1_fall Newsletter Paper Version

Department of Women’s Studies

bell hooks

&

Jennifer BaumgardnerJacqui AlexanderBeverly Guy-SheftallLayli Phillips AnaLouise KeatingPhyllis CheslerChandra MohantyMark Anthony Neal Amit Rai Aimee Carrillo RoweBarbara Scott Winkler And Others

Women‘s Studies at USF, 2008

‗A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof‘

New Faculty in Women’s Studies

2008! What a year for

Women‘s Studies!

Elizabeth Taylor, play-ing a woman ahead of hertime, in the film adaptation

of Tennessee Williams‘ clas-

sic,

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

,said it best and certainly,most stylishly. When faced with animplacable husband who

asked her ―What is the vic-

tory of a cat on a hot tin

roof?‖ the tenacious womanreplied, ―Just stayin‘ on it, Iguess. As long as she can.‖

Upon reflection, onemight say that the themes of

that play: women‘s (studies)

limited roles, heteronorma-tivity, racial and class stratifi-cation all set against thebackdrop of the patriarchalSouth, resonate with the ex-perience of WST here atUSF notsimply overthe last few months, but

over years….

Dr. Linda Lucas,an economist,recently pub-lished

Unpacking Globalization:Markets, Gender,and Work,

Lexington Books(2007). She is organizing a confer-ence,

Doing Business in Africa

atUSF, with the Office of Interna-tional Affairs, Feminist Student Alliance and the Patel Center along with African Studies and theCenter for Business Enterprise andResearch at the University of Flor-

ida. She is teaching ―Women, Menand Labor Markets.‖

Inside this issue:

New Faculty ProfilesOffice Manager Update

Pam Hallock Mulleron Senior Women in

Academe, ―What are

Mentors and Role

Models Worth?‖

2910

Reclaiming Women‘s

Studies: Noted Feminist& Womanist Scholarsto Speak at USF13 WST Student NewsIota, Iota, Iota:

Women‘s Studies

Honor Society 2230Saving the Autonomy of

Women‘s Studies: Arti-

facts of Our Struggle32

WST Alumnae

34Feminists on andaround Campus40Departures 42

Women’s Studies

A Degree Program for TodayA Profession for TomorrowLeadership for a Lifetime

Fall 2008 Newsletter

Volume 3, Issue 1

Reclaiming

Women’s Studies,

Reclaiming ProgressiveGlobal FeministPolitics and CriticalThought at USF,A Year in Celebration

Continued on p. 33Picture credit for March and Rally, April 2008: Sean Kane, WMNF

Dr. NagwaDajani, M.D.,Ph.D. devel-oped the Mas-

ter‘s of Medi-

cal Sciences with a concentration in

Women‘s Health and Graduate

Certificate Program in Medicine

and Gender at USF‘s COM.

She is Co-PI: on R01-NR5000

—

9/07

—

6/11 (NINR) for a study of the Influence of Lactation onPostpartum Stress and Immu-nity for $1,450,000.00. She is

teaching the course ―Womenand Science.‖

Dr. Gary Lem-ons is the authorof the recently published,

BlackMale Outsider:Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man

,and the forth-coming

Pro-Womanist Forefathers:Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois

—

Black Men for Gender Justice

both from The SUNY Press andpresented this summer at Cor-

nell University‘s ―Future of

Minority Studies Summer Insti-

tute,‖ sponsored by the Andrew

W. Mellon Foundation.

Linda E. Lucas, Ph.D.

I am a Visiting Professor of Women's Studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa Florida. Ihave a Ph.D. in economics and specialize in policy development and analysis. My teaching and researchspecialties are in women and work, gendered consequences of globalization and gender and economicdevelopment. I have taught in Women's Studies and Women and Gender Studies Departments in sev-eral places and was a founding member of departments/programs at the University of Notre Dame,Thammasat University, and Eckerd College. My new book,

Unpacking Globaliza-tion: Markets, Gender and Work

(Lexington Books, 2007) details the responses of men and women all over the world to the processes of globalization. I concludethat even the poorest persons are participating more actively in the global economy through educa-tion, small enterprises and international trade. I have held Fulbright Professorships in Mexico City and Kampala, Uganda. I have been an East West Center Fellow, a Visiting Professor of Economics atThammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand, Visiting Researcher at the Economic Policy ResearchCenter in Kampala and the Thailand Development Research Institute in Bangkok. I taught at theUniversity of Notre Dame, the University of Hawaii, Makerere University (Uganda) and at EckerdCollege (St. Petersburg, Florida) where I am Professor Emeritus. For many years I researched marine resource policy relatedto the international allocation of fishery resources through treaty and regulation. I have published widely in this field andregularly consult with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service on economic policy. I recently extended this interest inscience policy to interdicisplinary research on undergraduate women who will choose science as a career and women andhealth information.

Ansev Demirhan & Dr. Lucas: WST Student Q&A

What is your area of specialty in Women's Studies?

I have a PhD in economics and specialize in international issuesof Women and Work, Gendered impacts of globalization, Women and Science, Women and Wealth. I havetaught/lived/consulted in Asia, East Africa and Latin America. Next month, I am hosting a Business Outreach Confer-ence: Doing Business in Africa to be held Oct 29, 2008 at USF and developing a number of partnerships in East Af-rica for future projects.

Where do you hope to see the Women's Studies department in five years?

With a full complement of faculty from

diverse fields across Women‘s Studies (e.g. humanities, social studies, science, business) offering a PhD in Women‘s

Studies which is international and multidisciplinary in scope and attracts students and visiting faculty from all over the world.

How do you plan on helping to achieve that vision?

I bring a research background that is international and feministin focus (e.g. Feminist Economics) and could offer courses in such a program as well as oversight to student theses anddissertations. I have experience teaching at the graduate level and overseeing both MA and PhD student work.

Why are you a feminist? How would you define feminism?

Feminism is an academic perspective as well as a life vi-sion. I bring the feminist perspective to public policy issues for example, by asking how particular policy decisions dif-ferentially impact various groups and in what ways. For example, trade, tax or wage policies may advantage one groupof persons over another. My research measures these impacts and proposes solutions which would bring about moreequitable outcomes.

What is your favorite thing to do in Tampa?

I like to go to the beach, symphony and theater performances and I lovethe movies.

What is your favorite book?

I read all the time and read widely so have many favorites. Three of my all time greats are

Don Quixote

which continues to enthrall and entertain readers 400 years after Cervantes wrote it;

Writing a Woman’s

Life

by Carolyn Heilbrun, a noted feminist biographer and Virginia Woolf scholar, I think, should be required readingfor every young woman; and, I was and continue to be profoundly and deeply affected, informed and inspired by the

Autobiography of Malcolm X

which I read when I was about 19 years old.

Page 2 Volume 3, Issue 1

Page 3 Volume 3, Issue 1

Gary L. Lemons, Ph.D.

I hold a Ph.D. from New York University in English and American literature. I haveheld a Rockefeller Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Womanist Studies Center at theUniversity of Georgia and two National Endowment Fellowships for College Teach-ers, one at the Center for the Study of Women and Men at the University of South-

ern California, the other at Bennett College (one of two historically black women‘s

colleges in the nation). I have served as a Fellow for the NationalCenter for Human Rights Education. At the Ford Foundation, I was also a Colloquia Fellow on gender in African American Com-munities. In addition to a number of articles related to genderprogressive manhood and pro-feminist pedagogy, my publications include

Black MaleOutsider a Memoir: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man

(the State University of New York Press, 2008) and

Pro-Woman(ist) Forefathers,

Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois:Black Men for Gender Justice

(forthcoming from SUNY Press, 2009). Most recently Iserved as a colloquium participant in the Future of Minority Studies Summer Insti-

tute‘s panel on ―Progressive Masculinities: Men in Feminism‖ at Cornell University.

As a black male feminist professor, I envision the college classroom as a dynamic learning space for creat-ing interdisciplinary faculty-student collaborations focused issues of social justice. In this space, togetherteacher and student engage in mutually challenging intellectual work forged across disciplinary bounda-ries. Thus, my teaching interests and scholarship are interdisciplinary by design. At the same time, they emerge from a single motivation

—

to transform the classroom into a location for theorizing and practicingsocial change. This idea informs how I teach courses on literature by women of color, African Americanliterature, antiracist feminist/womanist pedagogy, the history of black feminist thought, feminist cri-tiques of black masculinity, memoir writing for self-recovery; and gender, race, and sexuality in popularculture.Currently, my research/scholarship encompasses two projects: the life of U.S. black fashion designer Ann Lowe, whose career spanned 65 years and the writings of black feminist pedagogues.

PRAISE for

BLACK MALE OUTSIDER

"Feminist politics is a choice. When men make that choice, our world is positively transformed. Propheti-cally, Gary Lemons speaks to the value of males assuming accountability for feminist cultural revolution--this is a book all men should read along with the rest of us." -- bell hooks"Gary Lemons blurs the distinction between theory and practice and illuminates, as few have, how black feminist theorizing is important conceptually and pragmatically and how it is useful in one's everyday life.This is a groundbreaking and passionate book." -- Beverly Guy-Sheftall, coauthor of

Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities

"Lemons memorably uses his own experience to engage timely issues, such as domestic violence, the educa-tion of African Americans, and the role of religious fundamentalism in black identity formation. I foundthe personal narratives riveting, and the author's courageous voice of love and protest unflinchingly exposes what others would rather keep hidden." -- Joseph Downing Thompson, Washington University in St. Louis