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CHAIR'S LETTER, FALL 2024
Dear Feminist Studies Community,
Welcome to the Fall quarter and a new academic year. We are looking forward to an invigorating year full of exciting events and inspiring scholarship.
We have new student representatives in the department this year. Aaliyah Balangue will be serving as the Undergraduate Student Representative; Kaiya Gordon is the 2024-25 Graduate Student Representative. We also welcome Prof. Anjali Arondekar in her new role as the Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies. As part of this Chairship, Prof. Arondekar is planning a series of events entitled Feminisms of Dissent, with the first event scheduled for January 31 – a one-day workshop focused on Trans/borders of Dissent. More info in the Events section.
Our Celebration of Feminist Studies’ 50th Anniversary continues with our first event of the year: Jasbir Puar will be here to discuss her book, The Right to Maim, on November 14. Event details below.
Lastly, with a heavy heart, I must announce the passing of eminent scholar, beloved community member, and former Chair of FMST, Zsuzsanna Abrams, who passed away in late September. Our condolences go out to her family, friends, and all who love her. Zsuzsi’s warmth, empathy, and brilliance will be sorely missed.
Tanya Merchant
Interim Chair, Feminist Studies / Associate Professor, Music, UCSC
CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF FEMINIST STUDIES
As the new academic year begins, we continue our celebration of Feminist Studies’ 50th Anniversary. 2024 marks 50 years since feminist studies was inaugurated as a field of study at UC Santa Cruz. Begun in 1974, the Women’s Studies program at UCSC was one of the first such academic programs in the U.S., and was re-named Feminist Studies in 2005.
For our first celebratory event of the new academic year, the FMST department hosts Jasbir Puar, author of The Right to Maim and Distinguished Faculty of the Arts Professor in Global and Race Studies at the University of British Columbia, who will give a public talk on November 14. See details in the Events section below. FMST Undergrad Student Representative, Aaliyah Balangue, is convening a FMST Book Club for undergrads interested in reading and discussing Prof. Puar’s book leading up to her talk.
Stay tuned for information about an event (or two) we’re working on for Winter and/or Spring. AND the return of the annual FMST Undergraduate Research Symposium in May 2025, spotlighting the work of our FMST undergraduates.
Feminist Studies’ 50th Anniversary activities are funded by the Humanities Division and a generous $100,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation – one of 95 Affirming Multi-vocal Humanities grants awarded to campuses across the country. This $18 million initiative aims to reinvigorate the study of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality at institutions of higher learning to equip a new generation of students and citizens to engage in a multivocal democracy.
GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS
Announcing our Grad Student Reps for 2024-25
FMST PhD candidate Kaiya Gordon is the 2024-25 FMST Graduate Student Representative. In this role, Kaiya's priority is to continue transparent communication between faculty, grads, and undergrads, and advocate for safe learning and working conditions for ASEs and students. In their previous role as 2022-23 Grad Events Coordinator, Kaiya organized a virtual grad student social and an on-campus reading and panel discussion with Professor Eric A. Stanley. Reach out directly with concerns, questions, or suggestions to kamagord@ucsc.edu.
Kaiya's current research explores poetic strategies as prisms through which we might view possibilities of trans archives: possibilities mired in violence, co-optation, recuperation, generation, survival, and joy. They are a writer and poet from the San Francisco peninsula, and their favorite karaoke song is “Basket Case” by Green Day.
FMST grad student Em Padilla is continuing as Grad Events Coordinator for 2024-25. In conjunction with the FMST Graduate Director, Professor Anjali Arondekar, Em will be organizing several upcoming events, including a Job Materials Workshop with FMST alum Erin McElroy, Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. The Job Materials Workshop will take place on Monday, October 21, at 2:30 pm via Zoom.
Em Padilla (they/them) is a 5th-year FMST graduate student with a DE in CRES. Their research examines the relationship between military policies on Trans inclusion, the Trans Latinx soldiering experience, and Trans masculinity/femininity as they emerge and exist in and out of national institutions and socio-cultural sites. Padilla's work aims to better understand the intersection between Latinx and Trans identities and how this intersection plays into national sentiment, identity, and, ultimately, the concept of inclusion and its history. Analyzing such legislation and policy development/implementation aims to shed light on the tension between Trans military inclusion and the lived and violent reality that Trans and Queer people constantly face in the civilian sector. Interrogating the interplay between legislation and policy allows for a breakdown of inclusion, its history, and how it functions as a tool of the nation and state(s) to continue the U.S. legacy of warring dominance.
FMST grad student achievements
Congrats to two FMST graduate students who received THI 2024 Summer Fellowships, bringing their scholarship and academic expertise to communities while developing new skills outside the university setting:
Bre Byrd worked with the Warren County Environmental Action Team in North Carolina, a network of organizations and individuals working together to record, celebrate, and share Warren County's environmental justice legacy, natural resources, and diverse culture.
Marina Segatti spent the summer with Acervo Bajubá in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a communitarian project that records and works with the memories of the LGBT+ Brazilian communities.
Over the summer, Marina also presented papers at two conferences:
- "From Memory to Action: Marielle Franco's Impact on Brazil's Political Landscape" at the Latin American Studies Association Congress in Bogotá, Colombia
- "#MariellePresente: Ativismo de Hashtags, Disputa de Memória e Polarização Política" at the 13 Seminário Internacional Fazendo Gênero at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT NEWS
Meet our FMST Undergrad Rep and Social Media Intern for 2024-25!
We kick off the academic year with two 4th year FMST undergrads who will be working with the Feminist Studies department in 2024/25 to engage our FMST community and let everybody know what’s happening!
Aaliyah Balangue, FMST Undergraduate Student Representative
Hello! I'm a fourth year Feminist Studies and Global and Community Health double major. I'm Latina and Filipina, originally from Los Angeles, and a huge foodie! One key thing I want to focus on this year is fostering community among undergrads, graduate students, and faculty through social, academic, and professional events. In addition, I want to celebrate the work we do here at UCSC, especially during our annual FMST Undergraduate Radical Research Symposium in the Spring. I also have a research background that I'd love to share with folks. My academic interests include different types of care that exist both within local contexts and globally/cross culturally. I've also done research on reproductive justice, gendered forms of labor, as well as gender-based violence. And I'm incredibly interested in bridging the gap between feminist studies and STEM in order to highlight how entwined feminist thought and theory are in even the most seemingly unsuspected fields. Please feel free to come to me with any ideas, to talk, and/or to ask for advice! No question, inquiry, or comment is too big or small – I want to be there as a resource, as a peer, and if needed, a mentor! Email to fmstund@ucsc.edu, or to my personal email at abalangu@ucsc.edu.
Helena Blankenhaus, FMST Social Media Intern
I am a fourth-year undergraduate majoring in Feminist Studies and minoring in Politics. I grew up passionate about advocating for human rights and aspire to attend law school. Over the past three years, I have taken numerous feminist studies courses, which have deepened my understanding of social justice issues. Our department provides terrific opportunities for college students, and I will be keeping you all updated throughout the year on our Instagram @ucscfeministstudies with information on events, scholarship opportunities, and much more. Don't miss out! Follow our FMST Instagram to keep on top of FMST news and events! And feedback is always welcome. Comment and let us know what you think!
FMST Book Club reading The Right to Maim
Undergrad Student Rep Aaliyah Balangue is hosting a FMST Undergrad Book Club this Fall. The group is reading The Right to Maim in advance of a talk on November 14 by author Jasbir Puar, Distinguished Faculty of Arts Professor in Global Race Studies at the University of British Columbia.
The Right to Maim delves into concepts of disability, sexuality, debility, biopolitics, and racialized capital through the lens of Israel's policies toward Palestinians and the utilization of liberal frameworks that work to obscure and enable Israel's imperialism. The FMST Book Club will be reading chapters recommended by Prof. Puar, and participants will have an opportunity to discuss the book with Puar during her visit in November.
The FMST Book Club is meeting on Mondays from 1-2pm in the FMST Library (HUM1 rm 316). We have copies of the book, and folks are invited to stop by to join the discussion. Questions? Contact Aaliyah at fmstund@ucsc.edu.
Considering grad school?
If you’re thinking of pursuing an advanced degree after you earn your B.A., keep your eyes open for news about a workshop that Undergrad Rep Aaliyah Balangue is planning for November with FMST grad student Em Padilla.
Most grad school deadlines are in December or January, but it’s a good idea to start planning about a year before applications are due. The workshop will discuss how to develop your research experience, what grad admissions look for in their applicants, tips for preparing a strong application, and much more.
Expand your college experience with an internship!
All Feminist Studies majors are strongly encouraged to do an internship. Not only is interning a great way to get real-world experience for your resume, it also fulfills one of seven upper division elective course requirements.
In recent years, FMST majors have worked at the UCSC Women's Center and the Walnut Avenue Family & Women's Center in Santa Cruz. And there are lots of other opportunities.
Here’s how the process works: Check out the internships list and contact agencies directly to see if there are positions available. If you are interested in an internship that’s not on the list, be prepared to submit a full description for approval. When you have found an internship, email FMST Undergraduate Program Director Nick Mitchell (nmitchel@ucsc.edu) and cc the FMST Advisor (fmst-advising@ucsc.edu) to get approval and a code to enroll in the internship via a FMST 193 or 198.
To receive a grade and FMST credit, you must complete a minimum of 50 hours of work, certified by your internship supervisor, and complete an end-of-quarter report, which will be emailed to you during the quarter in which you’re interning.
FACULTY NEWS
Meet our Feminist Lecturers
We are very pleased to have two FMST Lecturers with us for the Fall quarter.
Beth Ribet is teaching Women and the Law (FMST 112) this Fall. Beth has a JD from the School of Law at UCLA, with a concentration in Critical Race Studies. She received her PhD in Social Relations (Sociology & Anthropology) from the University of California-Irvine. Beth also is the Director and Co-Founder of Repair, a sponsored program of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Malia Womack returns from last year, when she taught a FMST 188 Topics class in Fall 2023. She is teaching another Topics class this Fall, with a focus on feminist theory as it applies to a spectrum of profound topics throughout the world, including but not limited to intersectionality, LGBTQ+ studies, domestic violence, reproductive justice, beauty standards, disability, and globalization. Malia also will teach two remote courses in Spring 2025 (details TBA).
Malia holds a PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Ohio State University, where she also earned a Masters in Latin American Studies. Prof. Womack also has a Masters in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University.
Prof. Anjali Arondekar named Peggy & Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies
Professor Anjali Arondekar is the new Peggy & Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies, taking the reins from previous chair, Prof. Felicity Schaeffer. Established in 2017 with a $500,000 gift from the Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation and a match from the UC Regents, the $1 million endowment was created to fund research and teaching in feminist studies and provide support for graduate fellowships. The endowed chair is a three-year appointment, running through June 30, 2027.
Professor Arondekar is a historian of caste, sexuality and empire of South Asia and the broader Indian Ocean World and was previously the Founding Director of the Center for South Asian Studies. During her tenure as Baskin Chair, Arondekar plans to curate a three-year project on “Feminisms of Dissent” that will serve as a gathering for feminist hope, to forge new vernaculars of the geopolitical, and to assemble spatial imaginaries that refuse rather than relent to the insistent march of capital and empire.
Arondekar notes that “my proposed project will use the rubric of feminism(s) across the global south to forge vibrant, nuanced, and regionally specific collaborations on dissent as they engage global challenges around food security, human rights, environmental ecologies, gender justice and more. Four questions are central to the project: First, how have our pandemic worlds impacted feminist projects of dissent? Second, how have histories of feminist transnational thought across regions been re-ordered within new terrains of escalating loss and mourning? Third, what do feminism(s) of the global south teach us about navigating crisis? Fourth, how can our collaborations inspire new ways of writing the past and envisioning the future?"
Prof. Arondekar is currently working on two upcoming events: A talk by Professor Jasbir Puar on November 14, which is part of Feminist Studies’ 50th Anniversary slate of events and co-sponsored by the Baskin Chairship. And a one-day workshop on January 31 on Trans/borders of Dissent. More details about these events in the Events section below.
Founded in 2007 to provide opportunities for social change and justice, the Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation currently focuses on improving the lives of women and girls, and equal access to education. “UCSC has developed a world-renowned department in Feminist Studies,” says the foundation’s executive director, Nicole Baran. “The Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation made this endowment in the belief that the department’s leading example should exist in perpetuity. Feminist analytical thought must exist until all of us are equal, until all of us are equally valued in the world.”
FMST Faculty Awards, Publications, and Conferences
Bettina Aptheker, Distinguished FMST Faculty Emerita, delivered the Faculty Lecture on the subject of “Feminism & Social Justice: A Global Community,” to the UCSC Alumni Association on August 17.
Bettina also reports that her Coursera course, which launched on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2019, has been taken by more than 120,000 people, with 150-200 students enrolling each week. The online learning class on Feminism & Social Justice consists of four video-recorded lectures based on Bettina’s popular feminist studies class. “Students of the class are from every continent -- women (and some men) from India, Kazakhstan, Australia, Mexico, Bolivia, Canada, the U.S., Iran, Afghanistan, England, Nigeria, and Egypt, among many other countries,” she says. “Through their writings and our exchanges, I have learned so much about women’s issues and struggles, especially regarding education and basic human rights. The response to the course was completely unexpected, and the work of women around the world is so inspiring.”
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer (FMST/CRES) helped organize the first MALCS Summer Institute (Mujeres Activas en letras y cambio social/Women in the Academy for Social Change) in Oaxaca, Mexico, June 24-27. The theme aimed to put questions of Indigeneity in dialogue from across the U.S., Mexico, and Latin America. Find more information at https://malcssummerinstitute.org.
FMST EVENTS AND OTHER EVENTS OF INTEREST
Ecologies of Care Workshop – October 14, 9:45am to 4pm, HUM 1 rm 210
The Center for South Asian Studies invites students to the launch of its Ecologies of Care Initiative, an international collaboration in partnership with the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Lincoln University. The initiative invites scholars at the forefront of the social sciences, arts, and humanities to address livability as a desired condition for all, adopting an Indigenous lens for a decolonial assessment of the current socio-ecological situation in South Asia and the paths forward to a livable future. Find more info on speakers and a registration link here.
FMST Undergrad Pumpkin Social – October 18, 5-7pm, HUM 1 rm 320
If you’re looking to have some festive fun, meet new frosh and transfer students, and hang out with fellow feminist studies majors, come on out for the FMST Fall Social! There’ll be plenty of pumpkins and crafts supplies on hand to make your own jack-o-lantern for Halloween. We're ordering pizza, so please RSVP at bit.ly/3ZEWSz2 so we're sure to have enough!
Job Materials Grad Workshop – October 21, 2:30pm via Zoom
A workshop with FMST alum Erin McElroy, Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Washington. Look for zoom link and more event details coming soon from Grad Events Coordinator Em Padilla.
Possibilities of Palestinian Refusal: Against Disciplining Knowledge and Movement – A year-long speaker series
Hosted through the Center for Racial Justice and co-sponsored by the Baskin Chair for Feminist Studies, this speaker series will highlight the research, pedagogy, and praxis of a new generation of Palestinian and Arab interdisciplinary scholars, featuring two guest speakers per quarter. Scheduled for Fall:
- October 23 at 4pm, Cervantes & Velasquez Room – Mjriam Abu Samra, Marie Curie Postdoctural Fellow, Department of Anthropology, UC Davis
- November 21 at 4pm, Cervantes & Velasquez Room – Lara Sheehi, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
Field Notes: on the Thresholds of Gender Studies, Jasbir Puar, Distinguished Faculty of the Arts Professor in Global and Race Studies at the University of British Columbia – November 14, 4pm, Cowell Hay Barn
Jasbir Puar is the author of The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, which focuses on how the liberal state, sexuality, and bio-politics bear on our understanding of disability. Using the concept of "debility"— bodily injury and social exclusion brought on by economic and political factors — she disrupts the category of disability, and shows how debility, disability, and capacity constitute an assemblage that states use to control populations, culminating in an interrogation of Israel's policies toward Palestine.
Trans/borders of Dissent – January 31, 11am to 3pm, HUM 1 rm 210
Stay tuned for more information about this workshop, with guest speakers:
- Naminata Diabate, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and core faculty in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Cornell University
- Asli Zengin, Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Anthropology Department, Rutgers University
UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES AND DEADLINES
Koret Scholarship – Deadline October 20
This scholarship supports undergraduate students planning to pursue a research project under a faculty or graduate student mentor during Winter and/or Spring quarter 2025. With generous support from the Koret Foundation, there are 50 scholarships of $2000 available for undergrads from any discipline. In most cases, Koret scholars work with their mentors in a 2 or 5 credit independent study course. Get more info and access the online application here.
Baskin FMST Transfers Scholarship – Deadline October 25
The Baskin Feminist Scholars Program offers a scholarship opportunity for undergraduate community college transfer students from all Northern California Community Colleges. Three $2500 scholarships are available for the 2024-25 academic year. Applicants must have transferred from an accredited Northern California community college and have a proposed or declared major in Feminist Studies. The application consists of a 1-2 page, double-spaced essay (approximately 300-500 words) addressing your vision of feminist social justice work, and how your educational and personal experiences inform that vision. Applicants also must submit a signed waiver of confidentiality giving permission to the admissions committee to review your academic file and attesting to the accuracy of the information included in the application. Keep an eye on your email for the application call, which will include detailed information as well as the confidentiality waiver. Send submissions to the Feminist Studies Department Manager at latawils@ucsc.edu, with a subject line reading “Baskin Scholars Application,” no later than Friday, October 25, 2024.
Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas Fall Awards – Deadline November 1
Now accepting applications for individual grad and faculty research awards, and research cluster awards in areas of interest to the RCA including Chicanx, Latinx, and Latin American, migration, cross-border/hemispheric, and human rights studies. Go here for more info and to apply.
University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship – November 1
The UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program was established in 1984 to encourage outstanding women and minority Ph.D. recipients to pursue academic careers at the University of California. The current program offers postdoctoral research fellowships, professional development and faculty mentoring to outstanding scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity at UC. Applicants must hold or receive a Ph.D. or terminal degree in their discipline (JD, MD, MFA, DVM, EdD, etc.) from an accredited university before the start of their fellowship. More info and application here.
