GWSS Newsletter 01.31.2020

Events

1. Job Talk: Belonging Beyond Boundaries: Constructing a Transnational Community in a West African Borderland (02/04) 2. GWSS Colloquium: Challenging Gendered Islamophobia: Hypervisibility as Resistance (1/31) 3. Lunchtime Lecture, David Schmit, Mind Cure (02/03) 4. Dissertation Writing Retreat (03/09-03/12) 5. CSPW Writing Hunker (02/15) 6. Queer & Trans Scholar(ship) Convening (02/14) Scholarships/Fellowships/Job Opportunities

1. Walter H. Judd International Fellowships Available

Call for Papers/Proposals

1. Wiscon 44 Call For Papers Due Date Extended

Recognitions/Awards/Publications

Miscellaneous

1. Funding, Writing and Training Opportunities
2. 2020 NWSA Chair and Director Meeting Registration - Deadline February 15

Events

1. Job Talk: Belonging Beyond Boundaries: Constructing a Transnational Community in a West African Borderland Tuesday, February 4th 3:00PM 710 Social Sciences Building By treating colonial and postcolonial borders as suggestions rather than firm dividers, this talk argues that Fulbe people in West Africa built a cross-border community that questioned the relationship between citizenship, territory, and national belonging. In the borderlands of southern Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea (southern Senegambia), Fulbe created a semi-autonomous, transnational community outside of states. In the late nineteenth century, the French, British and Portuguese colonial governments drew borders between the colonies of Senegal, the Gambia, and Portuguese and French Guinea to divide and separate the peoples of these countries. This work, based on oral histories and archival research in six countries, argues that colonial governments never successfully controlled these borders, and that pre-colonial territorial strategies and networks have continued to the present. Thus, this research calls for a rethinking of conceptions of territoriality and space in Africa by focusing on Fulbe concepts of space and territory rather than those of colonial and postcolonial states. David Glovsky defended his PhD in African History from Michigan State in September 2019. His research focuses on historical mobility and migration in four West African countries: Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea. He is also part of an NEH grant, digitizing and translating historic Pulaar ‘ajami manuscripts. His work has been funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant and a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, among others.

2. GWSS Colloquium: Challenging Gendered Islamophobia:  Hypervisibility as Resistance (1/31) Join us for a conversation with Twin Cities activists from Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment. Nausheena Hussain is a Social Justice Activists who works to amplify the voice and power of Muslim sisters.  Asma Mohammed is an intersectional organizer and advocate and is responsible for facilitating the systemic inclusion of Muslim women in political spaces across Minnesota. 3. Lunchtime Lecture, David Schmit, Mind Cure Topic: "Mind Cure and Mental Therapeutics in the Late 19th Century United States" Speaker: David Schmit, Ph.D., (Retired) Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, St. Catherine University Date: Monday, Feb. 3, 2020 Time: 12:20-1:10pm Location: 555 Diehl Hall Abstract: Mind cure, or mental healing, was a late 19th century American healing movement that extolled a metaphysical mind-over-matter approach to the treatment of illness.  Emerging in 1850s New England out of a mix of mesmerism, metaphysical philosophy and public discontent with existing medical practices, mind cure captured a portion of the nation’s attention directed towards self-improvement, new healing methods and metaphysical expressions of spirituality.  Mind cure culture was framed in part by the set of non-invasive, cognitive and spiritual-based practices advocates believed could heal the body and resolve human problems, which were promoted as “mental therapeutics.”  By the 1880s, mind cure entered the national spotlight due to a confluence of books and periodicals on the subject combined with the activities of practitioners, study groups, schools and religious organizations.  This presentation will examine both the cultural contexts and individuals who birthed mind cure and consider how its mental therapeutics influenced the birth of psychotherapy in America.   4. Dissertation Writing Retreat

March 9-12, 2020

The RIGS (Race, Indigeneity, Gender, and Sexuality) Studies Initiative is hosting a writing retreat for dissertation writers for one week of concentrated writing time. We encourage applications from UMN dissertation writers who are broadly engaged with and/or committed to addressing in their research some of the most pressing socio-economic issues and inequalities of our time. Applications are due by 12:00 PM on Monday, February 10th, 2020, We will notify students of their status by Monday, February 17th, 2020. Dissertation writers need to submit the following: Graduate Student Signed Application Form, which you can download and sign, and then email to rigs@umn.edu Advisor and DGS Signed Form, which you can download and have your Advisor and DGS sign, and then email to rigs@umn.edu Application, which consists of the following items: Dissertation Abstract: 1 single-spaced page dissertation summary Plan for Retreat: 500-word description detailing which part of your dissertation you will focus on during the retreat

Retreat Description

The writing retreat will be held from Monday, March 9, 2020 to Thursday, March 12, 2019 9:00 AM-4:00 PM. For this week, RIGS will provide snacks, drinks, and a light lunch.  And, during each lunch, we will have faculty-led discussion on a particular writing topic and/or challenge. Retreat Expectations: Attend the retreat for the entire week Avoid the internet or email during the hours of the retreat Acutely focus on writing your dissertations with sustained writing time 5. CSPW Writing Hunker (02/15) Graduate students are invited to join us on Saturday, February 15 for an all-day writing hunker, sponsored by the Consortium of the Study for the Premodern World. We will meet in Hanson Hall, Room 111 beginning at 9:00 AM. Coffee, tea and lunch provided.  Please direct questions and RSVPs to Jen K. Hughes hughe453@umn.edu by February 10. RSVPs will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, with a 15-person cap per hunker.  6. Queer & Trans Scholar(ship) Convening (02/14) The Queer & Trans Scholar(ship) Convening invites folks to connect with other queer/trans scholars across discipline and build support networks of like minded individuals.This convening will not only be about scholarship, but also about what it means to be a queer/trans scholar. Our intention is to create opportunities to connect with others not based on scholarship alone, to support folks to build networks in more holistic ways. The event begins with lunch and a keynote speaker; a panel on queer and trans research across discipline; a workshop on self care for queer/trans academics and an opportunity to meet with others in affinity groups. I hope you can join us for a day of generative connection that will make sure to make an impact both personally and professionally. The Steven J. Schochet Endowment Presents: Queer/Trans Scholar(ship) Convening  February 14th, 2020 12-5pm  Coffman Memorial Union--Mississippi Room Please REGISTER HERE by February 5th. You can find updates and more information about the event here. I also ask that you please forward and share this event with students and colleagues who you think would be interested in and benefit from attending.  If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to me at alexa696@umn.edu. I look forward to seeing you on February 14th!

Scholarships/Fellowships/Job Opportunities

1. Walter H. Judd International Fellowships Available

The GPS Alliance anticipates offering 15 Judd Fellowships of $2,500 each to students enrolled in master’s and professional degree programs to study, undertake internships, and conduct research projects abroad.

Call for Papers/Proposals

1. Wiscon 44 Call For Papers Due Date Extended

WisCon has a track of academic programming, framed by the convention’s Statement of Principles, that encourages submissions from scholars in all fields, including interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and anti-disciplinary areas, from amateur and independent scholars as well as graduate students, postdocs, and faculty. One of the benefits of this track is that it strengthens the links between the wider feminist science fiction community, students, and other scholars working on feminist science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy and related fields. The track operates very much like a conventional academic conference, with presentations based on research. However, the audience that WisCon reaches is able to provide scholarly work—on all aspects of feminist science fiction—a kind of passionate and informed feedback that is rare at academic conferences. We very much encourage submissions from people who aren’t involved in formal academic work! Over the years, people have presented papers on fantasy, horror, speculative and science fiction literature, media, and fandom, examining issues of feminism, gender, sexuality, race, disability, colonialism, and class, amongst many others.

Given our current political moment, we invite papers and panels that explore themes echoing the American Studies Association's 2019 Annual Meeting, “Build As We Fight,” as well as the National Women's Studies Association's 2019 Annual Conference, "Protest, Justice, and Transnational Organizing." With these themes in mind, we encourage proposals to consider science fiction as a site of protest. For example, how can feminist speculative fiction help us fight for a more just world? What lessons can be learned from Indigenous science fiction and science fiction from diasporic communities, to advance decolonial, anti-racist change? How can we use speculative fiction genres to respond to the threats of white supremacy, dispossession, militarization, and extractive capitalism?

This theme is an opportunity both for work that deals specifically with social and cultural questions about the radical politics of futures as they relate to feminist science fiction and for work on the histories and dream making of freedom-oriented fan communities.

Further, we invite proposals from anyone with a scholarly interest in the intersections of gender, gender identity, sexuality, race, class, and disability with science fiction—broadly defined—in literature, media, and culture. We encourage contributions that emphasize WisCon’s focus on how science fiction has played an important role in the exploration and creation of socially just futures: futures where people of all colors and backgrounds flourish, where women’s rights and women’s contributions are valued, where gender is not limited to one of two options, where no one is erased out of convenience, hidden discrimination, or outright bigotry. We especially welcome scholarship on the work of 2020’s Guests of Honor Rebecca Roanhorse and Yoon Ha Lee. An incomplete list of possible subjects:

• What are the meanings, histories, and cultures of “protest?” How can feminist protest advance decolonial, anti-racist change? And how does this shape feminisms’ relationship to speculative genres (scifi, fantasy, horror, and beyond) both past and present?
  
• Gender, gender identity, sexuality, race, class, and disability in individual works of science fiction and fantasy, especially in the works of our Guests of Honor, Rebecca Roanhorse and Yoon Ha Lee
  
• Feminist, queer, critical race, and critical disability analysis of science fiction and fantasy in media (film, television, music, video games, online culture)
  
• Speculative aspects of feminist and social justice movements
  
• Race, colonialism, and speculative fiction; Indigenous Futurism, Afrofuturism and related cultural movements
  
• Feminist pedagogy and speculative fiction in the academic classroom and beyond
  

An incomplete list of possible formats:

• 15-minute paper presentations, with or without visual accompaniment
  
• Groups of presentations submitted together as panels
  
• Presentation of scholarly creative works, including digital scholarship
  
• Discussion-based panels and roundtables on scholarly research, teaching, or service
  
• Screenings and discussions of short films or videos
  

The deadline for submitting an abstract for WisCon 44 is midnight Central Time on February 28, 2020.

Please submit your proposal using this form (wiscon.net site profile is required). You will be asked for a 100-word abstract, which will be printed in the convention’s program, and for a more detailed proposal of up to 500 words. If you are proposing something other than a traditional paper, please make sure you describe the format of your proposed program item. A projector and screen will be available; if you have further technological needs, please let us know in your proposal.

If you have questions, please email: academic@wiscon.net

Recognitions/Awards/Publications

Miscellaneous

1. Funding, Writing and Training Opportunities

The start of a new year is a common time to submit a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) proposals, refine your dissertation content and to seek out summer and future fellowships. Start planning and applying now for opportunities in 2020.

• Center for Writing Dissertation Writing Retreat
• Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships
• Interdisciplinary Dissertation Proposal Development Program
• Itasca Director's Graduate Research Fellowship
• NSF: Special Programs for Graduate Students
• NIH: Research Training and Career Development
• Office of Research and Graduate Programs External Funding
• UMN Graduate School Fellowships

2. 2020 NWSA Chair and Director Meeting Registration - Deadline February 15

Quick reminder that the deadline for registering for the 2020 Chair and Director Meeting is February 15. If you wish to attend please see the details below:

To participate: log in to your institutional account, renew your institutional membership, and register for the NWSA 2020 Chair and Director Meeting to take place Friday, March 6 in Chicago, IL!

The theme of the 2020 Chair and Director Meeting will be "Responding to External Pressures." Each year, WGSS programs are subjected to pressures outside their departments and outside their universities. We would like to gather people to discuss ways to handle these external pressures departments are facing while maintaining the departments missions and goals.

Only open to 2020 Institutional Members – please renew here.

Location:
theWit Hotel Chicago
201 N State Street
Chicago, IL 60601

Participation requirements:

- Registration fee of $125 per person
- 2020 Institutional Membership

Registration fee includes participation in the event and breakfast and lunch the day of the meeting. It does not include travel. NWSA will cover one night's hotel accommodations per institutional member for those who require it.

Please contact nwsaoffice@nwsa.org with any questions, dietary restrictions, and hotel accommodation requests. 

Have a great weekend!

GWSS Newsletter 01.24.2020

Events

1. Subvertising: A Link between Counterculture and Social Activism (1/29) 2. GWSS Colloquium: Challenging Gendered Islamophobia: Hypervisibility as Resistance (1/31) 3. Feminist Decolonial Politics Workshop (5/20-5/23) 4. How Ralph Got His Groove Back: Ellison, Women, and the Underworld (1/27) 5. The Archaeological Impulse: Literary Recovery and Black Feminism (1/28) 6. Flesh, Body, and the Uses of the Erotic (1/30)

Scholarships/Fellowships/Job Opportunities

1. The BBRG Scholars-in-Residence Program
2. UC Santa Barbra: Assistant Professor in Queer Migrations, Department of Feminist Studies
3. Walter H. Judd International Graduate & Professional Fellowships Available
4. 2020 Jesus Estrada Perez Graduate Fellowship
5. Colby College: 2-year visiting assistant professorship

Call for Papers/Proposals

1. Futures of Sexual Difference: Rethinking Femininity and Queerness with Psychoanalysis

2. 40th Anniversaries of This Bridge Called My Back and All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave

Recognitions/Awards/Publications

Course Offerings

Miscellaneous

1. Funding, Writing and Training Opportunities
2. 2020 NWSA Chair and Director Meeting Registration - Deadline February 15

Events

1. Subvertising: A Link between Counterculture and Social Activism (1/29) About the Talk: This talk explores the legacies of the social protest movement that emerged in Spain in 2011, known as the 15 M movement, as it is reflected in the work of the organization "Consume Hasta Morir." "Consume Hasta Morir" is an organization, created in 2002, dedicated to exploring the negative social and economic effects of unbridled commerism through various countercultural strategies such as "subvertising" campaigns, community workshops/art projects/movilization, scholarly publications, etc. In this talk, Isidro Jiménez Gómez will explain how the work of his organization seeks to not only critique the most devastating effects of capitalist consumerist culture, but to also envision new social and economic paradigms based on ecological sustainability and social justice. Isidro Jiménez Gómez is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Communication Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid. He is also a founding member of the Spanish organization "Consume Hasta Morir" ("Consume Until You Die"), an organization that is part of the broader umbrella organization in Spain "Ecologistas en Acción" ("Ecologists in Action"). He is the author of many scholarly articles as well as the author or co-author of such books as Manual de comunicación: Estratégica para la ciudadanía organizada (2017); La ilusión de la libertad de elección (2013); Diccionario crítico de las empresas transnacionales (2012); El negocio de la responsabilidad (2009); Contrapublicidad (2009); Ochenta actividades para educar lúdicamente en valores y ciudadanía (2008); Comunicación alternativa: Ciudadanía y cultura (2007). 2. GWSS Colloquium: Challenging Gendered Islamophobia:  Hypervisibility as Resistance (1/31) Join us for a conversation with Twin Cities activists from Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment. Nausheena Hussain is a Social Justice Activists who works to amplify the voice and power of Muslim sisters.  Asma Mohammed is an intersectional organizer and advocate and is responsible for facilitating the systemic inclusion of Muslim women in political spaces across Minnesota. 3. Feminist Decolonial Politics Workshop (5/20-5/23) The Feminist Decolonial Politics Workshop seeks to create a space for junior scholars and graduate students to engage in rigorous discussions of seldom-read figures in feminist decolonial theory. This 4-day intensive workshop provides an opportunity to enrich participant’s research and pedagogy through sustained engagement with the work of a given author. In the past, we have read the works of Audra Simpson, Saidiya Hartman, Sara Ahmed, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Sylvia Wynter. Applications are due February 17th, 2020, and should include (a) a CV, and (b) a statement of interest. Traveling funding is available on a first come, first serve basis. To be considered for a travel grant, in addition to the materials above, submit (a) a statement of need, and (b) a travel budget. Late applications will not be considered for the travel grant. For more information, contact us at epaquet1@uncc.edu, or check out our website at http://decolonialthoughtworkshop.wordpress.com. 4. How Ralph Got His Groove Back: Ellison, Women, and the  Underworld (1/27) I. Augustus Durham holds a PhD in English from Duke University and is currently the President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the English Department at the University of Maryland. Durham's current book project, entitled "Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius," examines melancholy and genius in black letters, culture, and history from the nineteenth century to the present, addressing Frederick Douglas, Ralph Ellison, Marvin Gaye, Octavia E. Butler, and Kendrick Lamar. Reconceptualizing Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia," Durham contends that melancholy is a catalyst for genius and that genius is a signifier of the maternal: he (re)positions the black feminine/maternal as foundational to black aesthetics. The colloquial retort to “stay black and die” problematizes Freud by surmising that racial preservation—love—and the “death drive”—loss—necessitate the black psychosocial lifeworld. While designating black maternity as the origin of melancholy and mania underwrites the pathological (e.g., “The Moynihan Report”), Durham asks: if melancholy is constitutive of the maternal, how can someone “lost,” yet “in one’s immediate environment” as per Freud, not be recovered? This project, focusing on the relationship between the “mother” and the “son,” asserts that said recovery occurs through radical aesthetic practices. These performances of excellence, in response to and in excess of one’s melancholy, are what Durham calls “genius”; as opposed to mania, genius produces affective vestiges (ir)reducible to the mother. Thus, "Stay Black and Die" manifests a generative complication: fully invested in the “unthought,” it stages a thought journey through the performative, discovering the mother, in its myriad iterations, as a subject found rather than an object lost, one who enables her “child” to perform literacy, invisibility, trouble, hermeneutics, pregnancy, and flight. 5. The Archaeological Impulse: Literary Recovery and Black  Feminism (1/28) SaraEllen Strongman holds a PhD in Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a LSA Collegiate Fellow in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. Strongman's current book project, entitled "The Sisterhood: Black Women, Black Feminism, and the Women’s Liberation Movement," is an intellectual history of second-wave Black Feminism in the United States. It focuses primarily on the 1970s and 80s and traces the development of Black feminism as an autonomous activist and theoretical tradition, attending to Black women’s theorizing and activism across the spheres of literature, academia, and publishing. The project draws on extensive archival materials including unpublished writing, organizational records, personal correspondence, as well as literature and poetry. Strongman brings together methods from literary criticism, queer theory, feminist studies, and African American and African Diasporic studies to demonstrate how Black feminists’ creative work, especially poetry and literary fiction, acted as a crucial form of theorizing in this period and were central to the development of a Black feminist tradition. In addition, a new chapter on the "archival impulse" in early second-wave Black feminism argues that the sharing of Black women’s writing from an earlier era, between individuals, in re-releases of out of out-of-print texts, and in anthologies like Mary Helen Washington’s Black-Eyed Susans both constructed a canon of Black women’s literature and legitimated Black women’s intellectual work. 6. Flesh, Body, and the Uses of the Erotic (1/30) Briona Jones is a PhD candidate in the English Department at Michigan State University. Jones' edited collection of Black lesbian writings, Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, is currently under contract with The New Press. Jones' dissertation, entitled "The Black Lesbian Has Decolonized Her Body, analyzes literatures produced by Black Lesbians at the tail end of the Black Arts Movement in response to, and which transcended, the limits of the radical politics of the mid-sixties and seventies. Jones develops the concept of the “Black Lesbian Aesthetic” to understand the proliferation of literature produced by women of color from 1974-1988, literature that attended not only to the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and sexuality, but also to the plurality of being. By historicizing this era within the context of earlier Black Lesbian writings, Jones identifies how the Combahee River Collective (1974) politicized Black Feminism and how a literary movement was born from it. Through a sustained engagement with the work of Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke and Pat Parker, and Angelina Weld Grimke, Jones employs Black feminist thought, decolonial theory, queer theory, and queer of color critique, to indicate the ways in which Black Lesbians and Black feminists alike have a long history of engaging in theory and praxis-based discourses concerning Black and Indigenous sovereignty, abolition, coalition, revolution, and the erotic. The work excavates a salient political moment in history that transformed literature writ large, wherein Black Lesbians constructed a more capacious and liberatory politic which situated women of color at its center.

Scholarships/Fellowships/Job Opportunities

1. The BBRG Scholars-in-Residence Program

APPLICATIONS ARE DUE BY MARCH 15, 2020

Each year, the BBRG hosts a new group of competitively selected scholars from the U.S. and abroad for a period of one academic year (from September 1, 2020 to May 14, 2021).  The BBRG Scholars-in-Residence Program is open to senior and junior faculty (tenured and untenured), visiting scholars, postdoctoral scholars and independent scholars, from any country, whose work is centrally on gender and women. Due to recent changes in university policy - Applicants must have received their Ph.D. (*or its equivalent) at least five years prior to the projected start of their residency at BBRG, or have previously held a tenure-track professorial appointment, including assistant professor, associate professor, or professor. *Equivalence can be established through degrees earned at foreign universities, or through personal or professional experience that provides a basis for pursuing the type of research and writing expected of someone holding a Ph.D. degree.  The BBRG provides its Scholars-in-Residence with the following: visiting scholar status at University of California, Berkeley; access to University of California, Berkeley libraries and library privileges; a library orientation session customized for the purposes of the Scholar in Residence's research; the possibility of student research assistants; shared office space; shared computer and internet access; a BBRG Scholars Writing/Reading Group which meets bi-monthly; and a forum for BBRG Scholars-in-Residence to present their scholarly or creative work to the Berkeley campus community and the public. BBRG is non-stipendiary, and thus Scholars-in-Residence provide their own financial support during the residency. There are fees associated with residency at BBRG. Please see the website for full details. FULL PROGRAM DETAILS AND APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE

2. UC Santa Barbra: Assistant Professor in Queer Migrations, Department of Feminist Studies

The Department of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of assistant professor in queer migrations. Research may focus on trans/queer geographies, immigration and migration, racialization, decoloniality, and flows of people, ideas, and objects across borders. Of special interest to us are innovative methodological approaches to gender and sexual citizenship, discourses of belonging, and
human rights in the context of state and social violence against LGBTQ communities in historical or contemporary national and transnational frames. This position is part of a campus-wide cluster hire in migration/immigration, with the expectation of continuing collaboration among faculty hires.
Applicants must have completed all requirements for the PhD, except the dissertation, in feminist/women's/gender studies or a related interdisciplinary field at the time of application. Additionally, the candidate must have a fully conferred PhD by the anticipated appointment start date of July 1, 2020. The Department is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the
diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching, service, and mentoring. The position entails participation in the LGBTQ Studies minor and teaching core
and specialized courses. We have a thriving major, minor, and PhD program with a focus on new sexualities and social justice from intersectional and transnational perspectives.

Apply by February 9, 2020 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) for primary consideration; position will remain open until filled. Applicants should submit a letter of application, c.v., publication or writing sample of no more than 25 pages, and arrange for three letters of recommendation be uploaded on their behalf via UCSB’s Recruit website at https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/apply/JPF01681. Submitting
a Diversity Statement that outlines your past, present, and future aspirations and contributions to promoting equity, inclusion, and diversity in your professional career is highly recommended.

Please direct any questions to Sonya Baker, Business

Officer: sbaker@femst.ucsb.edu.

3. Walter H. Judd International Graduate & Professional Fellowships Available

The GPS Alliance anticipates offering 15 Judd Fellowships of $2,500 each to students enrolled in master’s and professional degree programs to study, undertake internships, and conduct research projects abroad. Two types of awards are available: Research and Internship/Study.

Application deadline: 4:30 p.m. on February 12

For more information, contact 612-626-9123 or JuddFellowship@umn.edu.

4. 2020 Jesus Estrada Perez Graduate Fellowship

The Department of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota is now accepting applications for the 2020 Jesús Estrada-Pérez Graduate Fellowship. Students at all levels of graduate study across the University are eligible. A fellowship of $1000 will be awarded each spring to a student whose project engages some aspect of Queer Latina/o/x artistic production, subjectivity, epistemologies, cultural studies, social justice issues and all relevant interdisciplinary theories and/or methods. Preference will be granted to students with a demonstrated history of engaging in Queer Latina/o/x topics prior to their current application. Deadline: Please send applications to the Department’s Fellowship representative, Jessica Lopez Lyman, (lyma0025@umn.edu), by 5:00PM on Friday, February 28th. 

Selection: A committee of faculty from the Chicano and Latino Studies Department will review applications and determine awards based on eligibility and merit of the applications. The
nominee will be notified by March 20th. Application: No more than two (double-spaced) pages which
include the following:
• Name, ID #, home department, Current contact info
(phone & E-mail address).
• Background: 1) Brief overview of previous research and
commitment to relevant topics. 2) Brief description of
current research project demonstrating its relevance to
the award’s focus.
• Importance: Explain the significance of the project and

the critical intervention you hope to make.

5. Colby College: 2-year visiting assistant professorship

The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program (WGSS) at Colby College invites
applications for a two year visiting assistant professorship beginning September 1, 2020. We
seek an individual with strengths in indigenous feminisms/US women of color feminisms, queer
theory, or trans theory, and humanities based methods. The position carries a five-course load
each year and includes being able to teach Intro to Women’s Studies, Feminist Theory, and
electives of the visiting professor’s choice. We will give particular weight to candidates who
have successfully designed and taught their own courses. PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies,
Feminist Studies, or related fields preferred, but ABD will be considered. The person hired in
this position will join a supportive feminist environment where we will do our best to promote
the candidate’s research and teaching. The person hired will not be required to do service work
for the department/College.

Please submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, three confidential letters of recommendation,
teaching philosophy with evidence of a commitment to the value of diversity and experience
with inclusive teaching, and sample syllabi to: http://apply.interfolio.com/73383. Review of
applications will begin on 3/1/2020.

Colby is a private, coeducational liberal arts college that admits students and makes employment
decisions on the basis of the individual's qualifications to contribute to Colby's educational
objectives and institutional needs. Colby College does not discriminate on the basis of race,
color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, religion, ancestry or
national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, or veteran’s status in employment or in
our educational programs. Colby is an Equal Opportunity employer, committed to excellence
through diversity, and encourages applications from qualified persons of color, women, persons
with disabilities, military veterans and members of other under-represented groups. Colby
complies with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in an institution’s
education programs and activities. Questions regarding Title IX may be referred to Colby’s Title
IX coordinator or to the federal Office of Civil Rights. For more information about the College,

please visit our website: www.colby.edu

Call for Papers/Proposals

1. Futures of Sexual Difference: Rethinking Femininity and Queerness with Psychoanalysis

In recent years, the widely-discussed “bathroom bill” has served as a nexus for conversations surrounding the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals and communities. Although some states, including North Carolina, have ruled in favor of allowing transgender persons to access bathrooms based on their chosen gender identities, it has become increasingly clear that the issue is pointing to an aspect of sexuality that cannot simply be resolved by prohibition, as conservatives would have it, or by the claiming of one gender pronoun instead of another, which liberal discourse would consider an answer to the dilemma of sexual difference. 

What can psychoanalysis contribute to this evidently socially and politically polarizing question of sexuality? Is there anything it can contribute to the discussion of sexual difference amongst feminist and queer theorists/activists? After all, many of them have criticized psychoanalysis for reproducing normative social/power structures in its phallocentric and oedipal agendas. A number of scholars and clinicians working on the intersections of psychoananlysis and feminist/queer theory, such as Joan Copjec, Patricia Gherovici and Parveen Adams, have addressed these criticisms, noting that sexual difference is determined “neither by sex (anatomy) nor by gender (social construction)”; it is rather “a subjective, unconscious choice” that has to do with one’s specific position vis-à-vis language (Gherovichi).  Jacques Lacan, in his later work, suggested that femininity is the position that marks a certain excess that is “not-all” limited by the signifier and by phallic function.

The repression of femininity, somewhat analogous to the repression of queerness, has to do with the repression of difference. We consider femininity a radical position insofar as it points to an irreducible rupture at the heart of subjectivity. Therefore, it is continually repressed to ensure the stability of individual, social and political identities. We wonder: how can we think of femininity as a political force? How does femininity problematize the liberal and conservative reliance upon identity politics? How can its rethinking of subjectivity and language help reconsider current political and social stakes? Can we think of femininity and queerness as being in some sort of productive tension with one another? Further, can we posit a conversation between psychoanalysis and feminist/queer theories in order to address the stakes and impasses of identity politics, especially if, in the psychoanalytic clinic, “the subject emerges exactly there where identity fails” (Gherovichi)? 

Submissions are open to not only academics, but also clinicians, social workers and activists. We welcome papers from the following areas, but not limited to those:

Disability Studies

Feminist Studies

Critical Race Theory

Queer Theory

Gender Studies

Environmental Studies

Postcolonial Studies

Psychoanalysis 

Literary Theory

Film and Media Studies

We welcome you to participate in our Annual Graduate Conference hosted by the Department of Comparative Literature, State University of New York, Buffalo (27th March 2020). To read a paper at this conference, please email a 250-300 word abstract and a 100-word bio to both meganhir@buffalo.edu and martaale@buffalo.edu by 5th February 20220.

2. 40th Anniversaries of This Bridge Called My Back and All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave

Deadline: June 1, 2020

In the foreword to the first edition of This Bridge Called My Back (1981), Toni Cade Bambara wrote: “Quite frankly, This Bridge needs no Foreword; it is the Afterward that will count.” And what an impactful afterward it has been. But Some of Us Are Brave, published the following year in 1982, also ushered in nothing less than what Audre Lorde called “a new era” in women's studies.

Honoring of the power and longevity of these two collections, Feminist Studies will devote a special issue in 2021-2022 marking the 40th anniversaries of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (eds. Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, 1981) and All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies (eds. Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, Barbara Smith, 1982).

We invite contributions of three kinds :

1) Short pieces (3000 words) in the genres that these collections exemplify: creative, urgent, personal theoretical writing that can reach a range of readers, addressing questions of social justice.

2) Full length papers (10,500 words) analyzing the institutional transformations that these two texts generated and/or continue to generate.

3) Concrete reflective essays (3000-5000 words) about the pedagogical uses of these texts and the changing responses of students over the decades. 

Please submit it by June 1, 2020 to submit@feministstudies.org. Inquiries can be directed to the journal's editorial director Ashwini Tambe at atambe@umd.edu. Details about our journal's history and content can be found at http://www.feministstudies.org/aboutfs/history.html

Recognitions/Awards/Publications

Course Offerings

Miscellaneous

1. Funding, Writing and Training Opportunities

The start of a new year is a common time to submit a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) proposals, refine your dissertation content and to seek out summer and future fellowships. Start planning and applying now for opportunities in 2020.

• Center for Writing Dissertation Writing Retreat
• Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships
• Interdisciplinary Dissertation Proposal Development Program
• Itasca Director's Graduate Research Fellowship
• NSF: Special Programs for Graduate Students
• NIH: Research Training and Career Development
• Office of Research and Graduate Programs External Funding
• UMN Graduate School Fellowships

2. 2020 NWSA Chair and Director Meeting Registration - Deadline February 15

Quick reminder that the deadline for registering for the 2020 Chair and Director Meeting is February 15. If you wish to attend please see the details below:

To participate: log in to your institutional account, renew your institutional membership, and register for the NWSA 2020 Chair and Director Meeting to take place Friday, March 6 in Chicago, IL!

The theme of the 2020 Chair and Director Meeting will be "Responding to External Pressures." Each year, WGSS programs are subjected to pressures outside their departments and outside their universities. We would like to gather people to discuss ways to handle these external pressures departments are facing while maintaining the departments missions and goals.

Only open to 2020 Institutional Members – please renew here.

Location:
theWit Hotel Chicago
201 N State Street
Chicago, IL 60601

Participation requirements:

- Registration fee of $125 per person
- 2020 Institutional Membership

Registration fee includes participation in the event and breakfast and lunch the day of the meeting. It does not include travel. NWSA will cover one night's hotel accommodations per institutional member for those who require it.

Please contact nwsaoffice@nwsa.org with any questions, dietary restrictions, and hotel accommodation requests. 

Have a great weekend!