AWS
APPLIED
WOMEN’S
STUDIES AT
CLAREMONT
GRADUATE
UNIVERSITY
FALL 2007SPRING 2008
AWS Students with Dr. Linda Perkins at our Fall brunch
A Note from AWS Director, Dr. Linda Perkins:
This has been a wonderful year for
Applied Women’s Studies here at
Claremont Graduate University! Our
program was accepted as a member
of the National Council for Research
on Women, the organization leading
women’s studies and research programs on women. In addition, our
students have had an extremely successful and productive year. AWS
student Pamela O’Leary held a highly
competitive internship at the United
Nations in the fall in the office of the
Focal Point for Women. She was
awarded a Legislative Fellowship for
the spring of 2008 from the Women's
Research and Education Institute in
Washington, DC, where she is currently working as a Fellow for Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney from
New York. Pammy has a special interest in transnational feminism and
women's issues on a global level. Another one of our students, Abby
DiCarlo received the Maguire
Award, which is a research award to
work with a faculty member at one of
the undergraduate Claremont Colleges. She will work with Professor
Pardis Mahdavi, a medical anthropologist at Pomona College. They
will conduct ethnographic fieldwork
on sex work and global trafficking in
Dubai over the summer. She will interview women whose lives have
been impacted by both of these
phenomena. Our program continues
its’ focus on research and practice
and our students are the best fruits of
our labor. AWS students have
served in many other local internships including working in the office
of elected officials, the Feminist Majority Foundation, working with current and former incarcerated women,
developing a documentary on contemporary women’s studies, and
serving in various research posts.
We have an article on our visiting
professor for the spring, Jessica Law-
less who underscores feminist activism
through the media. I offered a workshop on the History of Black Women
Activists at the Women of Color Café
at the California National Organization for Women’s Conference in Pomona, California in January. I also
spoke at a session for the American
Educational Research Association in
New York titled, “The Black Gender
Achievement Gap in Higher Education: A Conversation.” Finally, I coedited, with Claremont colleague
Gondy Leroy and Chris Tolle from the
Microsoft Corporation, a special issue on Women and Technology in
Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (vol. 37, Issue 3, 173).
We continue to seek opportunities to
contribute to both the local and international women’s studies communities through our research and activism, and look back on this academic
year as one filled with great
achievement.
Feminist Media Praxis with
Professor Jessica Lawless
Applied Women’s
Studies is proud
to have Prof. Lawless at CGU this
semester teaching
Feminist Media
Praxis. The course
explores feminist
documentary and
ethnographic
practices while creating video projects
informed by our findings. Political action
and social change are fundamental aspects of the course. The task, in part, is
to take up Alexandra Juhasz’ call for a
“femi-digi-praxis;” site specific media
production that identifies and solves
problems in collaboration with the subject(s) while making transparent - and
transforming- normative power relations.
“Feminist” is being utilized as an epistemological methodology with gender as a
starting point but not necessarily the end
point. Feminist incorporates knowledges
studied and applied while simultaneously
considering gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nation, citizenship, and class.
Recent AWS Graduate, Cecili Chadwick, teaches a
class on Sex Work at Cal
State San Marcos
A Course Description:
Using feminist and queer frameworks,
WMST 416 is designed to facilitate your
understanding and critical analysis of the
commercialization of sex as a major
international, political, economic, and
cultural issue. Through an analysis of
prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography, sex tourism, and erotic shows, we
will explore power in prostitution, pornography as a teaching tool for both
domination and sexual know-how, and
stripping as a form of empowerment. The
examination of these topics is designed
to facilitate a critical examination of sex
work by considering the power of both
patriarchy and male dominance. For this
reason, the readings and literature will
emphasize men's dominance over
women. The course includes material
from Communications, Economics,
Women's Studies, Health, Socio-political
theory, and other related perspectives
with an emphasis on the global nature of
the sex industry. In addition to the economics of the global sex industry, students will come to understand the major
political, social, and cultural debates
about how to address exploitation, primarily, but not exclusively of women and
children in the global sex industry.
Exciting AWS Course Offering for Fall 2008: AWS 352
Black Feminist Theory and
Activism
This Seminar, taught by Professor Phyllis
Jackson, from Pomona College, explores
the feminist theories produced by Black
women activists, artists, and scholars
practicing in diverse intellectual, cultural
and social arenas while examining the
various ways interlocking constructs of
race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality inform self-perceptions, social
status, cultural production, political and
economic power relations. To keep contemporary feminist work in historical
perspective students study the written
and oral texts of nineteenth-century
feminist foremothers to compare and
contrast strategies for living, thinking,
creating, and bringing about social
change in our contemporary context
The class will be offered on Thursdays
from 7:00pm-9:50pm.
AWS 300: Working Toward
Feminist Solutions
A brief overview by Adriana di Bartolo
Fall ‘07 proved to be an exciting, collaborative and productive semester. As
an introduction to the Applied Women’s
Studies M.A. program all new students
enroll in AWS 300: Feminist Research
Applications. The purpose of this course
is to expose students to feminist activism,
engaging in conversations about different applications and intersections of
feminist theory, research and practice.
Kicking off the semester, Zoe Ann
Nicholson, a dear friend to Dr. Perkins
and AWS, gave an all-inspiring lecture
about her activism during the 1980’s
fighting for the ratification of the ERA.
Following Zoe’s visit many wonderful
feminist activists visited the class engaging in dialogue about activism and the
way in which it influences policy, art,
media and immigration. The speakers
included Sr. Suzann Jabro, Sr. Terry
Dodge and Professor Sue Castagnetto
from the Women and Criminal Justice
Network (WCJN); Dr. Sallama Shaker,
Egyptian diplomat and scholar; Professor Jessica Lawless, video activist; Emily
Gold, Field Deputy for California State
Senator Kuehl; Jan Goff-La Fontaine, art
activist; the always controversial antiimmigration activists, the Gilchrist Angels, and many others. After brilliant
lectures, and debates, the new Applied
Women’s Studies students are equipped
with skills to transform real-world problems into working feminist solutions.
National Young Women’s
Leadership Conference
March 9-10, 2008 Washington D.C.
“Young women are as important and
significant as the fabric of society.”
– Dr. Yvonne Scruggs-Lefwich
A summary by current AWS Student,
Rose Gonzalez
The Feminist Majority Foundation’s
(FMF) two-day leadership conference
was insightful and geared mainly toward
undergraduates from across the country
who are involved with women’s issues on
their campuses or communities. The
leaders of the FMF and NOW were present and made it a point to mention all
of the issues facing young women today;
topics ranging from birth control and
voters’ rights, to workers’ rights and pay
equity, the conference was an important
stepping stone for young women who
are in the throes of figuring out whether
further campus organizing, an internship, or graduate school is next on their
agendas. Speakers such as Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Ms.
magazine’s Martha Burk, and Dolores
Huerta, to name a few, made motivating
speeches, but the weekend’s highlights
were talks given by Jatrice MartelGaiter, President and CEO of Metropolitan Washington’s Planned Parenthood,
Kathy Bonk, Executive Director of the
Communications Consortium Media Center, and Dr. George Tiller, Medical Director of Women’s Health Care Services
of Kansas. Overall, the conference reinforced the importance and vital contribution that young women in this country,
and all over the world, need to take in
action: on campus, in communities, and
in all facets of their lives, to continue to
fight for the rights of all women.
AWS Students: Pamela
O’Leary (left), Gabriella
Tempestoso-Bednar (right)
AWS Student Utilizes Degree in Several Locales:
Pamela O’Leary, graduate in Applied Women’s Studies at Claremont
Graduate University, has taken advantage of incredible extracurricular
learning opportunities. Pursuing her
passion of women’s human rights, she
enrolled in a summer institute at the
University of Toronto, “Women’s Human Rights: Building Peace in an Era
of Globalization.” In the six week
course, she studied feminist theory
and activism, the United Nations, and
globalization with human rights activists from all regions of the globe. As
a result of networking with classmates, she co-founded a transnational
Shedding Light on Transformative Movement
Claremont Graduate University’s
School of Arts and Humanities, in
collaboration with students in the
Arts and Cultural Management,
MFA, and Applied Women’s
Studies programs, planned a series of events to shed light on
Violence Against Women
Awareness Month (February).
CGU hosted a photography exhibition, titled “Out of the Shadows” by Jan Goff- La Fontaine,
which took place from January
24, 2008 – February 3, 2008.
The 16" x 20" photos address the
important issue of women as survivors of sexual abuse, and capture their triumph over the issue,
shedding light on their strength of
spirit.
“The women come from every
economic situation ranging from
homelessness to affluence; they
span all ethnicities and ages. The
images visually illustrate how this
issue affects the lives of everyone
regardless of circumstance, informing the viewer of the need
for social change,” said organizer Gabriella TempestosoBednar, CGU’s Assistant Director
of Applied Humanities and student in the Applied Women’s
Studies program at Claremont
Graduate University. “The photos
don’t depict victimization, anger,
or abuse, but rather the positive
qualities of the human spirit.” Tempestoso-Bednar said the
event is a way to involve the colleges with the local community.
“By holding the exhibit in close
proximity to the Claremont Colleges but situating it in the heart
of the city of Claremont, we are
making the exhibition available
to the wider Claremont community along with students, faculty,
and staff providing a lasting impact and further increasing the
dialogue of awareness about the
prevalence of violence against
women.”
coalition, Hope for Justine, to provide
support for a fellow classmate, Justine
Masika, a threatened activist in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Returning from Canada, she completed the internship requirement for
her degree at the Human Rights
Watch in Los Angeles where she created a comprehensive review of human rights education curricula. In the
fall, Pamela was an intern in the Office of the Focal Point for Women at
the United Nations Headquarters in
New York City. At the UN, she
helped coordinate a UN Expert
Group Meeting on the Advancement
of the Status of Women at the UN as
well as conducted various research
and policy documents for the office. In January, Pamela began her
Women’s Research and Education
Institute (WREI) Congressional Fellowship in Washington D.C. She is
currently working as a Legislative
Assistant for women’s issues for Representative Carolyn Maloney from
New York. Pamela will graduate
from Claremont Graduate University
in May 2008.
AWS Graduates:
(left to right) Jenell Morrow, Adriana di Bartolo, Dr. Linda Perkins,
Cecili Chadwick, Pamela O’Leary,
and Gina Alicia López.
Allison Lawrence also graduated
but is not present in this photo.
Photo: Gina Alicia López (left), Christina Lam (right)
AWS Student Christina Lam founded the Women in Leadership Association (WILA) in September 2007. WILA strives to support the
professional and personal leadership development of women
graduate students at Claremont Graduate University. They held their
first annual conference addressing the multivalent issues of women
and leadership here at the Drucker school on April 26th, 2008, and
had a very successful attendance of over fifty people! Congrats
WILA!
aws
APPLIED WOMEN’S STUDIES
CLAREMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY
150 E. 10TH STREET
CLAREMONT, CA 91711