Gender, Sexuality Feminist Studies
Introducing Chaunesti Webb, the Gender, Sexuality & Feminist (GSF) Studies department postdoctoral associate for the year 2022-23. Self-described “artist-scholar-educator” Chaunesti has come back home. After earning her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at Northwestern University, she has returned to Durham, where she was born and raised. Chaunesti credits her beloved family, community, and city for shaping her into the artist and scholar she is today. Coming from a family that supported her interest in the arts, she fell… read more about Welcome GSF Postdoc Chaunesti Webb »
The Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies department is excited to welcome Paniz Musawi Natanzi as a 2022–2023 postdoctoral associate in the theme-year of Feminist Theory and Imperialism. As a Literature PhD student completing certificates in both Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and Middle East Studies, I am grateful to have had a chance to sit down with Paniz over coffee, as many of her research interests converge along similar lines as my own. As we chatted about how we negotiate our relationships to disciplines… read more about Introducing GSF Postdoc Paniz Musawi Natanzi »
I am a second-generation learner who grew up in a small fishing town in Kerala, in the southern tip of India. I hold a master’s degree in English Language and Literature and am currently a Ph.D. student at the Centre for Culture Studies, University of Kerala. For my dissertation, I study the regional politics of women’s sartorial reformation and the sartorial grammars of vernacular modernity, modesty, and gendered citizenship in early nineteenth-century Travancore, an erstwhile kingdom of Kerala. My academic interest in… read more about Meet GSF visiting Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow Arya Alvernas »
The recent death of a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, while in the custody of Iranian authorities has sparked a massive wave of protests – both online and in the streets. There are echoes of the past in this new wave of protests along with a very clear demand for freedom and bodily autonomy, three Duke scholars said Thursday in a virtual media briefing. (Watch the briefing on YouTube.) Here are excerpts: ON IMPETUS FOR IRAN PROTESTS Negar Mottahedeh, Middle Eastern Studies scholar “There’s 40… read more about Protests Grow More Frequent As Young Iranians Demand More Freedoms, Experts Say »
It only takes a few minutes with Nikki Lane, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies’ newest assistant professor, to get clear why the department was eager to welcome her. Her research is provocative, she teaches a class called “Hot Girl Meg” and, as if the topic alone isn’t captivating, Lane commands an audience when she speaks. She is as comfortable citing Kimberlé Crenshaw as she is Salt-N-Pepa lyrics, effortlessly mixing her research interests in linguistics, cultural anthropology, and the role of race, sexuality and… read more about Meet the Professor Bringing Rap Into Gender Studies and the Classroom Onto Instagram »
The Office for Research & Innovation has awarded funding to eight, interdisciplinary projects as part of the inaugural Duke Science and Technology (DST) Launch Seed Grant Program. This year’s winners include faculty from multiple disciplines across campus and the School of Medicine who were selected out of 61 proposal finalists for initiating high-impact projects that could lead to additional external funding. “The quality of innovative ideas our faculty have for advancing collaborative research projects… read more about Meet the Winners of the 2022 DST Launch Seed Grants »
Paying tribute to Michiyo Fukaya, a mixed-race Asian American lesbian poet and feminist activist who died by suicide in 1987, this essay experiments with a reading practice that merges queer and feminist thought with poetics and autotheory. Throughout, the author interweaves details of Fukaya's life with their own, wading through Fukaya's writings to force attention onto the topics of sexual violence, anger, mental health, and U.S. imperialism. Fukaya— a contemporary of those who grace the pages of This Bridge… read more about Anna Storti published “So, I turn inside: Overcome by the Unbearable, Seeing Myself in Michiyo Fukaya” »
The Department of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies will hold the first annual Black Feminist Theory Summer Institute on August 1–5. With the theme of “Black Life & Living,” the event for graduate students will bring together a cross-institution intellectual community of scholars to immerse themselves in the field of Black feminist theory. Seventh year Ph.D. candidate Julien Fischer — whose work focuses on transgender studies, feminist and queer theory, psychoanalysis and the history of medicine — is one of the… read more about New Summer Institute Focuses on Black Feminist Theory »
THE WORLD CONTINUES TO NEED OCTAVIA E. BUTLER Everywhere we turn in the midst of unrelenting crises—the coronavirus pandemic, the ongoing twin pandemics of anti-Black and anti-Asian violence, ecological devastation, and the collapse of democracy—new projects and returns inspired by the writer and visionary Octavia E. Butler abound. read more about GSF Certificate Alumni Sasha Ann Panaram's article on Octavia E. Butler »
As of July 1, the Department of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies will have a new chair: Jennifer C. Nash, the Jean Fox O'Barr Women's Studies Distinguished Professor. After obtaining her J.D. from Harvard Law in 2004, Nash stayed in Cambridge to complete a Ph.D., studying African American studies as well as sociology. She finished in 2009, then spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Columbia University Society of Fellows in the Humanities. She later held assistant professorships at The George Washington… read more about New Chair Aims to Bring GSF to the Forefront of Black Feminist Theory »
Laura Shelton and Martha Liliana Espinosa Tavares: Introduction to the Special Issue: Reproduction, Contraception, and Obstetrics in Modern Mexico. This Special Issue elucidates how Mexican obstetricians, mothers, feminists, scientists, and politicians understood the intersections of reproduction and birth control with the politics of national identity and modernization over the course of a century. read more about GSF certificate student Martha Espinosa has guest edited a special issue of the Journal of Women's History »
read more about Eight Faculty Teams Awarded University-Wide Collaboration Grants on Climate Change »
On April 29th, 2022 the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies proudly hosted the 2022 Senior Honors Research Presentations led by Director of Honors, Gabriel Rosenberg. Graduating students Katherine Gan, Tiana Horace, and Zadaiah Roye shared their year-long thesis projects in the East Duke Pink Parlor with a hybrid in-person and Zoom participant audience. The work of each student reflected their own identities, passions, and lifelong goals. The presentation was an incredible celebration of dedicated… read more about GSF 2022 Seniors Present Honors Research »
This article examines Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s 1977 avantgarde essay film Riddles of the Sphinx as a cinematic text that makes the museum a site for imagining psychoanalytic feminism as a reparative reading practice. I argue that the film questions gender and race as ‘‘musealized’’ images that make predetermined essences present, and offers instead images of working through the damages of sexism and racism that erode the familiar poles of idealization and denigration. Focused on the psychic life of… read more about Kimberly Lamm's article on “Reading hieroglyphs behind glass: A glimpse of reparative feminism in Riddles of the Sphinx (1977)” »
Students often start at Duke thinking they’ll study one thing before veering off in a completely different direction. Emma Cairns, a senior, is no exception. When she started at Duke, Cairns saw herself majoring in Biomedical Engineering, but after taking a Writing 101 course on feminist rhetoric, she felt her loyalties wavering. She declared as a GSF major her sophomore year, but still felt like there was a piece missing from her academic endeavors. Now, Cairns is about the become the first Duke student to… read more about Senior Stories: Inaugural GGS Graduate Reflects on Her Time at Duke »
College is a time for change, and Katherine Gan, a Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies major graduating in May agrees. “I am a very different person than I was when I first entered Duke,” Gan said, “but wonderful mentorships and friendships have made me grow a great amount in just a couple of years.” Gan credits the GSF department for challenging them and providing what they call a “much-needed intellectual environment to think about desire, power and feminism, particularly for women and people of… read more about Senior Stories: How Being Challenged Motivated and Inspired One GSF Major »
After two long years without an in-person meeting, the Feminist Theory Workshop gathered once again on March 18-19, and the energy in Penn Pavilion was palpable. “I cannot tell you how excited I am,” said Chair of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies Jocelyn Olcott in her opening remarks. “I thought this day would never come.” Scholars came from all over the world for the two-day event, now in its 15th year, many of them traveling for the first time since the pandemic started in 2020. Using a novel conference… read more about Feminist Theory Workshop Returns to In-Person through a Hybrid Format »
On Thursday March 24th, the Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies department welcomed back former Duke professor and historian, Laura Edwards, for the annual Anne Firor Scott lecture. Anne Firor Scott was the first woman to chair the Duke University History department and was an expert on women’s history and the American South. Laura Edwards is a Princeton professor and legal historian with research focusing on the nineteenth-century United States. Her newest publication, Only the Clothes On Her Back, provides a… read more about Annual Anne Firor Scott Lecture with Keynote Speaker Laura Edwards »
Mandisa Maya, Judge President of South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal, was recently recommended by the country’s Judicial Services Commission to become the next Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court. The position became vacant after the 12-year term of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng ended in October 2021. It is now up to President Cyril Ramaphosa to decide if she actually ascends to the highest judicial position in the country. Click here for full article. read more about Duke Alumni Mandisa Maya Poised To Be South Africa's First Woman Chief Justice »
Fifty years separate the days when Claudius “C.B.” Claiborne and Michelle Staggers completed their undergraduate degrees at Duke. But a conversation held February 28 made clear that the former student-athletes had plenty of shared experiences, along with a few key differences. Now a professor of business and marketing in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business at Texas Southern University, Claiborne was the first African American basketball player at Duke and earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Staggers was a member of… read more about Two Former Student-Athletes Discuss Duke History and Hope for the Future »
On Friday February 18th, the Revaluing Care in the Global Economy’s Visualizing Care series presented “Digital Feminisms between Archives and Networks”: a virtual Zoom conversation between digital artists about the avenues and communities of care that they craft and participate in through the internet. GSFS Department Chair, Jocelyn Olcott, introduced the conversation by examining our current “crisis of care”. Still experiencing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a physically distanced world has created a desperate need… read more about February Visualizing Care Series - Digital Feminisms Between Archives and Networks »
When Michaeline Crichlow moved from her native St. Lucia to upstate New York, she had a lot to learn — and not just in the graduate program she attended at Binghamton University. “I became a Black person not in the Caribbean, but in the United States,” said the professor and interim chair of African & African American Studies. Race wasn’t often discussed in St. Lucia, where the vast majority of the population is Black. The rare times it was, the conversation wasn’t about Black and white, but the Indo-Caribbean peoples… read more about What Decolonization Means »
On Friday, January 28th, the department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and History Department welcomed Jack Halberstam, director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University for the Duke on Gender Colloquium, “The Natures of Desire: A Conversation on Queerness and the Wild”. Accompanied by Duke's Gabriel Rosenberg, the two led the discussion exploring topics of wildness, dismantling, and the potentially unexpected intersections of sexuality and the environment. Halberstam… read more about January's Duke On Gender Colloquium - The Natures of Desire: A Conversation on Queerness and the Wild »
From China to modern Palestine, from Renaissance Europe to Reagan’s America of the 1980s, new books by Duke faculty will take you on a fascinating journey through time and space. We present a selection of books published in late 2021. Many of the books, including new editions of previous titles, can be found on the “Duke Authors” display shelves near the circulation desk in Perkins Library. Some are available as e-books for quick download. Most can also be purchased through the Gothic Bookshop. [Duke Today will… read more about Dance, Spirituality and Black Art: Books by Duke Authors Warm This Winter »