pursuing two parallel research agendas: she examines issues of food insecurity, US and international food aid and assistance polices, as well as the relationships among subjective wellbeing, community attributes, relative deprivation, and inequality in sub-Saharan Africa.

Liz Engelman, Department of Theatre and Dance Slowing Time, Enlarging Space: A Conversation An experiential workshop/discussion, this conversation examines what it means to be a creative artist, focusing on the necessity of time and space as essential to the creative process, and exploring how slowing time and enlarging space provides women artists with the opportunity to access, deepen, and develop their creative skills.

Engelman has served as President, Board Chair and is a current Board Member of LMDA, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. She has written articles published in Theatre Topics and Theatre Forum.

2016-2017 CWGS Faculty Research Lecture Series

The Center for Women’s & Gender Studies awarded Core Faculty Research Grants to support scholarship that promotes social justice in women, gender and/or sexuality studies.

Mary Beltran Dept. of Radio-Television-Film Television Centering Latina Teens and Their Empowerment: The Anomaly of East Los High Dr. Beltran writes and teaches on Latina and Latino representation in U.S. film, television, and celebrity culture, on Latina/Latino media producers in the U.S., and on race, gender, class, and sexuality in the entertainment media.

Mary Bock School of Journalism We Haven’t Come a Long Way, Baby: Gendered Representations of Taboo, Violence and Attractiveness in the News Dr. Bock is a former journalist turned academic with an interest in the sociology of photographic practice, the relationship between words and images, and digital media.

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Pat Somers College of Education Women and Campus Carry 100 faculty and staff women were interviewed at UT about campus carry using self-determination theory as a framework. Dr. Somers presented their results and made recommendations to universities, administrators, faculty and staff members.

6 & Gender Studies Center for Women’s

CWGS Research Clusters The Center for Women’s & Gender Studies has created a series of research clusters in specific subject areas.

Through these research clusters and the work of various other schools, colleges, and research centers, we promote faculty research collaboration and interaction with undergraduates and graduates. Bringing together scholars trained in different methodologies and disciplinary traditions around a common theme, interdisciplinary research promises new opportunities for innovation and insight.

LGBTQ/Sexualities Issues such as same-sex marriage, gays in the military, and transgender visibility have drawn public attention to LGBTQ cultures. The scholarly study of sexuality -- its history, meanings, and expression -- is a crucial tool Roundtable featuring brief for evaluating these debates. presentations How have views about “normal” from the following and “aberrant” sexual expression faculty about changed over time? How do views their books that differ across the globe and within are nearing different local communities? How publication, sponsored by the do other social identities, such as LGBTQ/Sexualities race, gender, and gender expression, Research Cluster. class, ability, and citizenship, shape our experience of sexual orientation? LGBTQ studies has also developed in response to social movements and activism, including AIDS activism, increased visibility in media and mainstream culture, and advances in obtaining civil rights, including domestic partner benefits, marriage equality, and immigration.

Gender, Childhood, and Youth This research cluster focuses on gender, childhood and youth from an interdisciplinary perspective.

We consider issues such as gender socialization through parenting, education, literature, and media; A Princess gendered images of childhood and Out of Place: youth in media and popular culture; Guinevere youth media production; children’s in the BBC’s and teenagers’ media consumption Merlin and Dark Fantastic and fandom; gender-specific children’s Dreaming by organizations, such as the Boy Scouts Ebony Thomas, and the Girl Scouts; self-esteem and a Gender, Childhood, and body image in children and youth; Youth event.

childhood and adolescent sexuality; gendered play; child and teenage celebrities; transnational and comparative girls’ and boys’ cultures; minority and immigrant children and youth within the United States (considered from a gendered perspective); public policy, gender and children; queer, transgender, and intersexed children; gendered histories and theories of childhood and youth; and other related themes as participants raise them.

Women of Color Feminisms Colloquia

Drawing on the musical definition of colloquium as a composition that celebrates birth or other good news is a series of lectures, Dr. Ananya Chatterjea, “Of workshops, and Thieving, Essences, and Strategies: Performative Cultures performances that bring internationallyin 2016” Part of the Women of Color known feminist Feminisms Colloquia scholars of color to UT. The colloquia opened Photo Credit: Simon Richardson public conversations with scholars whose work creatively reconfigures concepts of race, gender, and sexuality through the lens of Black diaspora, Asian diaspora, Latinax, and indigenous feminisms. Highlighting scholarly and creative work located at the intersection of disciplines including historiography, sociology, anthropology, literature, and performance studies, the colloquia will engage Women of Color Feminisms as embodied practice, artistic expression, and political strategy.

The series honors the work of national and international Women of Color Feminists even as it highlights related work of CWGS faculty and graduate students, so drawing attention to UT as a leader in Women of Color Feminist scholarship and artistic production.

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Student and Faculty Awards At the Annual Spring Awards reception, CWGS recognized student and faculty excellence in the 2016-2017 academic year. The following awards and recipients were announced at a reception held May 9 in the T-House Suite in the Texas Union: Cynthia Walker Peña Scholarship. This scholarship, co-sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, honors the memory of Cynthia Walker Peña, who worked in Dean Robert King’s office in the College of Liberal Arts from 1979-1981. The Cynthia Walker Peña Scholarship in Women’s and Gender Studies is awarded annually to an undergraduate student in good standing who has earned distinction in Women’s and Gender Studies scholarship and service (with an emphasis on service). This year’s winner is Jeanette Celine Pacheco, BA, Women’s and Gender Studies.

Lora Romero Memorial Graduate Award for Interdisciplinary Research in Race, Ethnicity and Gender. This scholarship, co-sponsored by the Department of English, is an annual award created in memory of former UT Austin colleague, Lora Romero. The award alternates between undergraduate and graduate student recipients. The award recognizes students who are investigating the intersections between race, ethnicity and gender. This year’s winner is William Mosley, for his paper titled, Can the ATLien Speak? Gender, Race, and the Politics of Performance in Contemporary Hip-Hop. Women’s and Gender Studies Dissertation Fellowship. This fellowship is for doctoral students writing dissertations on topics related to Women’s and Gender studies. Ph.D. students who are enrolled in the WGS Portfolio Program are eligible. This year’s winner is Brandon Andrew Robinson in the Department of Sociology for their paper titled, OUTcasts: LGBTQ Youth Homelessness in the Urban South, Supervisors: Dr. Gloria GonzálezLópez (Department of Sociology) and Dr. Debra Umberson (Population Research Center).

Women’s and Gender Studies MA Thesis Award. This award is given annually to deserving students based on the student’s thesis and its contribution to the field of Women’s and Gender Studies. This year’s winner is Hayley Morgenstern for her paper titled, Genealogies of Trauma: The Inheritance of Hysteria, Supervisors: Dr. Ann Cvetkovich (Department of English) and Dr. Matt Richardson (Department of English)

Lucia, John, and Melissa Gilbert Teaching Excellence Award in Women’s and Gender Studies. This Award honors faculty members with an outstanding record of undergraduate and/or graduate teaching in Women’s & Gender Studies courses. One award is given each year, alternating between non-tenured faculty members (Assistant Professor, Senior Lecturer, and Lecturer) and tenured faculty members (Associate Professor and Full Professor).

This years award went to Dr. Julie A. Minich (Department of English, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Women’s & Gender Studies) Also recognized were the Spring 2017 recipients of the following degree, certificate and portfolio programs in the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies: WGS BA, Undergraduate LGBTQ/Sexualities Studies Certificate; WGS MA, WGS MA/MSIS, and WGS Graduate Portfolio Program.

Hayley Morgenstern received the WGS MA Thesis Award presented by supervisor Dr. Ann Cvetkovich (English)

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Jeanette Celine Pacheco received the Cynthia Walker Peña Scholarship presented by Jackie Salcedo (WGS)

Center for Women’s & Gender Studies

William Mosley received the Lora Romero Memorial Graduate Award, Presented by Dr. Caroline Faria (Geography) with Rachel V. GonzálezMartin (Mexican American Studies)

Faculty Awards, continued Two College of Liberal Arts faculty members recently received top national honors from the American Hina Azam Ann Twinam Historical Association (AHA): Hina Azam, associate professor in Middle Eastern Studies, won the James Henry Breasted Prize for her book Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence, and Procedure (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015). Ann Twinam, professor of Latin American History, won the Albert J. Beveridge Award

for her book Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies (Stanford University Press, 2015).

This year, Dr. Erin Lentz is Public Voices Fellow for the Op-Ed project and wrote “In the fight against hunger, why don’t we prioritize women?”, which has been posted in The Hill. The data are from field research this past summer with Nijera Kori in Bangladesh and Erin Lentz are part of a multi-year project on the Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index.

Meet Our New Postdoc

Balbir K. Singh

The Center for Women’s & Gender Studies is delighted to announce our new Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s and Gender Studies: Balbir K. Singh arrives in Austin from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she was Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Asian American Studies, as well as Postdoctoral Affiliate with the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. Prior to Illinois, Balbir received her PhD in English at the University of Washington in 2016 under the direction of Chandan Reddy. Currently, Balbir is at work on her first book, “Militant Bodies,” which looks at the visual culture and body politics of Muslims and Sikhs under the rise of global Islamophobia. Her scholarly and teaching interests include comparative racialized religions, transnational feminist studies, visual culture, anti-colonial and anti-imperial thought, and queer studies. She has published articles for the journals Sikh Formations and Critical Ethnic Studies, as well as sites including Z-Net, Dissident Voice, and Truthout. Her latest essay, “The Commodity Fetish of Modest Fashion” is out this October in QED: A Journal of GLBTQ World-Making.

In Memoriam Barbara Harlow, Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor of English Literature, Core Faculty with Women’s and Gender Studies, scholar and human rights activist, died January 28 after a short battle with terminal cancer. Harlow led campus protests in support of Palestine at UT, and she spoke vehemently against apartheid South Africa, wars in the Middle East, American torture tactics and Palestinian mistreatment, according to an obituary by UT history professor Toyin Falola. Harlow received a bachelor’s degree in French and philosophy from Barbara Harlow Simmons College in Boston in 1970. Harlow also pursued a master’s degree at the University of Chicago and received her Ph.D. on the writings of Marcel Proust at SUNY Buffalo in 1977. She has taught at the American University in Cairo, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and UT. Her fierce resistance to the multiple forms of injustice was an inspiration to all. She will be sorely missed but her vision of a more just world remains with us in the many students, colleagues, and activists filled with hope for a better future. http://www.liberalarts.utexas.edu/cwgs

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Welcome Fall 2017 MA Cohort Marcia Black was born in Detroit and raised as a military child. Marcia moved back to Detroit in 2013 from Jacksonville, Florida to attend Marygrove College, where she received her Bachelors of Arts in Political Science and Sociology. As an undergraduate student Marcia engaged in activism and organizing work in a variety of topics, including environmental racism, racial equity, gender equity, and anti-gentrification. She was one of the co-chairs of the Black Youth Project 100 Detroit Chapter. While co-chair, Marcia contributed to the coordination of an action to honor the memory of Aiyana Stanley-Jones life and passing, a 7 year old black girl murdered by Detroit police. Most recently, Marcia works as a program coordinator to promote college readiness for 11th and 12th grade girls in Southwest Detroit. Her research interests include radical storytelling of black women and femmes in the Movement for Black Lives and the ways that storytelling can be used as a tool of liberation. She loves cooking, black people, and all things Detroit. Marcia is an avid believer that there is no such thing as black liberation without the intentional inclusion and centering of black women, black non-gender conforming people, and black trans people.

Nyesha Brown is a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin Madison with a degree in Human Development Family Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies. During her undergraduate career, she spent a semester abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, where she examined how her experience of gender changes as she moves from one geographic location to another. She would like to expand on this research by analyzing the historical prevalence of misogynoir violence and its impact on Black women’s present realities in the United States. Her research interests lie at the intersection of Black feminism, intersectionality theory, resistance studies, and the performance of misogynoir violence. She is also currently interested in the politics of social media and body positivity. Outside of her academic work, Nyesha manages her handmade natural skin care line, “natural mystic” and her self titled blog. She also loves cooking, making art, reading leisurely, and all things Erykah Badu.

As a graduate student in the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, Nyesha’s research will interrogate the possibility of Black women’s liberation in a culture that remains antithetical to their existence.

Shawntal Brown is from the University of Oklahoma, where she received her Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies. She focused both her academic and service work on the Black women’s experience.

Shawntal conducted research titled, “Symbolic Racism and the Perceptions of Police Brutality,” to provide awareness about police brutality in the United States. In “The Metamorphosis of the Single Black Mother,” she analyzed the mobilization of the Black family and mother in the historical contexts of slavery, eugenics and welfare. Shawntal was also involved in student activism with the campus movement, OU Unheard. She is interested in traveling, art, and womanism pedagogies. Shawntal’s current research interests focus on the intersection of race, class, and gender in constructing Black womanhood through the lens of history for various contexts and how these areas impact Black women in navigating their daily agendas.

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Center for Women’s & Gender Studies

Aems Emswiler is from Southeast Texas and received their BA in English literature and Feminist Studies at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX. Since becoming involved with the Inside Books Project in 2012, an Austin-based books to prisoners project, Aems has focused their community organizing and academic work around restorative justice, abolitionist frameworks, and trans resistance to the prison industrial complex (PIC).

By grounding their academic praxis in community-based work led by those directly affected by the PIC, specifically queer and trans women of color, Aems hopes to build an accessible digital archive of art, essays, poetry and other materials from folks incarcerated in Texas. At UT, Aems’ digital archiving studies will continue to be grounded in this community-based organizing, centering queer frameworks for abolition and studies of censorship as enactments of carceral violence.

Mac Irvine is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and holds a degree in magazine journalism with specializations in sociology and gender studies. Mac’s journalistic work as a writer and editor has focused on a number of issues, such as technology, identity, queer health outcome, nightlife and art, local politics, and food culture, and has been published in the Chicago Reader, Time-Out Chicago, Popular Science, the Medill Equal Media Project and several other student-led and DIY publications. Mac is interested in how and why queer identities and communities coalesce around media and how digital forms of communication and media production have thus far impacted and continue to shape the process of queer identity and community formation. In addition, Mac is interested to explore ways these queer identities and communities and the media around which they form affect societal and technological power structures. A native Iowan, Mac has spent time living in Chicago, New York City and London. Mac enjoys the arts, building community, travel, and the outdoors.

Shelby Murphy was born and raised in Groves, Texas. As a first generation college student she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, with a minor in Sociology from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. During her undergraduate career she co-founded a feminist and democratic socialist organization on campus, and was a Reaud Honors College student. She was a Student Director for the Lamar University Office of Diversity and Inclusion, helping organize multicultural programming throughout the year on campus. She has been recognized for her academic, community and leadership efforts by being chosen as a Lamar University Senior of Significance and a Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges. She is active in social justice work, serving as National Co-Chair of the Young Democratic Socialists Coordinating Committee from 2015-2016, and is currently serving on the Democratic Socialists of America’s National Political Committee. She is also a co-chair of the Socialist Feminist Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America where she and other co-chairs help to provide resources for DSA chapters to organize around feminist issues that especially impact working class and poor women, and women of color. She was also a Ronald E. McNair Scholar where she researched feminism in folklore, primarily looking at the legend of “La Llorona,” and Chicana Feminist Theory. She plans to continue her research on Chicana Feminist Theory and liberating the voices and stories of Latina women. She loves animals, cooking, reading, writing, nature and art. http://www.liberalarts.utexas.edu/cwgs

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Women’s and Gender Studies Class of 2017

2017 Senior Seminar Class. Photo credit: Griffin Smith Bachelors of Arts Degree: Amadeus Miranda Harita Nandivada Jacob Stanley Kalbfleisch Sneha Mehta Ariel D. Smith Javier Rivera Katherine Elizabeth Dembny

LGBTQ/Sexualities Certificate Jonathan Arevalo Khyree Dean Davis Marcus Hal Elliot Emilia Garanzuay Erika Y. Mercado

Graduate Portfolio Anima Adjepong Sara Auclair Adam Aziz Drea Brown Shantel Gabrieal Buggs Zoe Crabtree Amy Kathleen Guenther Lizeth Elizondo Jenna N. Hanche Stephanie Hotz Janine Jones Rebecca Anne Macmillan Elissa Underwood Marek Megan Tobias Neely Brandon Robinson Casey Sloan Nicholas Spinelli Laura Struve

Master of Arts Degree Lindsey Davis, Challenges of White Anti-Racist Praxis.

(Dec. 2017)

Candice Lyons, Nobody Knows But Jesus (And Miss Fanny): A Queer Reading of the U.S. Female Slave Archive.

Hayley Morgenstern, Genealogies of Trauma: The Inheritance of Hysteria.

Sierra Salazar-Zepeda, Emergent Ether: Investigating Healing Spaces in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Giorgia Shields, “A Disease Plaguing Men All Over The Globe”: The Friend Zone as a Site of Compulsory Heterosexuality and Sexual Violence.

(Dec. 2017)

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WGS Graduate Students Tabling at the Queer People of Color and Allies (QPOCA) Bloq Party Event Photo Credit: Liz Elsen

Center for Women’s & Gender Studies

SAGE: Scholarship. Activism. Growth. Engagement.

SAGE is a dynamic social and educational organization that provides space for Women’s & Gender Studies (WGS) majors, Queer Studies scholars, as well as allies of the feminist and LGBTQIA+ communities on UT’s campus.

SAGE is committed to fostering conversation and action for aspiring scholar activists, and we place the utmost importance on being a resource and guide for feminist/queer students at the University. SAGE provides a gathering place for the academic Women’s and Gender Studies, and LGBTQ Studies community here at UT Austin. SAGE is a casual space outside of the classroom where undergraduate students can discuss issues that come up in their coursework as well as their current and future research. SAGE also offers a welcoming space for those students not yet involved with the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies (CWGS) but who are interested in engaging in related work. Another crucial aspect of this goal of community building on campus is to foster closer relationships between CWGS, social justice resource centers, and academic departments at UT Austin. Interested students should visit our webpage.

Performing Justice Project

Megan Alrutz, Lynn Hoare, Briana Barner, and Courtney McEniry presented The Performing Justice Project at the Facing Race National Conference in November.

Their presentation: Facing Race with Youth and Communities offered a participatory model for devising critically engaged performance work with young people. In this interactive session, participants experienced how the Performing Justice Project uses theatre, storytelling, creative writing, movement, and technology as tools for enacting and performing gender and racial justice. They offered a brief introduction to the Performing Justice Project, including previous performance work created with schools, foster care facilities, and juvenile justice centers. Following a process in which participants work together to create and share their own short performance collages, the group discussed critical questions and challenges that arise when exploring gender and racial justice with youth and communities.

24th Annual Conference on Emerging Scholarship in Women’s and Gender Studies The 24th Emerging Scholarship in Women’s & Gender Studies Graduate Student Symposium, Queer(ing) Futures, Queer Futurity, was held on Friday, March 31, 2017, in the Gordon White Building (GWB). The symposium began with a Drag Yoga Session with Jackalin Paradise (Kewal Hausmann) followed by panels held throughout the day.

The Keynote, “The Amazing Past’ or Feeling lo femenino” was presented by Dr. Juana María Rodríguez, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. The symposium ended with a performance

by LaWhore Vagistan” (Kareem Khubchandani). The graduate student committee organizing the 2017 conference was chaired by WGS MA student Abe Heath.

The 2017 conference was co-sponsored by: The Sterling Clark Holloway Centennial Lectureship in Liberal Arts, Center for Mexican American Studies, Department of English, Department of History, Department of Radio-Television-Film, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and Department of Theatre and Dance. http://www.liberalarts.utexas.edu/cwgs

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INSPIRE: Empowering Texas Women Leaders Since 2009, the Inspire program has served as UT’s signature leadership program for women undergraduates. INSPIRE was created in response to the continuing inequalities in educational attainment and career advancement for women. INSPIRE offers a unique opportunity for young women to come together across disciplines, schools, areas of interest, ethnicity, and life experience to learn the value of diversity and how to successfully communicate across cultures. Students develop inclusive leadership skills by reflecting on their own social identities, learning how structural exclusion can separate us, and practicing outreach strategies for their lives and careers.

In March, the junior cohort students researched, wrote, and presented original scholarly papers at their own Inspire Research Conference.

Presenters and paper topics included: Katarina Antolovic, Linguistic Repertoire on Ethnic Identity: A study of attitudes and beliefs; Hannah Ray, Effects of Speech Clarity on Sentence Recognition Memory; Jessica Wu, Effects of Nutritional and Osmotic Stress on Metabolite Production in Endophytic Fungi; Madeline Hoadley, Voluntourism: Beneficial or Exploitative?

National Conference for College Women Student Leaders

In May 2017, twelve INSPIRE participants and facilitators attended the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders in Maryland and Washington, DC. While there, they networked with college women from across the US, and attended workshops and breakout sessions. They returned to Austin with skills and the confidence to put those skills into action at UT. Additional activities involving INSPIRE participants in 2016-2017 included: • Feminism 101 class, • Creative community building classes, • Funky exercise class to promote healthy lifestyles, • Participated in Empowered Young Womyn panel with two middle schools, • Attended the Rachel Vincent book talk, • Attended a UT Women’s basketball game, • Attended a Texas Performing Arts show, • And an End-of-Year Celebration.

Empowered Young Womyn Panel with two San Antonio Middle Schools

INSPIRE is supported by the Mary Braunagel-Brown Excellence Fund and the Jody Conradt Excellence Fund as well as individual donors.

INSPIRE Women First

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In January 2017, the Creekmore and Adele Fath Charitable Foundation granted our request to expand INSPIRE to reach incoming freshman students during the critical first year of college with a $15,000 award. INSPIRE Women First assists the transition of first-generation, women of color, and women in STEM majors to college by creating an educational, social, and supportive network to aid in their success during their freshman year at UT Austin. Students have the opportunity to stay within this supportive mentored group for four full years; they will be giving the space and time to step back and reflect on what it means to be a female student, more than likely a first-generation college student, often a student of color, and more often than not in male-dominated careers.

Center for Women’s & Gender Studies

NEW Leadership™ Texas NEW Leadership™ Texas (NEWLT) is an intensive, six-day, non-partisan residential program that gives college women the knowledge and skills to become effective leaders in politics, public policy, and public service.

This program, sponsored by UT’s Center for Women’s & Gender Studies, is held every summer on The University of Texas at Austin campus.

This year from June 1-6, 37 women attended from 27 universities and colleges: Austin Community College, Baylor University, Brookhaven College, Collin College, Hofstra University, Huston-Tillotson University, Lamar University, McMurry University, Prairie View A & M University, Rice University, San Jacinto Community College, St. Edward’s University, St. Mary’s University, Texas Woman’s University, Trinity University, University of Houston, University of Houston at Clear Lake, University of Houston Downtown, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, University of North Texas, The University of Texas (Arlington, Austin, Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio, Tyler, Rio Grande Valley).

Keynote Speaker, Senator Wendy Davis

Senator Wendy Davis gave the keynote address. Her message emphasized leadership, education, and activism. She told anecdotes about her life and career that were relevant and applicable to this diverse group of students. She encouraged the women to use their voices for conversations that shape the political and public discourse of policymaking in this country. The students felt energized and motivated to get into the public arena in whatever way possible.

Students heard from elected officials, including: Christi Craddick, Chairman, Railroad Commission of Texas; Delia Garza, Austin City Council Member; The Honorable Lora Livingston, Travis County District Judge; Kathie Tovo, City Council Member/ Mayor Pro Tem; Dawn

Texas State Capitol

Buckingham, Texas State Senator; Donna Howard, Texas State Representative. At City Hall, we heard from women leaders in local government: Deborah Thomas, Deputy City Attorney; Veronica Lara, Director of Small & Minority Business Resource Department;, Elaina Ball, Chief Operating Officer & Deputy GM of Austin Energy; Julia Joseph, Financial Manager, Austin Convention Center; Sara Hensley, Interim Assistant City Manager, City of Austin; Joya Hayes, Director of Human Resources.

Throughout the week, students attended workshops and panel discussions to learn about their leadership styles, public speaking, diversity, networking, managing their message, and becoming the next generation of effective civic and political leaders. The group also visited Austin City Hall and the Texas State Capitol.

NEWLT participants also benefited from the experiences of our faculty-in-residence, three women leaders who mentor students during the summer institute. This year’s mentors were Jehmu Greene, Fox News Political Analyst; T. Dean Adams, Write Your Life as a Woman, Workshop Leader; Jacquie Baly, BalyProjects, President & CEO. NEW Leadership™ Texas was made possible, in part, with support from the Embrey Family Foundation, LBJ School of Public Affairs, H-E-B, and Gatti’s Pizza and all the donors who support NEW Leadership™ Texas.

http://www.liberalarts.utexas.edu/cwgs

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Support our Programs Your gifts to the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies help create committed communities that address the challenges faced in the areas of gender, sexuality, diversity, and equity. Gifts designated to the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies help preserve and enhance programming, course development, endowments and support community outreach initiatives.

Mail: Center for Women’s & Gender Studies The University of Texas at Austin 2505 University Ave, Stop 4900 Burdine Hall, Suite 536 Austin, TX 78712

Please make checks payable to The University of Texas at Austin and indicate in the memo line that you are supporting the Center for Women’s & Gender Studies.

Give Online: Go to UT Austin’s secure website and click on the “Donate here” link.

Visit the CWGS giving page Thank you for your contribution and support.

Stay Connected to CWGS

Visit our facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/utcwgs/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/utcwgs Check out our videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/utcwgs

SAVE THE DATE: November 4 and 5, 2017 10 Year Anniversary Celebration of the CWGS Bachelor of Arts in Women’s and Gender Studies

Contact us Center for Women’s & Gender Studies The University of Texas at Austin 2505 University Avenue, Stop A4900 Austin, TX 78712 (512) 471-5765 cwgs@austin.utexas.edu http://www.liberalarts.utexas.edu/cwgs

Keynote speaker will be Texas State Representative Mary E. González

Center for Women’s & Gender Studies

Texas State Representative Mary E. González