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Volume 298 | December 6, 2024

Faculty Spotlight

Pictured: A patient's waist being measured. Photo Credit: The Conversation

Congrats to Professor Jameta Barlow who co-authored the articleWeight loss plans are less effective for many Black women–because existing ones don’t often meet their unique needs.” for The Conversation! This article discusses the current weight loss interventions based on lifestyle changes that largely fail to meet the needs of Black women. One of the highlights from the article states, "Lifestyle interventions focusing on healthy diet and increased physical activity are proven to help most people lose weight, typically resulting in a 5% to 10% weight reduction that also reduces the risk of chronic disease. However, these lifestyle interventions usually result in only a 2% to 3% weight loss in Black women."


Pictured: Professor Jameta Barlow

Spring 2025 Courses

Spring 2025 registration has begun! Check out WGSS Spring 2025 courses to add to your schedule and see a list of other WGSS-related courses below:

Undergraduate Courses

AMST 2000.10 The Nature & Culture of Children

Professor Jamie Cohen-Cole

CRN 27865

W 12:45-3:15 PM


Course Description

The sciences and philosophy ask hard questions: What is the nature of knowledge? What characteristics define humanity? How much does culture matter? It turns out that these questions have provoked fierce disagreements for how we understand, raise, and educate children and are tied to our visions of morality, politics, education, and the shape we want the future to take. This seminar adopts a historical approach to see how these questions and the debates about them have been approached by philosophers, biologists, anthropologists, and psychologists.

SUST 3093: Gender and Sustainable Development

Professor Angela Melidosian

CRN 28043

TR 11:10AM-12:25PM


Course Description

This course will explore women's, men's, and nonbinary people's roles in shaping sustainable development, driving environmental movements, enacting social change, changing gender roles, and transforming societies toward sustainability.

ANTH 3991 The Anthropology of Islam (crosslisted with IAFF 3188 CRN 28258)

Professor Attiya Ahmad

CRN 25878

TR 3:45-5:00PM


Course Description

How does scholarship on Muslim societies examine questions of power, ethics, authority, violence, agency, gender, race, Orientalism & Islamophobia?

How do scholars examine continuities and differences among Muslim societies across space and time? How significant is Islam to the nature of these societies, and can Islam be approached in ways similar to other religious traditions?

What methods are best suited to examine Muslim societies and Islamic traditions?

CTAD 4595 Queer Aesthetics in Contemporary Dance and Performance

Professor Brendan Drake

CRN 28411

MW 11:10AM-12:25PM



Course Description

This course will examine modes of queer performance in the United States from the 1970’s onward. We will examine an expanse of queer productions and practices situated in various settings, from public protests, experimental theater, Ballet and Contemporary Dance, Hip Hop and House cyphers, mainstream concert stages and LGBTQ nightlife. We will profile an array of of Dance and Performance artists in tandem with Queer Theories and Methodologies, including but not limited to: Tracking Queer Temporality and Futurity through Choreographic World-Building; Assimilation politics in Ballet; Cross-cultural explorations of Camp; Notions of Queer Minstrelsy and Trans Misogyny; Drag Evolutions; Choreographies of Protest and Social Power Dynamics within Queer Nightlife.


Through class discussions, lectures, student presentations and assignments (short essays/performance reviews/creative projects), students will become more familiar with methods and theories from queer and performance studies and learn to apply them both in their individual creative research and in critical analysis of live performance. As a class, we will question and interrogate how “queer” as a blanket term can describe both an identity and ways of being/doing. Where do notions of queerness account for, or evade intersections of gender, sexuality, race, disability, and/or ethnicity? Within this class, we will unpack how “queer” is deployed within the work we examine, as well as within our own individual processes. 


All Sexual and Gender expressions welcome. 


Course Content

Performance Artists: Jack Ferver, Julie Tolentino, jumatatu m. poe, Jamile Kosoko, Rupaul, Act Up, Sister Spit, Eddie Izzard, Cole Escola, Ballez, Queen Amour, Willi Ninja, Miguel Gutierrez, Ita Segev, Tom Rubnitz, John Kelly and DanceNoise, Ishmael Houston-Jones.


Writers and Theorists: Maggie Nelson, Audre Lorde, Billy Ray Belcourt, Jules Gill Peterson, Torrey Peters, Tommy Pico, Jack Halberstam, Judith Butler, José Esteban Muñoz, Adrienne Marie Brown, Terell Alvin McCraney, Doran George, Thomas DeFrantz.

Graduate Courses

ENGL 6510 Transnational and Racial Ecologies

Professor Jennifer James

CRN 27839

Thursdays 6:10-8:00 PM


Course Description

This course examines environmental cultural production from the U.S. and beyond to examine ecological and climate disruption from the point of view of minorities and the marginalized. Along with the primary texts, we will read ecocritical and secondary historical material to ground our interpretations theoretically and materially. Will incorporate a range of genres: fiction, non-fiction, documentary, film, oral histories, photography, poetry and the speculative. Some topics include Flint, Katrina, migrant labor, Standing Rock, oil extraction and coltan mining in Africa, Caribbean tourism, the Indian Bhopal disaster and others. Despite the seriousness of the subject, we will not focus solely on the catastrophic; we will also recognize the role of collectivity and care in the quest for ecological and environmental justice as we center racial, postcolonial, disability, women’s and LGBTQ+ perspectives.

CAH 6250 Disability, Accessibility, & the Arts

Professor Bibi Obler

CRN 26606

Tuesdays 12:45-3:15PM


Course Description

In this graduate seminar, we will examine theories and histories of various forms and understandings of disability vis-à-vis the arts and visual culture. We will study “disability aesthetics”; inclusive design in architecture, museums, and urban planning; the importance of the gaze; and key debates in the field. We will delve into case studies on early forays into plastic surgery; the complexities of National Socialist policies on degenerate art and eugenics; and contemporary artists’ interventions in discourses on disability. 

ANTH 6504 Experimental Worlds: Feminist Perspectives on Science, Technology, and Power

Professor Diana Pardo Pedraza

CRN 27960

M 5:10-7PM


Course Description

At the intersection of social anthropology and feminist science and technology studies, this seminar critically examines how experiments --whether in laboratories, on bodies, across landscapes, or in speculative futures--are deeply entangled with histories of colonialism, racism, militarism, and capitalism.


Through rich ethnographic analysis, we will question how power dynamics shape every stage of experimentation, from research design and methodology to public discourse. We will consider not just the empirical outcomes of these practices, but also their ontological implications: how they craft, dismantle, and transform worlds.

HIST 6301 New Methods and Subjects in African American Historiography

Professor Erin Chapman

CRN 27982

T 5:10-7:00PM


Course Description

This readings seminar will engage recently published histories of Black life, culture and politics in the United States. We will focus on works utilizing the new methods of critical fabulation and archival interrogation to recover Black women's life experiences and the intersectional nature of oppression. We will also read works engaging hot topics such as the carceral state and leftist radicalism, with an emphasis on intersections of sexuality, race and marginalized perspectives. Assignments will include reading journals and historiography papers. Readings will include histories such as Consent in the Presence of ForceLove's Next MeetingReading Territory, and The Streets Belong to Us

Jobs, Internships, Fellowships, and Scholarships

The Honey W Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service 

The Honey W Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service at GW is hiring FWS students and volunteers. Apply for Math Matters, Jumpstart, engageDC, and SMARTDC tutoring and leadership open positions at the Nashman Center. Work directly with DC Public Schools and community organizations, making a real impact in the community.

Read full job descriptions and apply online. Contact the Nashman Center via email with any questions.

The University of Michigan-Rackham Graduate School’s Michigan Humanities Emerging Research Scholars 2025 (MICHHERS) application officially opens on Monday, December 2, 2024. Rising seniors, recent B.A.s, and terminal master’s students who are interested in pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Michigan are eligible to apply. 


Additionally, an application/program information session will be held on Wednesday, December 11th. There will be additional information sessions on Wednesday, January 8th and Wednesday, January 29th. Register for a workshop online.


View the MICHHERS website for more information. For questions, email the MICHHERS team. The application deadline is February 10, 2025.

Join a Book Launch

There is an opportunity to join Dr. Fariba Parsa's book launch team for her newest book Fighting for Change in Iran: The Women, Life, Freedom Philosophy Against Political Islam. Review the synopsis of the book and the cover book online.


As a member of the launch team, you will:

Write a review on Amazon OR

Simply hit the star button to leave a rating


Your thoughts and opinions would be incredibly valuable in helping potential readers discover the book!

Research and Grant Funding Opportunities

Applications for The Gay & Lesbian Review/WORLDWIDE (The G&LR)'s 3rd annual Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant is open! The Gay & Lesbian Review/WORLDWIDE (The G&LR) is a bimonthly magazine of history, culture, and politics focusing on LGBTQ+ issues that publishes non-fiction and poetry, as well as reviews of books, movies, and plays. This grant is open to graduate students across disciplines and fields that make a contribution to LGBTQ+ scholarship or the arts.


The purpose of this gift is to bring new and diverse ideas and voices to the magazine and to encourage and support emerging and unpublished LGBTQ+ writers, thinkers, scholars, and artists. Recipients will receive funding (up to $7,500) to write an article for the magazine and to begin, complete, or advance LGBTQ+ related writing and other creative projects such as a research paper or thesis, a book, a podcast, a video, a script, a novel, a multimedia creation, or an art installation.


Review the grant's website for more information. Applications are due by January 31, 2025 at 11:59pm EST. Visit the website for questions or email Quinn Tahon, Grant/Project Administrator.

Call for Submissions

26th Southeast Conference for Languages, Literatures and Film

February 22-23, 2025

Stetson University | DeLand, Florida

Proposal submissions due December 10th


 The SCFLLF welcomes papers on all aspects of literature, linguistics, culture, philosophy, cultural history, film, applied linguistics, second language acquisition, and pedagogy pertaining to non-English languages (ancient and modern). We would like to encourage (but not limit) submissions addressing the conference theme: Disputed Realities: Recalibrating the Real in its broadest understanding. The Humanities have always dealt with imaginary worlds and how they are connected to and/ or influencing our conception of the real. In the present cultural climate where facts are more and more presented as disputed realities the humanities are repositioning themselves as a way to navigate, assess but also influence the political and the personal.

 Some suggestions of topics and their representations in methodology, philosophy, literature, visual and online media, and art include:

  • Reality and perception in literature, art and film
  • Constructing reality in film and literature
  • Reassessing what is real
  • The reality of trauma, how it is expressed, perceived, believed or not
  • Disputed facts in methodology
  • The reality of what’s happening in the classroom
  • The contested reality of culture
  • The broader influence of imaginary worlds in film, literature and the visual arts

The keynote speaker is Carine Mardorossian (Professor of English & Global Gender and Sexuality Studies, Affiliated Faculty, Romance Languages and Literatures, Affiliated Faculty, Environmental and Sustainability Studies, University at Buffalo), author of

Death is but a Dream: Hope and Meaning at Life’s End (narrative nonfiction) with Christopher Kerr, MD, Penguin-Random House, 2020 (with documentary on NPR World).

Framing the Rape Victim: Gender and Agency Reconsidered, Rutgers University Press, June 2014. Winner of The Authors’ Zone Award, 2016.

Reclaiming Difference: Caribbean Women Rewrite Postcolonialism. Charlottesville, VA: U of Virginia Press (New World Series), August 2005.


View previous publications. Submit a proposal online (of no more than 250 words) for a single paper or a full panel (max. of 3 presentations).

Black Trans Futurities: Political Imaginaries in the Academy and the Arts

Arizona State University

Submissions due December 15th

Convened by Queer X Humanities co-director, Sa Whitley, and Aaron Mallory, both faculty in the Arizona State University School of Social TransformationBlack Trans Futurities: Political Imaginaries in the Academy and the Arts is a symposium that brings together scholars, artists, & local community members to reflect on the field of Black Trans Studies & imagine its future. Over 2 days, Black Trans Futurities will include workshop sessions, a keynote panel, a black trans* poetics salon in downtown Phoenix, turn-ups, & freedom dreaming in the Phoenix Metro Area. Priority will be given to graduate students, artists, and junior faculty.


Applications will be accepted online via Google Form. Applicants will be notified about their participation by January 3rd, 2025.

Spring 2025 issue of gnovis

Papers due January 3, 2025

Book pitches due November 8th; reviews due January 3, 2025


The Georgetown University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is currently accepting research papers and book reviews for the Spring 2025 issue of gnovis, a student-­operated, peer-reviewed academic journal. 


About the Journal 

gnovis is devoted to promoting interdisciplinary scholarship that reflects broad interests at the intersection of communication, culture, and technology. Our mission is to provide a forum for graduate students from around the globe to share their original research and foster a spirit of curiosity, collaboration, and conversation among emerging scholars. We are proud to feature some of the best graduate scholarship from across the country, with past submissions accepted from institutions such as Georgetown University, NYU Steinhardt, Northwestern University, Indiana University, Tufts University, and the University of Texas, Austin.


Call for Papers

gnovis welcomes submissions of original research papers from current graduate students. Papers may address a wide range of subjects and historical periods, including, but not limited to: science and technology studies, cultural criticism, cultural identity and politics, new media and elections, nationalism and religion, visual art and emerging technology, mediated communication and digital representation, and more. Submitted papers should be approximately 3,000-8,000 words in length, include a brief abstract, and employ author-date APA Style citations. 


Papers must be emailed as a Word document no later than January 3, 2025 at 11:59 pm EST. Please include in the body of the email your name, contact information, and school affiliation. Learn more about our research paper submission guidelines online.


Call for Book Reviews

gnovis is keen on publishing book reviews that reflect the diverse interests of its authors and invites contributors to select their own book to review, so long as the book addresses one of the foregoing topics. Interested contributors can pitch their chosen book to gnovis by filling out the Google Form by November 8, 2024. If the pitch is approved, potential contributors will be contacted by the gnovis editorial team to write the full review, to be submitted no later than January 3, 2025. Learn more about our book review submission guidelines online.


View previous issues online. Any further questions and concerns may be emailed

Space and Place

University of Virginia's English Department Graduate Symposium | April 4, 2025

Abstracts due January 3, 2025

This year, the University of Virginia’s Graduate Symposium invites graduate students studying arts and humanities across Virginia and Washington, D.C., to consider how space and place affect their research and the communication thereof. How do our physical locations influence our scholarship and pedagogy? What does it mean to move between institutions as an academic while pursuing the same line of scholarly inquiry? How can we acknowledge the specificities of our spaces and places while building expansive intellectual communities? And how should we articulate our sense of institutional belonging when those institutions depart from our values?


Potential topics to be addressed may include:

• Regional and national relationalities

• Diaspora, forced migration, and climate-related mobility

• Disability and movement

• Environmental humanities and natural space

• Material culture and the built landscape

• De facto vs. de jure understandings of place

• Language, linguistics, and location

• Decolonial and postcolonial thought

• Place-conscious pedagogies

• First-person criticism


Presentations should be no longer than 15-20 minutes. In addition to accepting traditional academic papers, we also encourage submissions featuring creative work with academic components (such as creative nonfiction, documentary poetics, or multimedia presentations). Please specify in your submission whether any alternative categories apply to your paper and if you would require AV equipment.


Abstracts and a brief bio should be submitted online before 11:59 P.M. on Friday, January 3, 2025.


Email any questions or concerns to Graduate Symposium co-chairs: Gabby Kiser or Spencer Grayson.

Abolition, Everywhere? A National Convening

The Antiracist Research & Policy Center, American University

April 4-5, 2025 | Washington, D.C.

Proposals due January 5, 2025


Abolition, Everywhere? brings together scholars and practitioners working to abolish the prison industrial complex with those who engage abolition as a praxis to dismantle other systems and structures of unfreedom.


The Antiracist Research and Policy Center invites scholars and practitioners of abolition to join us to share their work, analysis, and insight for future directions in the field and for our movements. Our convening will be guided by the following questions: 

1. In this moment of racial revanchism and white nationalist backlash, how might abolition offer a shared framework that allows us to produce conditions for freedom capable of connecting us across political geographies and movements?

2. What opportunities and risks come with the operationalization of abolitionist theories and movements “everywhere”—across places, disciplines, organizations, and practices? 

3. Where do the theoretical frameworks, organizing methods, or political strategies of these diverse abolitionist movements and traditions converge, diverge, or come into conflict with each other? 

4. What new possibilities for study and practice emerge when we probe the connections and the disconnections among these contemporary abolitionist frameworks and movements? 


Proposals may be for individual or jointly authored papers/presentations. If interested, submit an abstract (<500 words), a short bio (<150 words), and a 1-page CV/Resume/or list of relevant experience via the submission portal. Applicants will be notified by the end of January.


For further questions, email the Abolition, Everywhere? Program Committee at the Antiracist Research and Policy Center.

Process: Journal of Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Scholarship invites submissions for Issue 9.1, on Failure. The greatest teacher in life can be failure. We’ve all failed at something, sometimes big, sometimes small. Our society has become more and more averse to failure, with people consciously avoiding it—but what are the benefits of failing, even if they are not obvious in the moment? Some approaches to the topic might be, but are not limited to:

  • Perceptions: How do different cultures or fields view the role of failure in education and learning?
  • Discovery: How have scientific or technological breakthroughs been born out of failures?
  • Identity: How does failure shape individual identity and self-perception?
  • Professional growth: What is the role of failure in personal and professional growth?
  • Economics: How does economic theory account for market failures, and what are the implications for policy?
  • Business: What are the effects of a business failure?
  • Innovation: How does failure drive innovation across different sectors?

Two general types of submissions will be accepted: critical essays and non-traditional (or multimodal) compositions, such as poems, short stories, or digital artifacts. All traditional essay submissions should be 2500–5000 words and follow appropriate disciplinary guidelines with respect to style and citations. Please include a 250-word abstract outlining project goals and how the contribution meaningfully engages with ongoing scholarly conversations.


You may submit pieces for review by following the instructions on the Submissions page of the Process website. Be sure to include your full name and email address on the submitted document. Questions may be directed to the editorial board via email.  


View the full Call for Proposals. All submissions are due by January 15, 2025.

Feminist Perspectives on Body, Disability, and Health

A Penn State Graduates in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Conference

Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, Penn State, State College, PA 16802

March 4th-5th, 2025

Proposals due January 15, 2025


Feminist Perspectives will be a hybrid conference: facilitated in-person and via Zoom. Organizers invite all to submit but are attentive to graduate students in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs/disciplines and beyond, especially those who have little or no conference experience in these spaces. Also, individual, panel, workshop, or roundtable submissions are welcome but organizers are open to numerous forms of submission within these formats including creative, written, artistic, and poetic expressions.

Examples of works are (but not restricted to):

  • Narrative, life-writing, representation
  • Disability epistemologies and movements
  • Agency, vulnerability, interdependence
  • Eugenics, nationalism, and reactionary discourses of gender/sex/sexuality
  • Citizenship, democracy, crip nationalism, biopolitics and necropolitics
  • Debility, disablement, disorder

To submit your proposal, fill out the Feminist Perspectives on Body, Disability, and Health Conference Submission Form by Wednesday, January 15, 2025. Notifications will be sent by Saturday, February 15, 2025. 

Ethics Press is inviting proposals for scholarly books and edited collections in Humanities and Social Sciences, and broader related fields including Life Sciences and Health Sciences. Read the Notes of Guidance and review the Book Proposal Form.


Suitable proposals will be independently reviewed. A completed proposal form, a sample of the proposed book, if available, a CV, is required. You are also welcome to send a summary or abstract first.


Books are published in English, initially in academic hardback and eBook format, with a paperback version released later. The books we select range from 50,000 words to around 150,000 words. There are no charges to publish.

Subject coverage includes:

  • Philosophy, religion and faith, ethics and morality
  • Human rights and equality, including indigenous studies and land rights, and race and gender issues
  • Arts, humanities and social science topics including history, sociology, society and culture, community, anthropology, and language and literature.
  • Global challenges, including war and conflict, sustainability and climate change, food security, poverty, and technology/AI. Our portfolio on issues and challenges associated with Artificial Intelligence is particularly popular
  • Applied fields, including all areas of business, management, economics and finance, and decision making, plus bioethics, education, the built environment, and data ethics
  • Politics and government, both national and regional, from US election politics, to international banking, to global policy issues
  • Legal and medical issues, covering healthcare, medicine and medical ethics, psychology, counselling, childhood studies, and law
  • Health sciences and life sciences

An adapted Doctoral Theses, and Edited Collections, including adaptations from conferences and symposia will be considered.

Jobs in Higher Education

The WGSS program at American University is seeking an adjunct instructor to teach “Gender in Society” (WGSS 125) in Spring 2025. Dates and times of the class TBD. There are 19 students in the course. The pay is $4,750 per class for instructors with a Ph.D, $4,158 per class without a Ph.D. 

This is for an immediate hire. A successful launch could well lead to further teaching opportunities with the WGSS program. ABD’s and completed M.A.’s are encouraged to apply, as well as those candidates who have completed their PhD’s. The WGSS program is the largest of six interdisciplinary programs which make up the broader department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies at American University.   

If you are interested in this opportunity, email the Director Amy Barber with a brief introduction and CV.

The Department of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Western Washington University invites applications for a full-time tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor specializing in Black Feminist Studies beginning September 2025. This position is for a scholar who centers the knowledge production of women of color in ways that challenges historical inequities, state violence, and/or regimes of incarceration by encouraging Black Feminist Thought, visions of political and social transformation, and/or Black feminist collective organizing. Applicants from any discipline in the Humanities or Social Sciences will be accepted with a preference for candidates with a Ph.D. in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies or related interdisciplinary fields. We seek applicants with a well-established record of research and teaching that engages Black feminist themes in the field from a philosophical, racial, queer, trans, and/or comparative perspective.

 

The successful applicant will be expected to teach core and advanced undergraduate courses in the Department of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. This includes teaching at least one of our three core courses: Introduction to Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies; Introduction to Feminist Theory; and Introduction to Queer and Sexuality Studies. The candidate will also have the opportunity to teach upper-level classes including our required Queer Research Methods class and the Senior Seminar. Responsibilities for the position include teaching 2 courses per quarter (2-2-2 load); exemplary instruction; an active and successful research agenda; and service to the department, college, university, and profession through a range of activities. The successful candidate will be expected to provide equitable and inclusive learning environments for all students as they fulfill their teaching and mentoring responsibilities.  

 

The Department of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Western Washington University pursues praxis and critical inquiry that makes sense of how gender affects our world and shapes social, political, and cultural formations through feminist and queer scholarship, teaching, and activism. We are dedicated to teaching undergraduate majors and minors how to use critical thinking to bridge intersectional feminist theories and social justice practice. Our program values and promotes interdisciplinary analysis through a variety of lenses including feminism, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, and queer and trans identity in transnational and multicultural contexts.  


For questions about the position, application process, or department, email Dr. Rae Lynn Schwartz-DuPre.  

 

Read the full job ad and apply for the Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Black Feminist Studies position.


Application review of complete files began December 1st, 2024; position is open until filled.

The Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at Bowdoin College invites applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty appointment at the assistant professor level in transnational/global feminisms broadly defined. The position will begin July 1, 2025. Applicants should be interdisciplinary scholars working at the intersections of gender, race, and social justice and focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, or Asia or who incorporate transnational or diasporic approaches to these regions. Applicants can contribute to both gender and sexuality aspects of the curriculum and address student interests in social movements, law, health/medicine, climate justice, environmental studies, government and political science, technology, or science in society. The teaching load is two courses per semester. A Ph.D. is required at the time of appointment. The Program is particularly interested in candidates with a strong commitment to undergraduate liberal arts education.

Read the full job description and apply.

Master of Arts in International Migration & Refugees at Georgetown University

The 18-month program, organized by Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration and within the highly-regarded School of Foreign Service, offers students a chance to concentrate in either Migration Analytics or Humanitarian Practice.  

Rigorous academic coursework is complemented by a required summer practicum with a refugee- or migrant-serving organization in another country or in the US and a capstone project with another agency.  Drawing on the expertise of Georgetown University’s faculty and the broader Washington DC community, the program offers a rich variety of course work and extra-curricular activities that will prepare students for further work in this field – whether advising private sector companies about migration or working directly with displaced populations in the world’s hotspots or advocating for immigration policies with an NGO or research institute. Consultations with a range of potential employers indicated keen interest in hiring graduates with specialized expertise in migration and humanitarian practice.

MA Program in American Studies at George Washington University

The Master of Arts in American Studies provides students opportunities for pre-professional training in their chosen specialty. Through challenging courses and in-depth research, students delve into topics like architecture, popular music, immigration and borders and racial and gender equality in American culture.

The MA prepares students for a variety of careers or advanced work in another PhD program. Apply by February 1st (for fellowship consideration).

For questions about this program, email Gayle Wald, Director of Graduate Studies.


On January 13, 2025, join American Studies leadership online for an information session discussing the field of American Studies and GW's Master of Arts in American Studies program. Register to attend.

PhD Program in American Studies at George Washington University

Students in GW’s American Studies PhD program receive rigorous training in the interdisciplinary study of American culture, society, and politics, as part of a course of study that is comprehensive yet personally tailored to the student’s specific interests.


Interested students are encouraged to contact a core faculty member to discuss their interests and learn more about the curriculum and resources. Find the complete application requirements on GW's Graduate Program Finder.


The Fall enrollment deadline is December 15th.

Resources

GW Mutual Aid Spreadsheet



Created by GW students for GW students, this resource serves as a connecting point for those who are providing or seeking aid. Areas of support include housing, health care, food, transportation, storage, pet/child/plant care, and more.

Online Therapy Resources for the LGBTQ+ Community

Online therapy is a resource that offers a plethora of different types of virtual therapy for the LGBTQ+ community. Online therapy makes it easier to access mental health care and to engage in therapy on your own terms. Find more resources that can be helpful for navigating the coming-out process, strengthening your relationships, and learning how to be true to yourself as an LGBTQ+ individual.

The Reads of 2024 Edition

Image Caption: Book covers for a recommended reading list. 

(Image Credit: Ms. Magazine)

The Ms. Magazine article "December 2024 Reads for the Rest of Us" highlights a list of new books that are being published by writers from historically excluded groups (women, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, APIA/AAPI, international, queer, trans, nonbinary, disabled, fat, immigrant, Muslim, neurodivergent, sex-positive or of other historically marginalized identities -- "the rest of us"). This list was compiled by Karla J. Strand who is a gender and women’s studies librarian at the University of Wisconsin. She completed her doctorate in information science via University of Pretoria in South Africa with a background in history and library science, and her research centers on the role of libraries and knowledge in empowering women and girls worldwide. 


Some of Karla's suggestions are:

  • Radical Solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, Political Allyship, and the Battle for Puerto Rico’s Independence bLisa G. Materson will be available on December 10th. This book examines the life and work of white ally Ruth Reynolds; Lisa G. Materson developed the concept of “radical solidarity,” which centers on transnational collective activism as highlighted by Reynolds’ dedication to Puerto Rican independence.
  • Apartment Women by Gu Byeong-mo was released on December 3rd. This original story examines motherhood, marriages and gender roles through four women and their families living in an experimental communal apartment building. 
  • Abortion Pills: US History and Politics by Carrie N. Baker was released on December 3rd. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive history of abortion pills in the United States. Public intellectual and lawyer Carrie N. Baker shows how courageous activists waged a decades-long campaign to establish, expand, and maintain access to abortion pills.



Check out the full list of recommendations!

Contribute to the WGSS News Digest

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.


Submit additions to the digest. We look forward to hearing from you!

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