Happening This Week!
WGSS Alumni Speaker Series: Envisioning Change & Graduate Information Session Webinar
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The WGSS Alumni Speaker Series continues this fall with Susan Markham, partner at Smash Strategies, Trey Johnston, the Associate Director at Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute, and Gina Chirillo, Senior Program Officer for Gender, International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Join us for another engaging dialogue and networking opportunity!
The WGSS Alumni Speaker Series showcases and celebrate the many accomplishments and diverse paths our alumni have taken, through a dialogue on challenges and opportunities in working toward change on issues related to women, gender, and sexuality, here in the United States, and around the world. The event will be held this
Friday, November 22nd
, at 3:00 - 5:00 PM in the School of Media and Public Affairs Building Room 309.
There is still time to RSVP for our signature fall event!
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WGSS Director Kavita Daiya and Associate Director Cynthia Deitch will host an online information session on diverse tracks in our graduate program this
Thursday, November 21st
from 5:30 - 6:30PM. Interested applicants are encouraged to join WGSS faculty to broaden their knowledge on the field of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and its integration in Public Policy.
To join, click
here
to register.
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Pictured (left to right): Shreenithi Venkataraman and Taarika Gopinath
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WGSS would like to feature GW's Women's of Color (GW-WoC) for this week's student shoutout for their participation at the 2019 Diversity Summit. Undergraduate students Shreenithi Venkataraman and Taarika Gopinath did a wonderful job presenting on women of color in the female suffrage movement. Their presentation provided a timeline of female suffrage in the U.S., and highlighted the women of color who contributed to it. The presentation concluded with voting obstacles for women of color today like gerrymandering, felony disenfranchisement
and unfair voter ID laws, and how politician, lawyer, and author Stacey Abrams is helping to fight them. Congratulations on bringing these key issues to the forefront!
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Women of Color Leadership Project cohort, 2019-2020
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WGSS Director Dr. Kavita Daiya was selected, along with WGSS MA student Breya Johnson, to be a part of the National Women's Studies Association's leadership training and strategic planning workshop at their annual conference Nov 14-17, 2019: the NWSA Women of Color Leadership Project, 2019-2020. At the conference, Professor Daiya also gave a talk entitled "Gender, Migration, and the Crisis of Secular Citizenship" on a panel entitled "Gender, Citizenship, and the State: Border-Crossing in South Asia" with Professors Supriya Nair (U of Michigan, Ann Arbor) and Purnima Bose (Indiana University, Bloomington). Her talk discussed cultural representations of how gender shapes transnational migrant experiences and minority citizenship.
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Pictured (left to right): Supriya Nair, Kavita Daiya, and Purnima Bose.
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Pictured: Professor Sara Matthiesen (second from right side) with Kelly Jo Fulkerson Dikuua, Maggie Unverzagt Goddard, Jallicia A. Jolly, and Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes
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WGSS Assistant Professor Dr. Sara Matthiesen (also Assistant Professor of History) also presented at the National Women's Studies Annual (NWSA) conference. Her presentation emphasized the NWSA's goals of demonstrating feminist scholarship that is comparative, global, intersectional, and interdisciplinary.
Dr. Sara Matthiesen moderated a panel titled "Art of Resistance: Reading Transnational Responses to Racialized Medical Violence." This panel focused on medical violence and Black & indigenous women’s bodily protest.
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Monthly WGSS Brown Bag Seminar - December
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The WGSS' "Gender and Sexuality Brown Bag Seminar" showcases GW faculty and student research on issues concerning gender, race, and sexuality. In this seminar, Dr. Ivy Ken, Associate Professor of Sociology, will discuss the collaborative scholarship on intersectionality developed by the University of Memphis. This was as an important precursor to Kimberlé Crenshaw's foundational essays on intersectionality theory. Dr. Ken's critical inquiry, informed by the sociology of knowledge, will explore how the humanities and social sciences have been disciplined in ways that have consequences for understanding the dynamics of intersectionality.
Date:
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Time: 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Venue: The George Washington University, Phillips Hall Room 411, 801 22nd St. NW
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Black Women Writers in the 21st Century
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This course will explore award-winning black women's literature by writers from the United States, Africa and the Caribbean, including novels, film, poetry, memoir and short fiction. We will pay particular attention to black women's writing as a site for exploring the intersections of race, gender, nation, and history. Possible authors covered: Toni Morrison, Roxane Gay, Saidiya Hartman, Elizabeth Acevedo, Yaa Gyasi, Chimamanda Adichie, Dee Rees, Jesmyn Ward, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine. Sign up today!
Course:
EN 3940.80
Date:
T, TH, 3:45 - 5:00
Instructor:
Professor Jennifer James
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Upcoming GW Events on Gender
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J
oin Representative Lauren Underwood for a discussion on "Maternal Health and Disparities: Legislative Policy and Issues" on
Thursday, December 5th
from 8:00 AM - 9:30 AM at the Milken Institute School of Public Health Room B100A.
Congresswoman Underwood serves Illinois’ 14th Congressional District and is the first woman, the first person of color, and the first millennial to represent her community in Congress. Congresswoman Underwood also serves as co-chair of the Black Maternal Health Caucus. Her discussion will focus on legislative and policy initiatives to address the health disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality.
There will be a light breakfast served before the event.
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Upcoming D.C. Events on Gender
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In honor of the anniversary of the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women, Women’s Freedom Forum is holding its 9th annual Congressional photo exhibition event to address the implications and consequences of violence against women and girls worldwide, and the history and advancements of the movement to stop violence against women. The event, entitled “Uniting Voices Worldwide” will take place in the House of Representatives, on
Wednesday, November 20
.
It is our sincere hope and we all strive that with united efforts and voices, we can end the violence against women everywhere!
Register for this event
here.
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The Chinese American Museum’s mission is to advance the understanding, knowledge, and appreciation of the Chinese American experience by highlighting shared cultural exchanges and stories of the spirit, resilience, and contributions of Chinese Americans throughout their past, present, and future. Head down to view their featured exhibits on Chinese American Women and the Shanghai Jewish Refugees.
The museum is open from
10:00 AM-5:00 PM every Wednesday-Saturday
through the end of the year.
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Call For Essay Submissions
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Your voice, your experiences, and your insights are critical for a special issue of
Women, Gender, and Families of Color
focused on the experiences of graduate students of color learning, working, navigating, and matriculating in higher education. We seek a diversity of perspectives from marginalized and minoritized populations in the academy, including students currently in MA and PhD programs as well as recent graduates across disciplines.
Women, Gender, and Families of Color
is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed publication that centers the study of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American women, genders, and families. For this special issue, we are interested in reflective essays that explore graduate students of colors’ lives—their struggles and triumphs. Additionally, we invite essays that center the observations and best practices of students of color and articulate authors’ visions for the future of departments, graduate schools, and campus communities.
In soliciting these essays, the journal aims to provide a space for emerging scholars to contemplate the formal structure and informal customs of graduate school as well as the aforementioned factors’ import and impact for graduate students of color as they make their way in the academy. The special issue is an effort to create a dialogue among graduate students of color for sharing ideas, affirmation, and guidance. It is also an endeavor to build a forum for graduate students of color to provide feedback to the journal’s other readers, which include college and university faculty, administrators, and staff persons.
Due to the sensitive nature of these issues, authors may request that their work be published anonymously. Submissions are due
November 30, 2019
to
wgfc@ku.edu.
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The organizers of Bodies of Knowledge 2020 invite proposals for individual conference papers, panels with 3-5 conference papers, informal roundtable panels, creative presentations (e.g., poetry, spoken word, creative nonfiction, photography exhibits, other art installations), and tabling by community organizations. We welcome participation from undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and community organizers. Proposals may address topics raised by the keynoters—trans community organizing, Black transgender feminism, trans childhoods, trans theorizing about gender-markers on legal documents—or may respond more broadly to the theme of re-envisioning transgender lives, cultures, politics, media visibility, and so on.
Bodies of Knowledge is an LGBTQ-themed event founded in 2008 in memory of Sean
Kennedy, a young man who was killed in Greenville in 2007. This biennial event aims to create a safer, more understanding community for everyone by offering high-quality presentations that change the conversation about LGBTQ experience in the Upstate and beyond, thereby improving the climate of the Upstate for its LGBTQ youth and promoting civil and well-informed discussion around sexuality and nonconforming gender identities.
The event will be held in Spartanburg, South Carolina on
April 9 - 10, 2020
and will feature an exciting lineup of keynote speakers will speak to the politics, culture, and health issues surrounding the transgender community.
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The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Florida (USF) is hosting the 2020 Southeastern Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference in Tampa Bay, Florida. The theme—Embodying Disobedience, Crafting Affinities—figures embodiment and diverse lived experiences as the lifeblood of resistant politics and the livelihood of building alliances across our many differences.
They invite proposals that envision and examine diverse ways of embodying disobedience and crafting affinities
across a wide range of theories, practices, and contexts. All disciplines, methodologies, and styles of presentation are welcome, and from students and scholars at all levels.
Proposal submission is due by
December 6, 2019
. Click
here
for more information.
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Deadline:
TODAY
The CLS is a fully-funded overseas language and cultural immersion summer program (eight to ten weeks) for American undergraduate and graduate students. The program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Students of diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. You must be a U.S. citizen to be eligible for this opportunity.
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D
olores Zohrab Liebmann Fellowship
Deadline:
January 10, 2020
This fellowship is looking for three George Washingtongraduate students who have financial need and hold promise for achievement and distinction in their chosen fields of study. The fellowship will cover the cost of tuition for the 2020-21 academic year plus an $18,000 annual stipend to be allocated towards room & board. Students in Law, Medicine or in Ph.D. programs are encouraged to apply.
For more information, click
here.
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Deadline:
February 3, 2020
The U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship Program provides academic year fellowships to institutions of higher education. The grant to GWU, written by the Institute for Middle East Studies and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, assists graduate (PhD and Master's candidates) and professional students (JD, MPH, DrPH, MBA and MD) at George Washington University to further language study and area/international studies.
Languages:
Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Turkish
For incoming and current graduate students. More information about eligibility, awards, and access to an application can be found
here
.
For current undergraduates and graduate students.
Click
here
for more details.
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Deadline:
February 7, 2020
The Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (MURAP) invites applications for a 10-week summer research fellowship for undergraduate students (rising juniors or seniors) in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts. The program will be held from May 20th to July 24th, 2020 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
To apply, students must complete an online application, which will be available starting November 4, 2019. The application deadline is February 7, 2020. For more details about the program, please see the attached announcement and flyer. For more information, click
here
or contact
murap@unc.edu
.
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Woman Warrior is an organization that hosts yoga workshops that create a gentle and powerful healing space for women who have experienced sexual trauma. They are seeking student volunteers who are available 1-2 hours per week to help manage social media accounts.
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Job and Internship Opportunities
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Various Internships, Vital Voices
Vital Voices is an international women’s leadership non-profit that empowers and champions women leaders changing their communities around the world.
Their interns conduct research, draft proposals and social media content, support office management and budget development, help execute internationally renowned programs and much more. Internships at Vital Voices require a commitment ranging between 20-40 hours per week and are unpaid, but provide academic credit. Learn more
here
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Research Intern, A Wider Circle
In this internship you will develop and hone research skills by collecting and analyzing investigative qualitative and quantitative data, which will inform research team members, staff, volunteers and contributors about issues that relate to poverty. These issues may include federal, state, and local programs and policies that relate to poverty, as well as the state of economic opportunity for low-income Americans.
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Summer Intern, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
This is a paid graduate level full-time summer intern position at the NIH. This intern will work on the project entitled Built and Sociocultural Environmental Risk Factors of Cigar Smoking among African American Young Adults. The project involves using online survey and in-depth interview techniques to investigate the pressing environmental risk factors that trigger and escalate cigar smoking among African American young adults. The intern, together with other team members, will assist with recruiting and interviewing participants as well as organizing and analyzing qualitative interview data. Learn more
here
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Political Intern, NARAL Pro-Choice America
The Political Intern will support NARAL Pro-Choice America’s Political Department by conducting targeted research including: federal, gubernatorial, statewide, and local candidates and campaigns for the 2018 election cycles.
As the nation’s leading pro-choice advocacy group, NARAL Pro-Choice America is dedicated to protecting and expanding reproductive freedom for all Americans, including abortion access.
Learn more about this opportunity
here
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Outreach and Prevention Intern, FAIR Girls
Join the FAIR Girls team and make a difference in the lives of survivors of human trafficking. As a Outreach and Prevention Intern you will be responsible for spreading the word about human trafficking to professionals, community members, and at-risk youth in Washington, DC.
Learn more about the position
here
.
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Gender and Development Intern, Center for Global Development
The Center for Global Development (CGD), an independent, non-partisan, non-profit policy research organization in Washington, DC seeks a paid intern to start in January 2020 for a period of 6 months to support research, writing, and outreach work focused on gender and development.
The intern will spend 6 months from January through June 2019 working closely with CGD staff listed above to support research on women’s economic opportunities and agency, and other gender equality and international development-related topics as needed. For more information, click
here.
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Have you checked out our new
blog
yet?This is your go-to spot for gender related Spring 2020 courses, a database of the most recent news digests, and much more!
Stay constantly updated with WGSS
here!
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Join Our LinkedIn Network!
Our brand new WGSS Alumni page is here! Follow this page to receive the latest updates on alumni news, opportunities, and WGSS events! Connect with our alumni, faculty, and current students. Add us to your network today!
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WGSS "Envisioning Change" Alumni Speakers (Left to Right): Kate Black, Andrea Pagano-Reyes, and Layla Moughari
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Contribute to the WGSS News Digest
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Would you like your event, announcement, or news to be featured in our news digest? There is a process! Please fill out the below form by
Thursdays at 4:00 PM
to have your event featured in our upcoming digests.
Find the form
here
. We look forward to hearing from you!
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The End Virginity Testing Edition
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Rapper T.I. has come under fire for subjecting his daughter to virginity testing
Photo Credit: John Amis/AP/Shutterstock, Rolling Stone
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Virginity testing is a form of abuse and a human rights violation. It is an example of gender discrimination as it is an act of violence, rooted in misogyny, that disproportionately affects women and girls worldwide. While it is important to acknowledge the lack of scientific validity to the practice, it is an egregious violation of the bodily autonomy, dignity, and privacy of women and girls regardless.
Our very own MA student, Breya Johnson,
shared the following on Twitter
about U.S. Rapper T.I.'s recent revelation: "What TI has done to his daughter is rape culture. It’s the beginning of teaching black girls that they do not have agency over their own bodies. It’s also teaching sexual shame and repressing desire. Now all her sexual engagements must be secretive. Shame + secrecy is violent."
This tweet
has been shared over eleven thousand
t
imes and liked over forty-one thousand times. There is power in our students speaking out against gender-based violence!
"Many pointed out the outrageous invasion of privacy of forcing your 18-year-old daughter — an adult, in the eyes of the law — to submit to hymen testing (and there is no federal or state legislation banning it); others focused on the double standard of T.I. going to such degrees to ensure his daughter was not having sex, while simultaneously applauding his younger son for being sexually active.
...But while T.I.’s comments were certainly solid outrage-bait, they also pointed out to a more disturbing reality: virginity testing is widespread around the globe, and has historically been used as justification to punish, torture, or even murder young women."
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