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Facing The Medusa: Confronting The Ongoing Impossibility Of Women’S Studies, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Laura Gillman

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the Introduction:

When feminism is defined in such a way that it calls attention to the diversity of women’s social and political reality, it centralizes the experiences of all women, especially the women whose social conditions have been least written about, studied, or changed by political movements. When we cease to focus on this simplistic stance “men are the enemy,” we are compelled to examine systems of domination and our role in their maintenance and perpetuation. Lack of adequate definition made it easy for bourgeois women, whether liberal or radical in perspective, to maintain their dominance over the leadership …

Beyond The Campus: Some Initial Findings On Women’S Studies, Careers And Employers, Maryanne Dever, Liz Day

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the Introduction:

(I)nstitutions of higher learning are being transformed by the discourses of economic rationalism and the marketplace so that many practitioners are discovering first-hand how readily Women’s Studies programs become vulnerable to arguments made against maintaining allegedly “useless” and “non-vocational” areas of study (see Griffin 1998, Kessler-Harris and Swerdlow 1996). The reconfiguration of higher education within a broadly consumerist logic and growing rates of unemployment and underemployment among university graduates in many western societies also mean that not just administrators, but students (and their families) are now inquiring into the vocational relevance and the long-term “rewards” of specific …

‘A Hybrid In All Sorts Of Ways’: Teaching Women’S Studies In The Academy, Sue Jackson

Journal of International Women's Studies

Introduction:

There has been much discussion of late of the decline in women’s studies in the British academy. Discussion has ranged around the institutional closing down of women’s studies departments and programmes, and around the experiences of students on women’s studies degrees. What is it like, though, to be a lecturer in women’s studies in an academy, which often feels like an alien and unwelcoming place to be. What brought lecturers in women’s studies to their discipline, and how do they see their future? What constrains do they face on their current work? Can women’s studies challenge traditional academic structures? …

Weaving Women’S Studies Into The Institutional Web: A Case Study, Frances Kraljic, Inez Martinez

Journal of International Women's Studies

Kingsborough Community College [KCC], one of six in the City University of New York [CUNY], a University containing eleven senior colleges, a medical and a law school, and a Graduate Center, is the first and only community college in CUNY to have a Women’s Studies [WS] Program. It took a long, long time to obtain this Program, and it has taken multi-faceted efforts to weave it into Kingsborough’s life in such a way as to (thus far) keep it. Because we believe that WS are particularly important at the community college level, we are sharing the story of the development …

Feminist Science Studies At German Universities - A First Account, Smilla Ebeling, Helene Götschel

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the Introduction:

Feminist science studies, which do not have a unified term so far in the German debate, regard mathematics, science and technology within their historical and social context (Heike Kahlert 1996, Heike Wiesner 1994). This critical contextualization of math-natural scientific thinking and acting is not regarded as a task of the corresponding disciplines but is linked to other disciplines like the history and philosophy of science, didactics or science and technology studies. Therefore, feminist science studies cannot be worked out within mathematics, science and engineering at all because they do not make sense within the scientific self-understanding (Margarete …

Hitting And Missing The Mark: Feminist Inquiry And Pedagogy In United States Women’S Studies Graduate Programs, Phyllis Baker, Siqin Yang

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the Introduction:

This essay looks specifically at reflection in these areas undertaken in one sector of women’s studies: the master’s degree in women’s studies in the United States. That graduate education in women’s studies is the focal point of this essay is especially timely because graduate programs in women’s studies are experiencing substantial growth. This essay addresses one aspect of graduate education: the correspondence between feminist intellectual inquiry and pedagogy in master’s programs in women’s studies. In particular, the essay aims to assess women’s studies at the graduate level by asking graduate students what they think about the attention …

Her Mistress’S Voice: Gynophonocentrism In Feminist Discourses, Mikko Keskinen

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the article:

I will trace the metaphors of voice in the discourses of feminisms as articulated by Judith Fetterley, Kaja Silverman, Julia Kristeva, and Hélène Cixous. I will analyze the presuppositions of their vocal or sound imagery, paying special attention to the implications of the essentialism/constructivism opposition. It is not my intention to provide a comprehensive account of voice in feminisms, nor to make sweeping generalizations on the basis of a very limited corpus. Moreover, in spite of their differences in cultural background, period, and main area of study, the four theorists to be read are, as it were, …

Race, Gender And Performance In Grace Nichols’S The Fat Black Woman’S Poems, Maite Escudero

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the Article:

In a world of diverse cultures and societal beliefs, marginalized groups often share common experiences. Recurrent themes in the literature of black peoples include anti-imperialism, racism, sexism, exile, ‘cultural schizophrenia’, language, otherness and home to ancestors, just to name a few. Yet, there is no single black voice: black writing can come from everywhere in the world – America, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and Britain. As a result, an individual may become torn between conflicting expressions by others within the same cultural group. What is at issue here is the recognition of extraordinary variation of subjective positions …