Department News
The FMST Newsletter, Fall 2024
October 14, 2024
Welcome to a new academic year, FMST slugs! We're kicking it off with lots of news. Click thru to read the Fall Newsletter and find out what's happening!
Jasbir Puar presents Field Notes: Colonial Power at the Thresholds of Gender Studies
September 27, 2024
Nov. 14 | 4pm at The Hay Barn -- The Feminist Studies department is pleased to host Jasbir Puar, Distinguished Faculty of Arts Professor, Global Race Studies at the University of British Columbia. In her most recent book, The Right to Maim, Prof. Puar brings her pathbreaking work on the liberal state, sexuality, and biopolitics to bear on our understanding of disability. Using the concept of “debility”—bodily injury and social exclusion brought on by economic and political factors—to disrupt the category of disability, she shows how debility, disability, and capacity together constitute an assemblage that states use to control populations. Puar's analysis culminates in an interrogation of Israel's policies toward Palestine, in which she outlines how Israel brings Palestinians into biopolitical being by designating them available for injury.
Feminists in the World - Day 1 of the 2024 FMST Undergrad Research Symposium
May 9, 2024
THE FMST UNDERGRAD RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO UNCERTAINTY AROUND THE UAW STRIKE AUTHORIZATION VOTE. PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES. || May 16 @ the Hay Barn | On Day 1 of the 2024 FMST Undergrad Research Symposium, seven UCSC professors in disciplines across the university - from anthropology and digital media to molecular biology and politics - will discuss how feminist thought and theory has influenced their career path and day-to-day work. Join us for the conversation! Click thru to see our list of panelists ...
Feminist Studies receives Mellon grant for Multivocal Humanities
April 29, 2024
The Feminist Studies department is honored to have received a $100,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation as part of Mellon's Affirming Multivocal Humanities initiative. Grants were awarded to colleges and universities across the US advancing work that champions research in the realms of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The Feminist Studies department is using the funds to support our 50th Anniversary celebrations, including our keystone event -- an expanded two-day Undergraduate Research Symposium happening May 16+17. The Symposium will feature a conversation with faculty across campus about how feminist theory has influenced their careers, and a separate day-long event showcasing the wide range of research being done by undergrad FMST students. Click through to read the story in Tuesday Newsday...
2nd Annual FMST Undergrad Research Symposium
April 26, 2024
THE FMST UNDERGRAD RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO UNCERTAINTY AROUND THE UAW STRIKE AUTHORIZATION VOTE. PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES. || The 2nd Annual FMST Undergrad Research Symposium is happening May 16+17, expanded into a two-day event in celebration of Feminist Studies' 50th Anniversary. Click through for full event details!
The FMST Newsletter, Spring 2024
April 12, 2024
Spring has sprung, the new quarter has begun, and we have lots of fresh feminist news and events coming up. Check it all out in the Spring 2024 newsletter ...
Gina Athena Ulysse to present 57th Annual Faculty Research Lecture
April 12, 2024
FMST professor Gina Athena Ulysse will present the 2024 Faculty Research Lecture on April 16 -- 6pm in the Upper Quarry Amphitheater. | Prof. Ulysse’s performance lecture – The Whole Time...A Redwoods Rasanblaj Epic Poem sou 7 Pwen – will feature improvisational dance selections by Linda Isabelle Francois Obas, dancer/choreographer and founding artistic director of XPression Ayiti, a company rooted in Haitian spirituality and traditional movement. “As the situation in Haiti continues to spiral, I wanted and needed to create a multi-vocal call-and-response encounter to affirm an embodied presence and aliveness, and highlight the significance of feminist solidarity in Haiti,” says Prof. Ulysse. Click thru to register.
Let This Radicalize You! A public forum on community activism
February 5, 2024
Student activists and local non-profits are invited to join the authors of LET THIS RADICALIZE YOU for a generative discussion around how to address the challenges of organizing in today’s world. Friday, MARCH 1 | 10am to 1pm | Resource Center for Nonviolence. Free and open to the public! Click thru for more details...
The FMST Newsletter, Winter 2024
January 17, 2024
Happy New Year, FMST slugs! We have lots of news to kick off 2024, including events in the works to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Feminist Studies at UCSC, plus our latest Five Questions with a Feminist alum interview, and lots of funding opportunities! Click thru to read all about it...
FMST Newsletter, Fall 2023
October 11, 2023
We're back! Welcome to autumn and a brand new academic year. Check out the Fall 2023 FMST Newsletter, with news about our new FMST undergrad student rep and our 2023-24 social media intern; faculty promotions and new books; exciting upcoming events, and public fellowship opportunities. Plus our latest Five Questions with a Feminist interview with alum Mekdela Ejigu, an Ethiopian-American activist and author who graduated from UCSC in 2014 as a FMST/Legal Studies double major and went on to earn a Masters degree in Social and Public Policy from the University of Leeds. Mekdela talked with Prof. Jenny Kelly about her environmental and beauty justice activism, which she explores in her new book, Plus-Size: A Memoir of Pop Culture, Fatphobia, and Social Change. Click thru to read all the news!
FMST Prof. Anjali Arondekar publishes new book, Abundance: Sexuality's History
July 26, 2023
Congratulations to FMST Professor Anjali Arondekar on the publication of ABUNDANCE: SEXUALITY'S HISTORY. In her latest book, Prof. Arondekar focuses on the archives of the Gomantak Maratha Samaj — a caste-oppressed devadasi collective in South Asia — to refuse the historical common sense that archival loss is foundational to a subaltern history of sexuality, and that the deficit of our minoritized pasts can be redeemed through acquisitions of lost pasts. Click through to read more ...
FMST/CRES Prof. Jenny Kelly honored as recipient of the 2023 Dizikes Award
May 18, 2023
FMST/CRES Professor Jenny Kelly is the recipient of the 2023 Dizikes Award, selected by undergraduates in honor of her commitment to excellence in teaching. Click through to learn more ...
Radical Research: FMST Undergrad Research Symposium
May 2, 2023
Join us for RADICAL RESEARCH, the first Feminist Studies Undergrad Research Symposium - MAY 19, 10am to 1pm at Namaste Lounge. In the spirit of activism that is central to the feminist ethos, the Symposium will showcase the broad range of FMST undergrads' inter-sectional research projects, with live presentations by FMST seniors; poster presentations showcasing the work of FMST juniors, sophomore, frosh, and non-majors; and keynotes by FMST Prof. Amy Krauss and FMST alum Trio Harris (Class of 2016). CLICK THRU for more info and the full schedule!
BOOK TALK: Unsettled Borders, with FMST/CRES Prof. Felicity Schaeffer
April 28, 2023
MAY 3 @ 4 pm PT :: Join us as we celebrate the publication of the latest book by FMST/CRES Professor Felicity Schaeffer - UNSETTLED BORDERS: The Militarized Science of Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous Land. Prof. Schaeffer examines the ongoing settler colonial war over the US-Mexico border from the perspective of Apache, Tohono O'odham, and Maya who fight to protect their sacred land. Exploring the logic of borders, she turns to Indigenous sacred sciences and ancestral land-based practices that are critical to reversing the ecological and social violence of surveillance, extraction, and occupation. Prof. Schaeffer will discuss her book in conversation with Jennifer Gonzalez and Kat Gutierrez. Attend in-person: H1, room 210, or click through for the zoom link to attend virtually.
FMST Newsletter, Spring 2023
April 14, 2023
The weather has finally warmed, Spring has sprung, and we're sliding into the final quarter of the academic year. Like the hillsides popping with a riotous super bloom, the Spring FMST Newsletter is full of news. Click through to read the Chair's Letter and all the latest ...
A Conversation with Eric Stanley: Atmospheres of Violence
April 11, 2023
Weds, April 26 :: The Feminist Studies department is proud to host trans activist Eric A. Stanley, author of Atmosphere of Violence, in conversation with FMST/CRES Prof. Nick Mitchell and FMST grad student Kaiya Gordon. Click through for more info ...
BOOK TALK: Invited to Witness, with Professor Jenny Kelly
February 17, 2023
Join us as we celebrate the publication of FMST/CRES Professor Jenny Kelly's new book -- Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine (Duke University Press). Thurs, MARCH 2 @ 4:30 || HUM 1 room 210. Click thru to learn more about this event and Prof. Kelly's new book ...
The Indigenous Border/lands
February 10, 2023
Join us on March 9 for an exploration of the border/lands from indigenous perspectives across the Americas. Free and open to the public, this event will feature keynotes by migrant justice activist Harsha Walia and Theresa Gregor, assistant professor of American Indian Studies at CSU-Long Beach. Presented by the Peggy & Jack Baskin Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies in collaboration with the Indigenous Border/lands Collective. Click through for event details and speaker info ...
Letter to Undergrads re: Fall 2022 grades
January 30, 2023
Click through for an update from the FMST faculty regarding Fall 2022 grades ...
FMST Newsletter, Winter 2023
January 18, 2023
Welcome to 2023! We hope the storms that kicked off the new year didn't cause too much inconvenience and everyone is safe and sound. As we begin the winter quarter, the FMST department has lots of news to report, including new undergrad and grad student reps; a new book by Prof. Jenny Kelly; an upcoming symposium in March called "Indigenous Borderlands," being coordinated by Prof. Felicity Schaeffer; FMST scholarship opportunities, and, of course, our ongoing "Five Questions with a Feminist" alum interview. Click through to check it all out!
FMST stands in solidarity with grad student strikers
November 17, 2022
The Feminist Studies department stands in solidarity with striking UAW graduate student employees. We urge the University of California to bargain in good faith to negotiate a timely resolution that meets the unions' demands for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. Click through to read the full FMST Statement of Solidarity.
Communists in Closets: Book Event with Bettina Aptheker
October 7, 2022
October 25th - 7-8:30pm at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn - Don't miss this special event as we celebrate the publication of the newest book by Distinguished FMST Professor Emerita Bettina Aptheker. "Communists in Closets: Queering the History, 1930s to 1990s" explores the history of gay, lesbian, and non-heterosexual people in the U.S. Communist Party. Beginning in 1938, the Communist Party banned lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from membership, casting them off as "degenerates," a policy which persisted until 1991. During this 60-year ban, gays and lesbians in the Communist Party were deeply closeted both within the party, and in their public lives as both queer and Communist. Based on a decade of archival research, correspondence, and interviews, Bettina Aptheker explores this history, also pulling from her own experience as a closeted lesbian in the Communist Party in the 1960s and ‘70s. Co-sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz, The Humanities Institute, and Feminist Studies, this event is free and open to all -- registration is required. Click through for more info and to register.
FMST Newsletter, Fall 2022
October 4, 2022
Welcome to a new academic year! Kicking things off, the UCSC Feminist Studies department has lots of news ... Click through to read the Fall 2022 FMST Newsletter with all the latest on FMST faculty and grad student achievements; undergrad awards, Fall events, and opportunities of interest to the FMST community. Plus the Five Questions with a Feminist alum interview!
Center for South Asian Studies announces "Futures" lecture series
September 14, 2022
The UCSC Center for South Asian Studies presents "Futures" - a year-long lecture series curated by FMST Professor Anjali Arondekar. All lectures in the 2022-23 series are virtual, from 12 noon to 2pm PT. The first lecture - The People Revolt: Sri Lanka - is on September 30. Click through to see the full schedule and registration info.
Fight back!
June 29, 2022
With the US Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade eliminating the Constitutional right to abortion, it is important that even as we may experience sadness, disappointment, frustration and anger, we can also take action to push back against a decision that not only reverses 50 years of precedent but negates all people's right to bodily autonomy and access to reproductive choices. Click through for resources and information about how you can FIGHT BACK.
Book Talk & Celebration with FMST Prof. Madhavi Murty
May 9, 2022
WED, MAY 18 @ 3pm :: Join FMST Professor Madhavi Murty, in conversation with FMST Prof. Gina Dent, for a book talk to celebrate the publication of Prof. Murty's new book: Stories That Bind: Political Economy and Culture in New India. Click through for more info and registration link for this hybrid in-person/virtual event.
NWSA Statement on SCOTUS draft decision overturning Roe v Wade
May 6, 2022
Our reproductive rights are in serious jeopardy. We urge all to read this statement from the National Women's Studies Association, and take action to uphold the basic right to reproductive freedom.
"Teaching While Black" - Gina Athena Ulysse essay for Public Seminar
May 3, 2022
FMST Professor Gina Athena Ulysse contributed an essay to a special double issue of Public Seminar focused on African American scholars teaching in higher education. Riffing on "boundaries, protection, and inspiration," Gina Athena says, "it wasn't an easy piece to write but it needed to be said."
THI Imagination Series: Prof. Jenny Kelly
April 11, 2022
Assistant professor Jenny Kelly (FMST/CRES) contributes her perspectives to THI's Imagination Series, contemplating settler colonialism, U.S. empire, and the fraught politics of both tourism and solidarity. Prof. Kelly is currently completing the manuscript for her first book, Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine (Duke University Press, 2023), a multi-sited ethnographic study of solidarity tourism in Palestine. Click through to read more...
Book Talk with FMST/CRES Professor Marisol LeBron
April 6, 2022
APRIL 7, 4:30-5:30 pm PT :: Join associate professor Marisol LeBron (FMST/CRES) and discussant Camilla Hawthorne (SOC/CRES) for a conversation about Prof. LeBron's latest book: Against Muerto Rico: Lessons from the Verano Boricua. Click through for more info and registration link.
FMST Newsletter, Spring 2022
April 5, 2022
Welcome to Spring! Plants are flowering, days are long, and UCSC is bustling, with more people out and about on campus. And of course, there's lots of news from the UCSC Feminist Studies department. Click through to read the latest on FMST faculty and grad student achievements; undergrad awards, Spring meet-ups and the upcoming Senior Celebration; plus events and opportunities of interest to the FMST community and our Five Questions with a Feminist alum spotlight...
March is Women's History Month
March 2, 2022
March is Women's History Month. American Women: A Guide to Women's History Resources at the Library of Congress, is a major new online research guide that highlights hundreds of sources that tell the stories of women through a wide variety of perspectives and media in the Library of Congress collections.
Abolition.Feminism.Now. — New book co-authored by Angela Davis and Gina Dent
January 25, 2022
Abolition.Feminism.Now. — a new book co-authored by UCSC Professor Emerita Angela Davis, FMST Professor Gina Dent, and scholar-activists Erica Meiners and Beth Ritchie — was recently published by Haymarket Books and featured in conversation on Democracy Now.
Human Rights Watch publishes FMST grad student Halima Kazem's Afghan interviews
January 25, 2022
FMST PhD student Halima Kazem has been interviewing Afghan women for her dissertation research. Her reporting was featured in Human Rights Watch’s Daily Brief on January 18. The report, “Taliban Deprive Women of Livelihoods, Identity: Severe Restrictions, Harassment, Fear in Ghazni Province,” is the second Kazem has co-authored with HRW's Women's Rights Associate Director Heather Barr. Their first report was on the women's rights protests in Herat Province, published in September 2021. “Afghan women and girls are facing both the collapse of their rights and dreams and risks to their basic survival,” said Halima, a core faculty member of SJSU’s Human Rights Institute and a scholar on Afghanistan. Click through to read the full report.
Two FMST Professors awarded THI Faculty Research Fellowships
January 24, 2022
Two Feminist Studies professors - Madhavi Murty and Jenny Kelly - have been awarded Faculty Research Fellowships by The Humanities Institute.
FMST Newsletter, Winter 2022
January 10, 2022
Welcome to a new year! Click through to read the latest news from Feminist Studies. The Winter issue also includes an inspiring Five Questions with a Feminist chat with FMST alum Abyan Mama-Farah, now a medical student at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
THI Profile: FMST Prof. Katie Keliiaa discusses her book project: Unsettling Domesticity
December 3, 2021
The Humanities Institute recently profiled Dr. Caitlin Keliiaa, Assistant Feminist Studies Professor and a THI Faculty Research Fellow for 2021-22. Dr. Keliiaa is currently at work on a book project titled "Unsettling Domesticity: Native Women and 20th-Century Federal Indian Policy In the San Francisco Bay Area." Her manuscript explores the historical experiences of Native women who, through coercive contracting practices, worked as domestic servants in affluent homes across the Bay Area. Read the conversation for a glimpse into Katie's book-writing process and some of the stories that animate her manuscript.
Prof. Anjali Arondekar on UC Davis' new caste discrimination policy
November 22, 2021
On November 19, Professor Anjali Arondekar, co-director of UCSC’s Center for South Asian Studies, was interviewed on KCBS Radio about UC Davis adding caste to its anti discrimination policy. Read more ...
FMST Professor Neel Ahuja publishes new book: Planetary Specters
November 19, 2021
Congratulations to Neel Ahuja, whose new book – Planetary Specters: Race, Migration, and Climate Change in the Twenty-First Century – was recently published by UNC Press. Click through to learn more ...
THI Public Fellow Profile: Kaiya Gordon
October 22, 2021
The Humanities Institute recently profiled FMST graduate student Kaiya Gordon about their Summer 2021 experience as a THI Public Fellow working with the archivists at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. Click through to read the full profile.
Visualizing Abolition awarded prestigious Mellon Foundation grant
October 12, 2021
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $1,977,000 grant to support Visualizing Abolition, the nation’s most ambitious and sustained art and prison abolition initiative, led by UCSC Feminist Studies Associate Professor Gina Dent and Rachel Nelson, Director of the Institute of the Arts and Sciences. The three-year grant will support the continuation of the collaborative arts series, which launched in fall 2020 to examine the ways people see and understand issues of mass incarceration, detention, and policing in the United States and abroad. Click through to read more.
FMST Newsletter, Fall 2021
October 6, 2021
Welcome to Fall quarter! With the 2021-22 academic year under way, we have lots of exciting news to report. Click through to read all about it ...
DISSENT Lecture Series 2021-22
October 4, 2021
This year-long lecture series, curated by FMST Professor Anjali Arondekar and presented by the Center for South Asian Studies and THI, begins on October 15 with In Memoriam: Stories of Dissent in Sri Lanka, with Stanford professor Sharika Thiranagama. Click through to register and read more about the series.
Marisol LeBrón among 40 new UCSC faculty
September 27, 2021
Marisol LeBrón, a new associate professor in FMST and CRES, is among 40 new tenure-track faculty members for the 2021-22 academic year.
Felicity Schaeffer named Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies
September 15, 2021
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, the new Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies, plans to address the most pressing issues of the department’s focus on social justice.
FMST Grad Student works to support Afghanistan Scholars at Risk
September 1, 2021
FMST grad student Halima Kazem-Stojanovic worked with a team at San José State University’s Human Rights Institute and UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center to establish an initiative called Afghanistan Scholars at Risk, which has made connections between Afghan scholars, journalists, activitists and universities across the country, including UC Santa Cruz. She said placements like these are not only lifesaving in the present but also crucial for Afghanistan’s future.
Prof. Gina Ulysse: Why Haiti Needs a New Narrative
August 6, 2021
FMST Professor Gina Athena Ulysse was recently interviewed on WNYC's "On the Media" podcast series about Haiti’s latest political crisis, the July 7th assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Guest host Brandy Zadrozny talked to Gina, author of "Why Haiti Needs New Narratives," about how the international media too often spreads dehumanizing narratives of perpetual chaos in Haiti — setting the stage for intervention — and then looks away. Click through to listen to the podcast.
CES Journal: Borderland Regimes & Resistance
July 28, 2021
UCSC professors Camilla Hawthorne (SOC) and Jenny Kelly (FMST) are the guest editors of the newly published Volume 6 of the Critical Ethnic Studies Journal: Borderland Regimes & Resistance. This special issue seeks to conceptualize connections between border regimes around the world. Taking up sites that range from US/Mexico, to the Mediterranean, to Palestine/Israel, and beyond, contributors move past superficial comparisons and think through the circulation of technologies, expertise, policing, and surveillance alongside the circulation of anti-colonial strategies via transnational social movements.
‘Precarity & Belonging’ captures insights from global discussion of citizenship, migration, socioeconomic mobility
July 13, 2021
A new book from an interdisciplinary group of UC Santa Cruz scholars culminates more than five years of collaborative research and discussion that positioned the university as a convener of global thought leaders.
Feminist studies Ph.D. student receives Institute for Citizens & Scholars fellowship
June 03, 2021
Claire Urbanski, a Ph.D. candidate in feminist studies, has been named a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation).
Memory Series: Anjali Arondekar
May 21, 2021
Arondekar’s contribution to THI's 2021 Memory Series considers the histories of memory across continents, and the salience of exploring these in our current moment.
Grad Profile: Jessica Calvanico
May 21, 2021
In May, THI spoke with Calvanico to learn more about her work and research interests. This year, she was selected as THI’s Year-Long Dissertation Completion Fellow. In THI's interview with Calvanico, they discuss her time as a fellow and the scope of her dissertation.
Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship
May 20, 2021
Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship - is a new book recently published by Rutgers University Press, authored by Catherine Ramirez (LALS) and co-edited with several UCSC faculty, including FMST Professor Felicity Amaya Schaeffer. The book examines how the movement of people and their incorporation, marginalization, and exclusion, under epochal conditions of labor and social precarity affecting both citizens and noncitizens, have challenged older notions of citizenship and alienage.
FMST grads win THI Summer Fellowships
May 19, 2021
Congratulations to FMST graduate students Jess Fournier and Kaiya Gordon, who capped off their first year at UCSC by winning summer fellowships from The Humanities Institute. Jess Fournier will spend her summer working with Critical Resistance, a prison abolition organization based in Oakland, CA. Kaiya Gordon will assist the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society in San Francisco with its archival projects.
FMST and CRES Welcome Marisol LeBrón!
May 18, 2021
Marisol LeBrón will be joining our faculty ranks as an associate professor starting this fall!
FMST Dept Statement on Palestine
May 14, 2021
As a Feminist Studies department committed to the study of colonialism, military occupation, and Indigenous resistance, we write in support of the Palestinian people as they live under multiple forms of violence imposed on them by Israel. We stand with the protesters across Palestine, and around the world, in support of Palestinian freedom struggles in the face of ceaseless violence.
Creating a soundtrack and adding a heartbeat to the struggle for prison abolition
May 06, 2021
UCSC’s Institute of the Arts and Sciences will present ‘Music for Abolition'--an artist panel featuring three-time Grammy-award winning musician Terri Lyne Carrington with a dozen prominent guest musicians.
Professor Felicity Amaya Schaeffer Speaks on Podcast "The Surprisingly Complex History Behind '90 Day Fiancé'"
May 6, 2021
Professor Schaeffer is interviewed on The Experiment podcast from "The Atlantic." In their look at TLC's "90 Day Finacé," Professor Schaeffer says, "From the very moment that the federal government became involved in immigration, you see the influence of biases of race as it’s intersecting with class and sexuality." Listen to the entire show, Professor Schaeffer is featured throughout!
Borderland Regimes & Resistance in Global Perspective
May 4, 2021
This roundtable celebrates the launch of the Critical Ethnic Studies special issue “Borderland Regimes and Resistance in Global Perspective" and kicks off a three-part lecture series presented by a THI Research Cluster headed by Jenny Kelly (FMST) and Camilla Hawthorne (SOC). Taking up sites that range from US/Mexico, to the Mediterranean, to Palestine/Israel and beyond, the special issue’s contributors investigate urgent challenges related to questions of migration and displacement. MAY 7 + 14 + 21 | Click thru to register
Two FMST Undergrads win 2020/21 Deans' Awards!
April 30, 2021
Two Feminist Studies undergraduates are the recipients of a Deans' Undergraduate Research Award for 2020/2021! Read on to learn about the awardees ...
Book Launch | Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance, by FMST PhD alum Erin McElroy
April 29, 2021
On May 4th, the University Forum hosts a celebration for the launch of FMST PhD alum Erin McElroy's new book -- Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement and Resistance -- featuring original research from multiple campus contributors including SJRC’s Just Biomedicine research cluster and the No Place Like Home initiative. Counterpoints (PM Press) brings together cartography, essays, illustrations, poetry, and more in order to depict gentrification and resistance struggles from across the San Francisco Bay Area and act as a roadmap to counter-hegemonic knowledge making and activism. TUES, MAY 4 | 5:30-7:00 | CLICK THROUGH TO REGISTER
Works-in-Progress Talk | May 5
April 26, 2021
CRES presents this Works-in-Progress event ... FMST/CRES professor Neel Ahuja will share his project titled "Managing Flow: Race, Design, and the Question of Access in COVID-19 Research on Airborne Transmission." FMST PhD candidate and CRES DE Dana Ahern will share his research on the topic of "Dangerous If Left Untreated: Transgender medicine and constructions of health."
FMST Newsletter, Spring 2021
April 12, 2021
The latest news from the Feminist Studies department, including Five Questions with a Feminist - our ongoing series of alumni interviews. This issue features Leticia Miranda, Class of 2008, who is now a business reporter at NBCNews.com.
MEMORY: Gina Athena Ulysse: The Forgotten Repozwa
April 5, 2021
FMST professor Gina Athena Ulysse kicked off THI's Memory series with an excerpt from her unpublished memoir, Loving Haiti: Anatomy of Four Little o’s. “The Forgotten Repozwa” explores "a moment during a Vodou ceremony in Haiti when the memories of mortals (across generations) and spirits collided.” Ulysse’s writing reminds us that the contestation of memory, and how it takes shape within frameworks of practice or tradition, sits at the very heart of community.
BEYOND SURVEILLANCE: The Capacity and Creep of Caring Relations
March 24, 2021
UCSC FMST Professor Neda Atanasoski and Georgia Tech Professor Nassim Parvim have co-organized this two-part GATech conference, featuring FMST Professor Katie Keliiaa and FMST PhD alum Erin McElroy, along with other speakers. Bracketing the commonly used categories of surveillance and privacy within discussions of technological creep into all domains of life, participants are asked to consider the multiple, contested, and potentially hopeful axes of seeing and being seen within, through, and against software, algorithms, automated systems, and platforms. We will explore not only how these axes of seeing work within and against racial-colonial and gendered scopic regimes which have to do with policing and managing labor and populations, but also how they draw the boundary between “the private” and “the public.” April 1 + 8 | 12:00-1:15 pm ET | Details and registration at http://techfutures.lmc.gatech.edu/beyond-surveillance
FMST Prof. Anjali Arondekar keynotes Princeton Conference: Re-Mapping Memory
March 15, 2021
Anjali Arondekar, FMST Associate Professor and founding Co-Director, UCSC Center for South Asian Studies, will be the keynote speaker on March 18 at a conference hosted by Princeton University -- "Re-Mapping Memory: Possibilities of Postcolonial & Anti-Racist (Counter)Archiving." Professor Arondekar's talk, entitled "Abundance: Sexuality’s Archives," will look at histories of sexuality routinely mediated through archival forms of paucity, disenfranchisement and loss, challenging the focus on loss as the structuring mode of narration for histories of sexuality. Instead, she will explore the radical abundance of sexuality through archives in South Asia that are plentiful and quotidian, imaginative and ordinary. Monday, March 18 | 9am ET | Register at https://princeton.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqcuGuqT8qGtx098QvwKoZaWUKWrfUfch8
March 9: Rematriation and the Land Back Movement
March 1, 2021
Corrina Gould, Co-Founder/Co-Director of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, joins Prof. Katie Keliiaa's Indigenous Feminisms class for a public talk. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban, Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. Sogorea Te’ is centered in Huchuin, the ancestral homeland of Chochenyo-speaking Lisjan Ohlone people, now known as the East Bay of San Francisco. TUESDAY, MARCH 9 | 3:20-4:55pm. Click through for registration link.
March 9: Feminism & Resistance: Afghan Women Moving Forward
March 1, 2021
FMST Teaching Fellow Halima Kazem-Stojanovic hosts a panel discussion with Afghan scholars and activists about women's rights, feminism, and resistance in Afghanistan. Associated with FMST 188 - Women & War, this talk is public and open to all. Supported by Feminist Studies with support from the Baskin Endowed Chair in Feminist Studies. TUESDAY, MARCH 9 | 6:30-8:30pm PST. Click through for registration link and info on panelists.
Jenny Kelly and Camilla Hawthorne: "Border Regimes and Resistance in Global Perspective"
February 19, 2021
FMST professor Jenny Kelly and SOCY professor Camilla Hawthorne speak about "Border Regimes and Resistance in Global Perspectives," one of three research clusters connected to THI's 2020-2021 theme "Memory."
Hope, mutual aid, and abolition
February 16, 2021
Activist and organizer Mariame Kaba offers a blueprint for mutually supportive communities during the 37th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Convocation
Feb. 25: Indigenous Feminism and Language Reclamation with Nitana Hicks Greendeer
February 12, 2021
Dr. Nitana Hicks Greendeer joins us to speak about the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, profiled in the documentary, "We Still Live Here." The film tells the story of the cultural revival of the Wampanoag of Southeastern Massachusetts and the return of the Wôpanâak language, silenced for more than a century. February 25, 2021 | 3:20-4:55. Click through for registration link.
MLK Convocation: Mariame Kaba in conversation with Gina Dent
February 10, 2021
For the 37th Annual Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Convocation, Mariame Kaba, founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration, will be in conversation with FMST faculty Gina Dent. February 12, 2021 | 5:30-7:00 PM
Book Talk: Kwaito Bodies by Xavier Livermon
February 3, 2021
Join us on February 19 for a Book Talk presented by Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and Feminist Studies in celebration of Associate Professor Xavier Livermon's new book: Kwaito Bodies.
Gina Athena Ulysse on soup joumou and cultural appropriation
January 22, 2021
Soup joumou has a special place in the heart of Haitians and its colonial history. Recently, a recipe for this special soup published by Bon Appetit magazine caused a stir. FMST Professor Gina Athena Ulysse weighed in with a piece in Medium, and was later quoted in the Haitian Times.
Baskin FMST Transfers Scholarship
January 15, 2021
Offered through the Baskin Feminist Scholars Program, this scholarship opportunity is for undergraduate community college transfer students from Cabrillo College, De Anza College, and Monterey Peninsula College.
FMST Newsletter, Winter 2021
January 12, 2021
The latest news from Feminist Studies ... Cool things FMST grad students are doing. Useful info for Undergrads about courses, workshops, and other fun stuff. FMST faculty writings and speaking appearances. Upcoming events, award and scholarship opportunities. Plus our new Alumni Spotlight: Five Questions with a Feminist.
Prof. Anjali Arondekar participates on global panel to discuss "Is India becoming a fascist state?"
December 14, 2020
FMST professor Anjali Arondekar, who also is director of the UCSC Center for South Asian Studies, was a panelist on a global round table held in Australia's New South Wales Parliament exploring the question, “Is India becoming a fascist state?” Speakers included eminent civil society activists, academics, journalists and politicians from Australia, India, Britain and the US. Click through to read the story in Pakistan’s Express Tribune.
FMST Professor Neel Ahuja - "From Insecurity to Adaptation: Race, Human Capital, and the Figure of the Climate Refugee"
November 16, 2020
On November 13, FMST Professor Neel Ahuja was featured in a talk presented by the University of Wisconsin's Center for 21st Century Studies. Ahuja shared portions of his forthcoming book: "Planetary Specters: Race, Migration, and Climate Change in the Twenty-First Century," and discussed how public images of climate change—particularly those focused on the problem of coastal flooding in Bangladesh—reflect the manner by which both states and emerging green security formations reconfigure inequalities generated by financial, development, and labor policies in terms of environmental processes. Ahuja was joined in conversation by Aimee Bahng from Pomona College. Click through for a link to view the video.
Work-in-Progress Talk with Caitlin Keliiaa - Unhealthy Regulations: Native Women's Health, Sexual Surveillance & Bodily Control
November 3, 2020
November 16, 1:00-2:30 pm -- Professor Caitlin Keliiaa, one of our newest FMST faculty, will present a Work-in-Progress talk that looks at how Indian health and federal bodily regulation unfolded on native women domestic workers in the 20th century Bay Area.
Professor Anjali Arondekar interviewed by LA Times: Will Trump's efforts to attract Indian American voters pay off?
November 2, 2020
FMST Professor Anjali Arondekar was interviewed for an L.A. Times video report on the possible influence of Indian American voters on the 2020 US election.
Feminist studies Ph.D. student receives American Association of University Women fellowship
October 21, 2020
The program aims to tackle barriers women face in education by recognizing recipients whose academic work and community projects empower women and girls.
CRJ Fascisms Symposium
October 20, 2020
The Center for Racial Justice (CRJ) presents FASCISMS: October 28 and November 4 - a two-part lecture series in collaboration with the Critical Ethnic Studies Journal with a line-up of speakers from across the country.
FMST Newsletter, Fall 2020
October 14, 2020
Read the latest news from the Feminist Studies Department to learn about... three new FMST faculty, the new grad student cohort, our 2020-21 undergrad rep, and more ...
THI Profile: FMST grad student Noya Kansky
October 12, 2020
In 2019, FMST grad student Noya Kansky was a THI Public Fellow at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center near Cody, Wyoming. The Center sits on the site of what was once the Heart Mountain “Relocation Center,” an internment camp which held incarcerated Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. Among other things, Noya worked in the organization’s archive cataloging and digitizing the personal records of a former incarceree: Estelle Ishigo. Click through to read the THI Profile about her research and experience as a Public Fellow.
Barring Freedom Art & Lecture Series
October 5, 2020
For the 2020/21 academic year, the UCSC Institute of the Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with FMST Professor Gina Dent, has organized a year-long series of online events featuring artists, activists, scholars, and others united by their commitment to the vital struggle for prison abolition. Barring Freedom kicks off on October 20 with Visualizing Abolition: A Conversation with Angela Y. Davis and Gina Dent.
Center for South Asian Studies presents: Towards Justice
October 5, 2020
This yearlong lecture series, curated by FMST professor and CSAS co-director Anjali Arondekar, begins on October 29 with Usha Iyer, assistant professor, Film & Media Studies at Stanford University. Examining Hindi cinema, she will discuss "Folded Corporeal History of the Hindi Film Dancer Actress in the 1950s and 1960s."
Feminist Studies welcomes three new professors
October 2, 2020
The Feminist Studies Department is thrilled to welcome three new Feminist Studies professors – a very exciting expansion in areas that the department has prioritized, including Indigenous and Africana Studies. Meet our new faculty ...
The Morning After: A (Post)Election Conversation
September 24, 2020
In this Cultural Studies event, Gina Dent, Debbie Gould, and Savannah Shange will start a conversation the morning after the November 3rd US Presidential election. We will gather as a community the morning after to process the preceding night (and preceding years) and to think together about the weeks, months, and years to come.
Kamaal or not: FMST Prof. Anjali Arondekar on Kamala Harris and South Asia
August 27, 2020
In an Indica News Op-Ed, Anjali Arondekar (FMST professor and director of the Center for South Asia Studies at UCSC) considers the nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic Candidate for Vice President. Is the nomination of “Kamaal Harris” (to use a coinage from the viral Amul advertisement in India, “kamaal” meaning miracle) a source of radical optimism for the South Asian diaspora, or is it business as usual, made palatable solely by the desire to defeat Donald Trump?
Humanities Institute and Cabrillo Festival to celebrate fight for equal voting rights
July 23, 2020
The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz has teamed up with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and Bookshop Santa Cruz to present "Celebrating Woman Suffrage and the Struggle for Voting Rights"—a live Zoom panel discussion followed by audience Q&A
Angela Davis in The Guardian: ‘We knew that the role of the police was to protect white supremacy’
June 15, 2020
Professor Emerita Angela Davis is featured in an article in The Guardian, speaking on growing up in segregated America, the opportunity of the Black Lives Matter movement and what inspires her to keep fighting.
THI Profile: FMST Grad Student Halima Kazem's research on Afghan feminism
June 5, 2020
FMST grad student Halima Kazem Stojanovic was awarded a 2019 THI Summer Research to conduct interviews with Afghan historians, professors, government officials and activists traveling through Dubai. Halima is an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. Read the THI profile to learn more about her research on feminism in Afghanistan, experiences as a reporter, and plans to share her scholarship in the future.
Thinking the Pandemic - Part II
May 8, 2020
Feminist Studies professor Anjali Arondekar participates in a discussion about the current pandemic in relation to epidemic histories, states of uncertainty, and authoritarian power. Click through for more info about the readings and to register for this virtual Zoom event. May 13 @ 12:15 to 1:30pm PT
Feminist Studies Newsletter, Spring 2020
April 16, 2020
Feminist Studies updates about the grad #COLA strike, precarity in the age of COVID-19, and other news of interest to FMST community.
Magic Matter(s)
April 10, 2020
A poem by graduate student Zia Puig, written in honor of the #COLA campaign.
Support the Feminist COLA Fund
March 2, 2020
On Friday, February 28, 2020, four graduate students in the Feminist Studies Ph.D. Program were fired by the university for advocating for a living wage. We seek immediate support to fight back against this act of political repression by the UCSC administration.
Why Nick Mitchell Is Returning the Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity
February 21, 2020
Professor Nick Mitchell shares why he returned his Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity and expresses solidarity with the COLA campaign.
Speculative Futures of Labor: New Feminist and Critical Race Approaches Symposium
February 13, 2020
To be held March 2-3, this two-day symposium features emergent approaches to labor in light of the surge of interest in technological socioeconomic transformations, including robotics, AI, and app-based on demand services. The symposium is part of the UC Speculative Futures Collective (UCSD, UCR, UCI, UCSC), featuring events over a two-year period that will bring together scholars and others in the field of Speculative Futures to envision more sustainable worlds and futures.
Karen Barad at School of Criticism & Theory, Summer Session 2020
February 9, 2020
Feminist Studies Professor Karen Barad will be a member of the 2020 Summer Faculty at the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University's College of Arts & Sciences. Professor Barad's Mini-Seminar on "Infinity, Nothingness, and the Un/doing of Self" will be part of the six-week course of study (June 14–July 23) that brings together faculty members, graduate students and independent scholars from around the world to explore recent developments in critical theory. The deadline to apply to the program is March 1; there are openings for approximately 90 participants. Follow the link for more information.
FMST professor Marcia Ochoa to speak at Mills College - January 30
January 27, 2020
FMST professor Marcia Ochoa will be part of a reading and conversation with fellow activists at a Mills Performing Arts event in Oakland on January 30. Imaginame: A Queering of Language and Latinidad, will be presented from 7-9:30pm at the Rothwell Theatre. Click through for more info.
FMST Newsletter: Winter 2020
January 23, 2020
Updates on the latest FMST news, events and opportunities. And introducing our new Alumni Spotlight!
Refugee Returns: Hong-An Truong
January 14, 2020
Multi-media artist Hong-An Truong engages questions about history and how knowledge is produced through media forms, often drawing on her lived experience as the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Presented by the Center for Racial Justice - January 21 | 4:30-6:30pm | HUM 1 rm. 210
Grads Strike for COLA
December 11, 2019
Feminist Studies graduate students featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel in an article on the COLA strike.
FMST graduate student Zia Puig published in Transgender Studies Quarterly
December 5, 2019
FMST graduate student Zia Puig's essay - The TransAlien Manifesto: Future Love(s), Sex Tech, and My Efforts to Re-member Your Embrace - is in the November 2019 issue of Transgender Studies Quarterly. Click through to learn more and read Zia's piece
THI Profile: FMST grad student Krizia Puig at NASA's Cape Canaveral
October 29, 2019
FMST PhD student Krizia Puig spent the summer at Cape Canaveral as a 2019 THI Summer Research Fellow. Read about their project - “Martian Matter(s): Accessibility, Sustainability, & The Im/possibilities of Space Exploration” - and their summer at the Kennedy Space Center during NASA's celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.
FMST Colloquium - Dean Spade
October 23, 2019
Solidarity Not Charity: Mutual Aid for Mobilization and Survival - Dean Spade, Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law, will give a talk looking at why mutual aid is an important part of building participatory movements. November 13 | 3-5pm | NEW LOCATION: Resource Center for Nonviolence
FMST Newsletter, Fall 2019
October 9, 2019
Read the latest Undergrad, Grad, and Faculty news, and learn about upcoming events of interest to the Feminist community.
Cultural Studies Colloquium: Anjali Arondekar - What More Remains: Sexuality, Slavery, Historiography
October 8, 2019
FMST associate professor Anjali Arondekar will give a talk engaging a "small" history of sexuality and slavery in Portuguese India. November 20 | 12-1:30 | HUM 1 rm. 210
FMST Colloquium - Vera Kallenberg
September 20, 2019
Visiting Scholar Vera Kallenberg will speak at the first colloquium for the 2019-2020 academic year. Her talk, titled "Blacklisted Jews Like Us - Gerda and Carl Lerner: Intersectionality, Experience as Deviants, and the Film 'Black Like Me'," will be held on October 15 at 11:30am in Humanities 1, room 210.
UCSC emerita professor Angela Davis to be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame
July 10, 2019
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, The National Women’s Hall of Fame will host a weekend in New York honoring the achievements of women in the birthplace of the Women’s Rights movement. The highlight will be the induction of 10 prominent women into the Hall of Fame.
Ochoa appointed interim provost of Oakes College
July 01, 2019
Feminist studies professor Gina Dent receives Dizikes Award for teaching in Humanities
June 14, 2019
Professor of feminist studies Gina Dent was presented with the John Dizikes Teaching Award in Humanities at the Division’s 2019 Spring Awards celebration held at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn.
UCSC celebrates graduation of first Feminist Studies Ph.D.s
June 12, 2019
Erin McElroy and Veronika Zablotsky will be the first students to graduate from UC Santa Cruz with a Ph.D. in Feminist Studies.
Bettina Aptheker and Nick Mitchell Receive Diversity Awards
June 11, 2019
Distinguished Professor Emerita Bettina Aptheker received the Chancellor's Lifetime Achievement Award, and Prof Nick Mitchell received the Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity.
Nick Mitchell to Give Kresge Commencement Address
June 6, 2019
Professor Nick Mitchell will give the commencement address for Kresge College on June 15, 2019.
FMST Colloquium - Veda Popovici
May 22, 2019
May 23, 5pm, Hum 1 202. In this colloquium, "History Does (Not) Repeat Itself," Popovici presents her latest art project: a mapping of collective dreams and desires of revolutionary events in the context of post-1989 Romania.
Bettina Aptheker to moderate panel on impact of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
May 16, 2019
The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz has joined forces with Bookshop Santa Cruz and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music to present 'My Own Words: The Law & Legacy of RBG'--a panel discussion and Community Read kickoff event in downtown Santa Cruz.
Indigeneity and Climate Justice Conference
April 30, 2019
The Feminist Studies Department presents a feminist science conference on Indigeneity and Climate Justice: May 30 and 31, 2019.
May 15, 2019 Cultural Studies Talk - David Kazanjian
April 25, 2019
In this talk he examines a legal case involving an enslaved Afro-diasporan named Juan Patricio and a Mayan woman named Fabiana Pech from turn-of-the-eighteenth-century Yucatán. David Kazanjian is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, and is serving on Feminist Studies Ph.D. candidate Veronika Zablotsky's dissertation committee.
FMST/CRES Book Talk, May 13, 2019
April 23, 2019
Emily Thuma, Assistant Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Irvine, presents All Our Trials, a grassroots history of resistance to gender violence and the carceral state.
FMST Grad Profile: Vivian Underhill
April 19, 2019
The Humanities Institute features a profile on FMST graduate student, Vivian Underhill. Her work is at the intersections of feminist and critical race science studies, queer ecology, and hydrology in California.
FMST Newsletter, Spring 2019
April 15, 2019
Catch up on the latest Grad Student, Undergrad, and Faculty news plus upcoming events of interest to the feminist community
Grad Book Launch - Counterpoints: Bay Area Data and Stories for Resisting Displacement
April 10, 2019
This event will feature members of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project will be offering a preview of their new atlas manuscript, Counterpoints: Bay Area Data and Stories for Resisting Displacement, which will be released by PM Press in the spring of 2020. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP) is a data visualization, digital cartography, and multimedia collective based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The project aims to inform, empower, and activate communities impacted by housing inequity and displacement, supporting the work of collectives fighting for housing justice.
Book Talk with Neda Atanasoski, "Surrogate Humanity"
March 8, 2019
March 13 - Professor Neda Atanasoski will present her new book, Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures, with Nick Mitchell as discussant.
UC Santa Cruz launches online 'Feminism and Social Justice' course with Bettina Aptheker
March 07, 2019
UC Santa Cruz has launched a new online course open to the public through the Coursera platform. Titled 'Feminism and Social Justice,' it is an adaptation of a popular course taught on campus for nearly a decade by feminist studies professor Bettina Aptheker.
Bettina Aptheker Speaks at 2019 Women's March
January 22, 2019
FMST Newsletter, Winter 2019
January 21, 2019
The latest quarterly updates on Feminist Studies Undergrad, Grad and Faculty News & Events
FMST Undergrad Works for Human Rights in South Africa
November 9, 2018
Roya Visconti, Feminist Studies and Legal Studies double-major, spent summer 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa for an internship with the Human Rights Commission. Learn more about her experience!
In Memoriam: Helene Moglen (1936 – 2018)
November 01, 2018
FMST Newsletter, Fall 2018
October 9, 2018
Welcome! Read the latest updates on FMST Undergrad, Grad, and Faculty news and events.
Professor Bettina Aptheker Speaks at Rally for Christine Blasey Ford
October 1, 2018
Professor Aptheker joined dozens of supporters in solidarity with Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, sexually assaulted her.
Alumna author Kate Schatz spotlights ‘rad girls’ under age 20
July 25, 2018
'Rad Girls Can': Stories of Bold, Brave, and Brilliant Young Women is the title of the latest book by UC Santa Cruz alumna Kate Schatz, the New York Times best-selling author of 'Rad Women Worldwide' and 'Rad American Women A-Z.'
FMST Newsletter, Spring 2018
April 20, 2018
Updates on the latest Undergrad, Graduate and Faculty news and FMST events
FMST Newsletter, Winter 2018
January 25, 2018
Read updates on the latest Grad, Undergrad, and Faculty news and events.
Cultural Studies Colloquium with Jodi Byrd, February 21, 2018
January 10, 2018
Jodi Byrd, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Illinois, will present "Fire and Flood: Settler Colonialism and Pessimistic Indigenous Futurisms" at the February 21st Cultural Studies Colloquium.
Neel Ahuja to Present at Cultural Studies Colloquium on February 14, 2018
January 8, 2018
On February 14, 2018, Professor Neel Ahuja will present his talk, "Reversible Human: Rectal Feeding, Gut Plasticity, and Racial Control in the US Carceral Warfare" at the Center for Cultural Studies Colloquium Series
FMST Newsletter, Fall 2017
November 20, 2017
Read updates on the latest Graduate, Undergraduate, and Faculty news and events.
Professor Mitchell to Present Work in Progress
November 16, 2017
Nick Mitchell will be presenting his work, Unwaged War: Black Studies as Casualization from Below, at a CRES "Work in Progress" event on December 7th.
Free speech! Hold firm!
October 10, 2017
Co-leader of the Free Speech Movement, Bettina Aptheker looks at the renewed focus on free speech on college campuses.
Bettina Aptheker is Awarded Dizikes Faculty Teaching Award
June 8, 2017
On June 7th Bettina Aptheker will be presented with the Dizikes Faculty Teaching Award in the Humanities.
Public Letter Concerning Gender Based Violence on Campus
May 23, 2017
UC Santa Cruz receives gift to establish Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies
May 19, 2017
Bettina Aptheker awarded The Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair
May 9, 2017
Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair Investiture Ceremony and Reception
May 8, 2017
The Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz.This endowed chair was recently established with a $500,000 gift from the Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation and matching funds from the UC Regents.
Feminist Studies Colloquium Series, Spring 2017 (May 4 - June 1)
May 4, 2017
Feminist Studies Colloquium Series, Spring 2017
The Fantasy and Fate of Ethnic Studies in an Age of Uprisings: An Interview with Nick Mitchell
July 13, 2016
In this conversation, feminist studies and black studies scholar Nick Mitchell and Undercommoner Zach Schwartz-Weinstein discuss a range of topics: the politics of criticality; the labor politics of black studies and ethnic studies; the absorptive quality of the university’s administration of difference; the work of fantasy in academic labor; the origins of adjunctification and casualization; Black Lives Matter’s transformation into a campus-based movement; and how to denaturalize the political economy of the university.
Ruling Passions - Sexuality, Science and the (Post)Colonial State
March 21, 2016
The past decade or so has witnessed a rapid rise in scholarship that seeks to seize or transform the language of “science” for liberatory ends. Such an attachment to the reparative and/or divisive logic of “science” is most evident in minoritized knowledge-formations such as sexuality studies and colonial/postcolonial studies. In the face of contemporary challenges about the limits of scholarship bowing to the forces of globalization, the colloquium will examine what is at stake for sexuality studies and postcolonial studies to carve out a critical relationship to histories of science?
Comparative Empires, October 16, 2015, 10am to 5pm
September 15, 2015
Histories of empire have been tethered over-determinedly to singular histories of nation-states, temporalities and/or geopolitics. Rather than locate empire as a stable or temporal concept, this colloquium attends to the imaginative possibilities offered by a turn to a more comparative relationship to empire within a south-south framework.
A Conversation with Kris Perry
October 6, 2014
Please join us on Monday, October 13th, 12 pm for a presentation and discussion with, civil liberties champion, Kris Perry at Kresge TownHall.
Professor Lisa Lowe: "Colonial Difference & the Neoliberal Present."
October 1, 2014
This lecture casts the history of liberal modernity as a complex, braided project, which includes at once the universal promises of rights, emancipation, wage labor and free trade, as well as the global divisions and colonial asymmetries upon which those promises depend, and according to which such liberties are reserved for some and denied to others.
Associate Professor Ochoa Publishes "Queen for a Day"
May 19, 2014
UCSC Feminist Studies Associate Professor, Marcia Ochoa, has publishes a new book entitled "Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela". Please join the Feminist Studies Department in a conversation and book party on Wednesday, June 3rd, 5-7pm in Humanities 1, Room 210.
Associate Professor Atanasoski Publishes New Book
February 10, 2014
UCSC Feminist Studies Associate Professor, Neda Atanasoski, has publishes a new book entitled "Humanitarian Violence: The U.S. Deployment of Diversity". Please join the Feminist Studies Department in a conversation and book party on Wednesday, February 26th, 5-7pm in Humanities 1, Room 320.
Gender. Region. Slavery.
December 3, 2013
What would regional histories of ‘slavery’ look like if interrogated as formulations of gender? Eschewing the conventional segregation and/or minoritization of regions as spatialities that provide local historical flavor, the colloquium seeks to simultaneously correct regional asymmetries of the past of slavery, as well as highlight the centrality of gender in the making and conceiving of ‘region’ itself.
Saints & Citizens: Book Reading & Discussion
November 18, 2013
Reading & Discussion with author and FMST chair professor Lisbeth Haas. Wed December 4thHumanities 1, Rm 320 5:00-7:30pm There will be a small reception following the reading.
Food for Thought: The Meaning of Freedom of Speech
October 29, 2013
The Meaning of Freedom of Speech: Surveillance, Incarceration & the Politics of the First Amendment
Donna Haraway “Sympoiesis: Becoming-with in Multispecies Muddles.”
October 29, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013 - 5:00pm - 7:00pm Porter Room D245 Porter College, UCSC
UCSC Screening of: Free Angela! And All Political Prisoners
October 10, 2013
7pm - Friday, October 25th, 2013 - UC Santa Cruz, Classroom Unit - 2Free Angela! is a brilliant documentary that captures the sensational murder and kidnapping trial of Black Communist and UCLA Professor Angela Davis in the early 1970's.
Gihan Abou Zeid: “Egyptian Women in Struggle: Then and Now”
October 10, 2013
October 23rd, 2013 - 5:00pm, Humanities 1 Building, Room 210; Egyptian human rights activist, journalist and author GIHAN ABOU ZEID is an authority on women’s rights in the Arab world. She was part of the revolution of 2011 that brought millions of people to Tahrir Square...
Feminist Interventions: On Gender & South Asia
October 9, 2013
May 2-3, 2014 – UC Santa Cruz – SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JAN 15, 2014 – This conference seeks to explore the interrelated, epistemological frameworks of gender studies and area studies in the multiple articulations of what constitutes the subjects and studies of the terrain of “South-Asia.”
Undisciplining Feminism Symposium
October 1, 2013
Bringing together a core group of UC and Cal State faculty working at the intersections of feminist studies and ethnic studies, we will generate a curricular vision that, rather than being negatively constructed as a critique (of patriarchy, mainstream feminism, “wave”-based periodizations, etc.) begins with concepts like race, empire, and settler colonialism.
Professor B. Ruby Rich: New Queer Cinema - The Director's Cut
May 13, 2013
Please join us and Professor B. Ruby Rich for a special book signing event for the recently published and long-awaited "New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut" Wednesday, May 22, 12:30-2:00 Communications 139
UCSC alumna wins prestigious 2013 Guggenheim
April 19, 2013
Poet Brenda Shaughnessy returns to campus for Alumni Weekend including a free public reading on April 25
Scott Morgensen: Idle No More
April 10, 2013
Indigenous Feminism, & Allied Critiques of Settler Colonialism. Revisiting Indigenous critiques of the sexualization and racialization of colonial rule, Morgensen highlights how such power is challenged by the Indigenous movement Idle No More. Indigenous feminist and Two Spirit critiques explain that heteropatriarchy and white supremacy produce settler colonization and settler state governance.
Richard Miskolci: Undisciplined studies & the (geo)politics of knowledge
April 10, 2013
Why does knowledge continue to travel only from North to South? To understand the powerful continuity in this exchange, this presentation will start with a historical reconstitution of its creation and functioning. Even in an increasingly decentered world we still witness the hegemony of academic exchange in which North produces theories and South is seen as a space for collecting data or applying Northern theories to particular cases. Knowledges are created under institutional frames that connect them to power interests.
FMST Alumni Weekend Events
March 19, 2013
FMST Reception, Presentation, and Faculty Panel on Saturday, April 27, 2:00-6:00pm in 210 Humanities 1.
Nancy Lemon: PRACTICING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAW
March 18, 2013
A Feminist Studies Legal Luncheon featuring distinguished UC Santa Cruz Women's Studies Alumna NANCY K.D. LEMON (Berkeley Law, Boalt School of Law).
Asian America: Triangulations about a Semisphere
February 13, 2013
Join us for a creative a creative presentation by Karen Tei Yamashita, reading excerpt from her forthcoming book of performances...
LOVE IS A DANGEROUS PROMISE
February 11, 2013
Karen Thompson speaks of raising awareness for human rights issues, including the legal protection of LGBTQIA relationships.
Mattie Harper “Civilizing” the Pillagers
November 28, 2012
Mattie Harper's talk centers on the identity of Susan Bonga, who was a member of the Pillager band of Ojibwe Indians residing in northern Minnesota and the daughter of a prominent fur trader of mixed African-Ojibwe ancestry.
A Night of Poetry & Music with M. NourbeSe Philip
November 26, 2012
A Night of Poetry & Music with M. NourbeSe Philip, accompanied by a jazz duo led by Karlton Hester, Professor of Music, UCSC
New Publication by FMST Professor Felicity Amaya Schaeffer
August 15, 2012
Love and Empire: Cybermarriage and Citizenship across the Americas This title will be released on December 3, 2012.
Goa needs much more work in the areas of gender and sexuality: Anjali Arondekar
July 13, 2012
India’s The Navhind Times featured an article about associate professor of feminist studies Anjali Arondekar and her research on gender and sexuality in South Asia.
UC Presidential Chair in Feminist Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
July 1, 2012
Bettina Aptheker and Karen Yamashita received a highly prestigious University of California Presidential Chair in Feminist Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. Professors Aptheker and Yamashita will co-hold the Chair for a three-year period beginning July 1, 2012 and ending in June 30, 2015.
Anjali Arondekar: “Orienting Margins: Sexuality’s Geopolitics”
May 21, 2012
May 23, 2012 12:00-1:30 pm 210 Humanities 1 Anjali Arondekar Associate Professor, Feminist Studies, UCSC will be presenting at the Cultural Studies Colloquium Series.
A Tribute to Adrienne Rich
April 19, 2012
Wednesday April 25th,7-9 pm @ the Kresge Town Hall In the tribute, members of our campus community will read from her work.
Amelia Jones: Activating the Feminist Body and the Curating of Feminist Art
April 1, 2012
TUESDAY, April 10th / 11am-1pm / Room 210 Humanities One; This paper takes off from a brief history of the curating of feminist art in the North American and European contexts.
Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement
February 6, 2012
The first book-length study of women's involvement in the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, ¡Chicana Power! tells the powerful story of the emergence of Chicana feminism within student and community-based organizations throughout southern California and the Southwest.
“Cruel Modernity”, Professor Jean Franco
February 2, 2012
Cruel Modernity is the subject of Franco’s forthcoming book on Truth Commissions and surviving the extreme cases of political violence that plagued some Latin American countries in the late twentieth century.
Professor Bettina Aptheker - Queering the History of the Communist Left in the U.S.
February 1, 2012
The Center for Cultural Studies presents FMST Professor Bettina Aptheker Wednesday, February 15 at 12:15p in Humanities 210 Queering the History of the Communist Left in the United States
A conversation on prison abolition, legal violence, and trans politics
February 1, 2012
Friday, February 10, 4-6pm, Oakes Mural Room
Professor Haas publishes new book, "Pablo Tac, Indigenous Scholar"
October 22, 2011
Techniques for Reimagining Feminist Theory: Starting from How We Feel
September 20, 2011
Critical Ethnographies
September 7, 2011
The State of Science & Justice
June 2, 2011
Anika Walke: 10 Grads in 10 days
June 1, 2011
History of Consciousness Graduate Student, Anika Walke, was featured in an article profiling outstanding students in graduating class of 2011.
Science and Justice Training Program
April 4, 2011
Jennifer Reardon and Karen Barad's Science and Justice training program awarded $300,000 from the National Science Foundation.
