Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies 2012 Newsletter by College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State

2012 ANNUAL NEWSLETTER

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CONTENTS / Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inside III Reflections / Message from the Chairs IV Intersections / Graduate Student News V Additions / New Graduate Students Features / Alumna at Work

VI Highlights / Queer Places, Practices and Lives Conference VII Accomplishments / Faculty / Alumnae VIII Highlights / Frontiers Comes to OSU Features / Faculty in Focus

IX Horizons / New WGSS Opportunities in Study Abroad Additions / New Staff Members

X Highlights / 2012 Major Events XI Farewells / Departing Friends XII Support / Share the Vision

[ ] Andy Cavins and bell hooks stroll through the oval

residency sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences. In addition to a number of small group discussions on wide-ranging topics, Professor hooks gave a public lecture on Monday, October 1, 2012. This was Professor hooks’ third year of residency at The Ohio State University. It has been a great pleasure and honor to witness how her ideas come together in conversation with the campus and we’re excited about the publication of her book, Writing Beyond Race. Also bridging the gap between theory and practice, between academe and art, was an Arts & Humanities-funded symposium titled, “Pop! Impact.” A panel of culture producers joined us to discuss the humanities impact on their respective fields of new media, comedy, and TV/film. Our guests included filmmaker and director Alison Anders, comedian Angela V. Shelton, and blogger and media consultant LaToya Peterson. Co-sponsored with Wexner Center for the Arts, the symposium took place on Thursday, October 4th. Enrollments continue to build at a healthy pace with 115 undergraduate majors, 160 undergraduate minors, 30 masters and doctoral students, and 15 graduate minors. It is tempting in an election year to despair of the state of politics. A great antidote to reports of incivility and strife is the time spent in the WGSS classroom with students who are politically aware, and who know that they can learn so much more that will help them in their future aspirations. Reports in the mainstream media find that the generation currently attending universities is open to change, selfexpressive, and upbeat, across race, religious background, and military status. Let’s hold onto those findings as we discuss, debate, argue, theorize, and expand upon the views that make us all engaged and enlightened citizens.

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Dr. Bystydzienski, Chair (left) and Dr. Springer, Chair Summer ’12 (right)

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Coming to the party mid-stream would be how I describe stepping in for our regular chair, Jill Bystydzienski, as chair for the summer. New to the department in autumn 2010, it would be easy for me to call the process of semester conversion a “party” since my colleagues on both the faculty and staff had everything in order well before the official start of the semester system in 2012. In theatre they wish one another well with “break a leg.” I’m not sure we have such a tradition in academe: “Pencils to the ready?” “Laptops charged?” Whatever the case may be, we are prepared. You may have noticed that we have a new logo. Professor Guisela Latorre, who specializes in Chicana/o and Latin American art, oversaw the re-design and guided the logo through to a fresh look. Gone is the woman we called “flame hair” and replaced with a number of colorful profiles that we hope represent the fluidity of the gender categories we examine in our classes and research. Also integral to our new look is our streamlined website that conveys more clearly what we do here and how we can be of service to our students, the campus, and the wider academic community. Last year our undergraduate and graduate committees took a look at our enrollments of students of color. While WGSS is certainly ahead of the curve at the university-level, we can do better. Outreach to student groups and applicants with an eye to increasing the numbers of students of color in higher education will continue and, hopefully, build upon the department’s commitment to equity across the spectrum of identities. Our outreach extends to conversation around study abroad initiatives that would join our current work with Augsberg College in Cuernavaca. Professors Latorre and Judy Wu successfully proposed that WGSS host the preeminent feminist studies journal Frontiers. The journal comes to us from Arizona State University and “explores the critical intersections among…gender, race, sexuality, and transnationalism.” The editors have a number of special issues planned that illustrate the past, present, and future of women’s and gender studies. Keep an eye on our website for the Frontiers calls for papers. Scholar and cultural critic bell hooks returned to campus for her continued

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REFLECTIONS / A Message from the Chairs

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Students gather at conferences and symposia, pose with President Gee, and celebrate graduations!

INTERSECTIONS / Graduate Student Update

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The start of the academic year always creates changes and new beginnings for Intersections. This year we welcomed new additions to our graduate community and said farewell to friends and colleagues. We congratulate our members and officers who finished their Master's and Ph.D degrees last year and continue their important feminist work in and/or outside the academy. Our incoming members and officers are embarking on a new chapter of their graduate careers and taking on new roles within Intersections. If not for our incredible members and officers both present and past, this organization could not be possible. Intersections, the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Graduate Association, seeks to provide an open space for graduate students to voice concerns, foster fellowship and community, and further professional development. This organization strives to be a liaison between Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies faculty and graduate students,

but also between our graduate students and the communities we serve both within and outside of OSU. This year Intersections has joined up with several campus and Columbus groups, organizations, and activist campaigns to support important feminist causes that directly impact our communities. Several members and officers are working with activists and scholars to bring events, speakers, and interdisciplinary conferences to the Columbus area and OSU campus. Because of all the tremendous amount of passion and commitment that our members and officers exhibit towards their work and activism, the officers like to say “thank you” by creating several fun events this year for our graduate students. On behalf of the organization, Intersections is extremely excited to have such a wonderfully enthusiastic and dedicated group whose friendship and camaraderie makes this organization so special.

ADDITIONS / New Graduate Students Sierra Austin (PhD) completed a BA in Communications from Wilberforce University in 2010, followed by an MA in WGSS from OSU in 2012. She examines media emphasis on heterosexual romance and its correlation to marriage crisis rhetoric in the African American community using hip-hop feminism as an ideology and critical literary tool. Krista Benson (PhD) received her BA in sociology from Gonzaga University in 2001, followed by a MA in women’s studies at the University of Manchester in 2005. She worked as a social worker with homeless youth in Spokane, influencing her research interests aimed at the voices of LGBTQ youth gang members and the ways in which race, sexuality and justice intersects in their experiences. Han Chen (PhD) completed a BA in English from Nanjing University in 2008, followed by an MS in Global Affairs from NYU in 2010. She focuses on trangederism/homeroticism as they emerged in Asian regimes of heteronormativity; contemporary gay/lesbian resistances to these systems, and the ways western gay/lesbian discourses have been appropriated as aspects of the local resistances. Julia Elmer (PhD) received a BA in women’s and gender studies from American University in 2000, an MA in linguistics in 2001, an MBA from the University of South Carolina in 2004 and an MPH from the University of Sydney in 2006. She plans to conduct fieldwork on Afro-Colombian women and girls who have experienced sexual and gender-based violence and/or human trafficking.

Ellie Flohn (MA) completed a BA in art history at the University of Cincinnati in 2011. She is focusing on critical theory and postmodern philosophy through employing these theories to examine ideology, subjectivities and identities re(produced) therein, especially against our current background of neoliberal global capitalism. Sonnet Gabbard (PhD) completed a BS in political science from Butler University in 2005, followed by an M.A. in women’s studies from the University of Cincinnati in 2012. She focuses on how neoliberalism crafts, exports, and maintains heteronormative practices and promotes homophobia through exportation and implementation of heteronormative governmental, economic, and social problems. Katelyn Hancock (MA) completed a BFA in Drawing from Birmingham Souther College in 2010. She is interested in studying and uncovering iconic violent heorines in action films and whether they defy or reinforce the conventional ordering of gender in popular film, in addition to gender-based brutality on a transnational plain and specifically pertaining to United States asylum policy. Erin Tobin (PhD) completed a BA in Spanish at the University of Hawaii Manoa in 2007, an MA in women’s studies from the University of Florida in 2010 and an MA in cinema studies from NYU in 2012. She plans to further explore approaches to queer, feminist, and African-American film historiographies as they work to construct and deconstruct discourses of race, gender, and sexuality.

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Libby Zay graduated from OSU in 2009 with a major in Women’s Studies and a minor in Film Studies, working closely with Dr. Mizejewski

While in WGSS, Libby Zay was awarded a Mildred Munday Scholarship, allowing her to intern at Girl Scouts USA and BUST magazine. Upon graduation, she was awarded a fellowship with the T. Howard Foundation, taking her into an internship at AOL Travel, followed by a position as writer/editor at a travel guidebook company in Ecuador, which led to an exciting freelance career that has taken her all over the world. She continues her relationship with BUST magazine and AOL Travel, as well as several travel/food-related publications. Her newest venture is a blog and merit badge program encouraging travelers to support local cultures, businesses, programs, and ideas. Learn more at thescoutproject.org.

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FEATURES / Alumna at Work

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HIGHLIGHTS / Queer Places, Practices, & Lives Sexuality Studies hosted approximately 400 attendees at Queer Places, Practices, and Lives: A Symposium in Honor of Samuel Steward held May 18-19, 2012 on the Ohio State University campus. With the co-sponsorship of DISCO (the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU), the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English, the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and over 13 other departments and organizations across and beyond campus, the Symposium featured roundtables, presentations, and showcases of work from nearly 150 community members, artists, researchers, and students from across the U.S. and internationally. The Symposium became possible through the efforts of the faculty, graduate students, and staff that comprised its planning committee and, in part, with funds made available from the estate of Samuel Steward, OSU B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in English (1927-34), tattoo artist (under the pseudonym Phil Sparrow), visual artist, gay eroticist (under the pen name Phil Andros), author, and queer icon. Two exhibitions of queer materials related to Steward and the conference themes, a keynote address by Steward biographer Justin Spring, two plenary sessions featuring major scholars in queer studies, a cadre of featured speakers, and thirty-plus panels engaged a broad spectrum of connections between WGSS faculty and graduate students join with colleagues from across OSU to plan a successful symposium in honor of Samuel Steward

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queerness and different experiences, perspectives, and histories. The enthusiastic response to the conference indicates that it was a major success. For example, Professor Scott Herring (Indiana University) called it “easily one of the best symposia I have ever attended… It generated discussion and good will, and it did justice to Sam Steward’s legacy for queers across gender, race, class, and region. I was honored to be part of it.” Or, in the words of Tim Dean (University at Buffalo (SUNY)): “The success of ‘Queer Places, Practices, Lives’ will have really put Ohio State on the map for queer studies---which is no small feat. Pulling off a conference of that scale is a huge achievement…More than a beautifully organized conference, more even than an intellectual feast, you managed to create a convivial atmosphere in which participants were their best selves. I know that I was not alone in noting and appreciating that aspect of the weekend in Columbus.” Primary funding for this conference was provided by the Samuel Steward/Eric Walborn Endowment Fund, the College of Arts and Sciences, and a Research and Creative Activities Grant awarded by the Division of Arts and Humanities. Photos and commentary courtesy of Sexuality Studies

faculty / alumnae

PUBLICATIONS Cynthia Burack and Angelia R. Wilson, “‘Where Liberty Reigns and God is Supreme’: The Christian Right and the Tea Party Movement,” New Political Science, 34, 2, 2012: 172-190. Cynthia Burack and Claire R. Snyder-Hall, editors, New Political Science, Special Issue on “Right-Wing Populism and the Media.” 34, 4, December, 2012. Jill M. Bystydzienski and Adriane Brown, “‘I Just Want to Help People’: Young Women’s Gendered Engagement with Engineering,” Feminist Formations, 24, 3, 2012. Guisela Latorre, "Re-Mapping the National Consciousness: Agustín Victor Casasola and the Chicana/Chicano Artist," Mapping Latina/ o Studies, edited by Angharad Valdivia and Matthew García, Peter Lang Publishing, 2012.

Shannon Winnubst, "Guest Editors' Introduction," Foucault Studies, 14, October 2012.

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ACCOMPLISHMENTS /

Shannon Winnubst and Jana Sawicki, Editors, Foucault and Queer Theory, eds., Foucault Studies, 14, October 2012. Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Samuel Beavers, “Taking Risks in Learning and Teaching: A Student-Faculty Dialogue about Intersectionality and Digital Narratives,” Talking about Teaching: Essays by Members of the Ohio State University Academy of Teaching, Spring 2011. JudyTzu-Chun Wu, “Breathing Lessons: A Mediation,” A Digital Narrative, April 2012.

Guisela Latorre, “Border Consciousness and Artivist Aesthetics: Richard Lou’s Performance and Multimedia Artwork,” American Studies Journal (Germany), 57, 2012. Guisela Latorre, “Gender, Identity, and Portraiture,” in exhibition catalog Image-Self. Women in Art: A Portrait Project, edited by Ardine Nelson, 2011. Linda Mizejewski,“Feminism, Postfeminism, Liz Lemonism: Comedy and Gender Politics on 30 Rock,” Genders, 2012. Jennifer Suchland, "Double Framing in Lilya 4-Ever: Sex Trafficking and Postsocialist Abjection,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, forthcoming 2012. Jennifer Suchland, “Contextualizing Pussy Riot in Russia and Beyond,” e-International Relations, 2012. Shannon Winnubst, “The Queer Thing about Neoliberal Pleasure: A Foucauldian Warning,” Foucault Studies, 14, October 2012.

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Dr. Lakesia Johnson, 2008 PhD graduate, published Iconic: Decoding Images of the Revolutionary Black Woman, Baylor Univ Press, August 2012.

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HIGHLIGHTS / Frontiers Comes to OSU The renowned feminist publication Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies recently changed its home from Arizona State University to The Ohio State University. WGSS faculty members, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Guisela Latorre, are thrilled to be the new coeditors of the journal. The presence of Frontiers at OSU was made possible by the financial support of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of History, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and The Women’s Place. Frontiers has distinguished itself for its diverse and decisively interdisciplinary publication agenda that explores the critical intersections among—to name a few dimensions—gender, race, sexuality, and transnationalism. Many landmark articles in the field have been published in Frontiers, thus critically shaping the field of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Professors Latorre and Wu are committed to continuing the journal’s tradition of rigorous scholarship and innovative research. They also

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Dr. Guisela Latorre and Dr. Judy Wu are serving as co-editors of Frontiers during its tenure at OSU

pledge to support the kinds of scholarship that have afforded this journal its visibility and respect in the field. Moreover, they are particularly invested in making Frontiers a place where scholars doing work on gender and race can publish their research. They are renewing the journal’s commitment to the arts by providing feminist and gender conscious artists the opportunity to promote their work on the pages of Frontiers. The arrival of Frontiers was officially inaugurated at OSU with a public reception. Organized with the indispensable help of the journal’s first editorial assistants at OSU, Emily Ardent and Ally Day, the festivities included food, mingling, a few introductory remarks, and a public showing of the film America’s Home, a documentary about gentrification and women’s activism in Puerto Rico. Judy Wu and Guisela Latorre look forward to their continued collaboration, anticipating that the presence of the journal at OSU will bring greater visibility to WGSS and History and will mark OSU as an important hub for the field of women’s, gender and sexuality studies.

] FEATURES / Faculty in Focus

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Dr. Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Associate Professor of WGSS and History served on the Advisory Board of the Legacy Project that created an outdoor GLBT museum in Chicago and developed educational materials for high school youth in the state of Illinois. The inaugural inductions into the museum occurred on National Coming Out Day on November 11, 2012 and included Dr. Margaret Chung, the subject of Professor Wu's first book, Dr. "Mom" Chung of the FairHaired Bastards: The LIfe of a Wartime Celebrity (California 2005). To read about all the inductees, see: legacyprojectchicago.org/.

HORIZONS / New WGSS Opportunities in Study Abroad WGSS Professor Christine (Cricket) Keating will serve as the director of the Intercollegiate Sri Lanka Education program (ISLE) in Kandy, Sri Lanka during Spring 2013. Sri Lanka, located below the southern tip of India, is a multi- ethnic society in an area of great natural beauty with the oldest continuing Buddhist civilization in the world. It is also a society in the midst of deep transition: In May 2009 the Sri Lankan government defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that fought for political autonomy for the Tamil people of the north and East of Sri Lanka from 1983-2009, thus ending a 30-year civil war. On the program, students will learn about contemporary and historical social, political, economic, and aesthetic life in Sri Lanka in courses covering topics such as history, archeology, environment, society, religion, literature, language, politics, gender, ethnicity and art. Of particular interest to WGSS majors

[ ] WGSS explores new avenues in study abroad

and minors is a Women’s Studies seminar taught by feminist scholar Carmen Wickramagamage on the cultural, social, and economic forces that inform women’s gendered status in Sri Lanka. Professor Keating has had a long association with Sri Lanka: she first visited the island as a student on the ISLE program in 1989, and has returned many times for research and for language training, supported by foreign language and area studies (FLAS) and by Fulbright grants.

ADDITIONS / Welcoming New WGSS Staff Members

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Kate Livingston, Undergraduate Advisor (left) and Lynaya Elliott, Administrative Associate (right) joined the WGSS staff in 2012

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Lynaya Elliott, Administrative Associate, recently rejoined the staff of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies as the new Administrative Associate. Lynaya holds a BA in Women’s Studies from Ohio State and previously worked in our department as Undergraduate Program Coordinator in 2008. Since then, she was employed as a business office supervisor with WOSU Public Media and as delegated buyer with University Libraries. Lynaya will manage the department’s fiscal and HR responsibilities, in addition to serving as Office Manager. She is excited to be back with the staff and faculty of WGSS. The department is equally as thrilled to have her contagious sense of humor and friendly attitude back in the office after a three year hiatus!

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Kate Livingston, undergraduate advisor, joined our PhD program in 2010. She received a BA in Government from Smith College and an MA in WGSS from the University of Cincinnati. Her interests include adoption law, policy and practice, kinship studies, reproductive rights and justice, and feminist pedagogy. Kate dedicates much of her time to community activism with Ohio Birthparent Group, Adoption Network Cleveland, Adoption Equity Ohio, Ohio Post Adoption Contact Taskforce, Ohio Adoption Planning Group, and American Adoption Congress. As advisor, Kate meets with majors and minors to discuss course planning, career, internship, and graduate school opportunities, and helps plan WGSS events.

[ ] WGSS event guests for 2012

HIGHLIGHTS / 2012 Major Events Ongoing femUNITY Film Series femUNITY Professional Development Series Intersections Research Roundtables February 1st Dr. Kim Miller, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Art History at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, gave a lecture entitled “Gender and South African Apartheid.” March 6th Jane Curry, One-Woman Producer, performed a one-woman show about the history of title IX, “Nice Girls Don’t Sweat.” April 16th Angelia Wilson, Senior lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester, gave a book talk entitled “Why Europe is Lesbian and Gay Friendly… and why American Never Will Be.” May 3rd Dr. Deborah Rhode, Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law at Stanford University, gave the Biennial Elizabeth D. Gee Distinguished Lecture in Ethics “From Platitudes to Priorities: Diversity and Gender Equity in the Workplace.” Co-sponsored by Moritz College of Law.

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September 24th Dr. Carol Mason, Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky gave a lecture entitled “What’s this Cow doing in My Queer Theory? An Inquiry into the Limits of Studying the Rural Queer” and a workshop: “Ethical Dilemmas in Interdisciplinary Research: A Workshop for Feminist Scholars.” October 1st to 4th bell hooks, in her third year as Distinguished Professor in Residence, gave a public lecture to an audience of over 500 called “Thinking Beyond Race” in addition to meeting with WGSS graduate students and various other departments. Co-sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences, The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, The Office of Diversity & Inclusion, and The Women’s Place. October 4th pop! impact, a Symposium on the Humanities and Popular Culture, took place through the efforts of Dr. Mizejewski, Dr. Springer and Amanda Rossie (PhD Student). Spotlight presenters included: Latoya Peterson, Angela V. Shelton, and Lisa Thrasher.

October 12th Dr. Elizabeth Povinelli, Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia May 14th University, gave a roundtable discussion: Dr. Ladelle McWhorter, James Thomas “Economies of Abandonment,” and a lecture Professor in Philosophy at the University of “Geontologies: Indigenous Transmedia and the Richmond gave a lecture entitled “Sovereigns Anthropocene.” Co-sponsored by WGSS, the and Nonpersons: A Foucaultian Analysis of the Precarity and Social Contract Working Group, Function of Personhood in Political Thought” Comparative Studies; Geography; Sexuality and a workshop, “Genealogy as Methodology.” Studies, and DISCO.

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Linda Bernhard (top left), Claire Robertson (top right), Victoria Genetin (bottom left) Margaret Mills (middle) and Ruth Peterson (bottom right).

We are sad to lose five of our colleagues this year as they move on to new stages in their academic and personal lives. Dr. Linda Bernhard came to OSU in 1987 as Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, with a joint appointment in Nursing. She brought an emphasis on women’s health to the department, developing a course on Issues in Women’s Health and mentoring several graduate students with this interest. She retired in spring 2012. Dr. Claire Robertson came to OSU in 1984 as Assistant Professor of History and Women’s Studies. Her interests included African women, comparative and transnational gender perspectives, and colonialism and women. She retired in spring 2012 and now lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

Dr. Victoria Genetin was the department’s Undergraduate Advisor from 2011-2012. She completed her PhD in the summer of 2012 and took a position as lecturer at both The Ohio State University and Texas Women’s Universty. Dr. Margaret Mills joined the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures in 1998 and immediately became associated with Women’s Studies. She also served as chair of NELC. Her work spans folklore, women’s studies, political science, and performance studies. She retired in spring 2012. Dr. Ruth Peterson, WGSS associate faculty member, retired in late 2011 and is Emeritus Professor of Sociology. From 1999-2011 she directed the Criminial Justice Research Center, focusing on consequences of criminal justice policies for racially/ethnically distinct groups.

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FAREWELLS / Departing Friends

SUPPORT / Share the Vision Name: ______________________________________

Development Funds Elizabeth D. Gee Distinguished Lecture in Ethics (313218) Elizabeth D. Gee Fund for Graduate Student Grants (308718)

Address:

_______________________________

______________________________________________ Phone: _______________________________________

Elizabeth D. Gee Research (602449) Max Rice and Sarah Smith Fund (313141) Mildred Munday Scholarship (645073) WGSS Department General Fund (306738) WGSS Development Fund (627690)

Email: ________________________________________

WGSS Graduate Student Support (311537)

I have enclosed a generous gift of $______________ to be directed into a fund of my choice (choose right)

Please contact me about my donation Please contact me about departmental programs

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