Jane Grant Dissertation Fellow
- Jon Jaramillo, Romance Languages, “Viral Bodies: AIDS and Other Contagions in Latin American Narrative.”
Graduate Writing Completion Fellows
- Robin Okumu, Comparative Literature, “Utopian Relationality: Intercorporeal Subjectivity in French Feminist Fiction.”
- Cornesha Tweede, Romance Languages, “The Recuperation of Agency and Subjectivity of the Black African Women in the Iberian Early Modern Archive.”
Graduate Student Research Grantees
- Ola Adeniji, Human Physiology, “Biomedical Sports Analysis in Collegiate Athletics: Determinants of Performance in Sprint and Jump Events among Female Participants”
- Elinam Amevor, Journalism and Communication, “Risking Birth: Gender, Culture and Advocacy in Maternal Healthcare Choices and Utilization in Ghana.”
- Malvya Chintakindi, Anthropology, “Informal Labor Blues: Effects of COVID-19 on Dalit Caste Women in Hyderabad, India.”
- Anna Dulba-Barnett, Theater Arts, “Reading Polish Theater Through the Lens of Eco-Dramaturgy and Eco-Feminism.”
- Cassandra Galentine, English, “Wash Yourself White: Race, Hygiene, and Environmental Justice in U.S. Multiethnic Women’s Working Class Literature.”
- Teresa Hernandez-Reed, English, “Contested Motherlands: Disputed Sovereignties and Geographies of the U.S./Mexico Border”
- Sarah Horn, Psychology, “Mental and Physical Health Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child Welfare Involved Women Caregivers.”
- Carla Macal, Geography “GuateMaya Migrant Women in Los Angeles: Healing Inter-generational Trauma in the Diaspora.”
- Nathan Mather, Counseling Psychology, “Working Class Gay Fathers’ Experience with Unpaid Care Work: A Narrative Inquiry”
- Zeinab Nobowati, Philosophy, “Is Postcolonial Becoming Postfeminist? A Feminist Philosophical Inquiry.”
- Annalee Ring, Philosophy, “Cleanliness: A Cultural Construction Perpetuating Race, Gender, and Class Discriminations.”
- Max Skorodinsky, Education, “More than Binary, More than Normative, More than Quantities: Diverse Gender Identities in Computer Science Education Research.”
- Jinsun Yang, Sociology, “Gender Dynamics in Non-binary Sports Spaces: Korean Queer Women Games’ Challenge the Two Sex System in Sports”
Faculty Research Grantees
- Hiba Ali, Art, “Amazonification.”
- Johanna Bard Richlin, Anthropology, “Anxiety, Autonomy, Activism: An Ethnographic Study of Vaccine Hesitancy Among Mothers in Oregon,” Mazie Giustina Fund for Women in the Northwest.
- Corinne Bayerl, Comparative Literature, “The Stage on Trial: Theatrical Battles in Early Modern Europe.”
- Claire Herbert, Sociology, “Mothers Squatting to Secure Housing: A Three-Case Comparison of Organized Illegal Occupation in Detroit, Oakland, and Philadelphia.”
- Masami Kawai, Cinema Studies, “Valley of the Tall Grasses” (film), Mazie Giustina Fund for Women in the Northwest.
- Jina Kim, East Asian Languages and Literatures, “Sounding Women: Chang Tokjo’s Mid-Century Korean Radio Novels (1914-2003).”
- Leah Lowthorp, Anthropology, “Deep Cosmopolitanism: Kutiyattan, Dynamic Tradition, and Global Heritage in India.”
- Ernesto Martinez, Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies, “The Boy Who Became a River” (film).
- Stephen Rodgers, Music, “The Songs of Clara Schumann.”
- Yvette Saavedra, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, “Living la mala vida: Transgressive Feminisms, Morality, and Nationalism in 19th Century California, 1800-1850.”
Related Content
Viral Bodies: AIDS and Other Contagions in Latin American Narrative
by Jon Dell Jaramillo, PhD Candidate Department of Romance Languages
My dissertation analyzes examples of viral bodies which materialize in the works of three Latin American authors who wrote about HIV/AIDS in the 1990s: Reinaldo Arenas (Cuba), Pedro Lemebel (Chile), and Pablo Pérez (Argentina). In many ways, my dissertation responds to the Marxist legal sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, who in his book La cruel pedagogía del virus (2020) calls for new strategies of contamination to overcome pandemics, natural disasters, financial collapses, the triumphant resurgence of authoritarian exceptionalism, and the technical circumvallation of patriarchal capitalist power that now leads the world toward catastrophe—strategies that enter the lives of citizens “por la puerta trasera” (14).
Paradise as a Way of Being: Rethinking Relations in Three French Feminist Authors
by Robin Okumu, PhD, Department of Comparative Literature
On January 26, 2022, in the thick of the Omicron wave of COVID-19 in both France and the US, I met French author Marie Darrieussecq for an interview at her home in Paris’ 15th arrondissement. I sat across from her—unmasked—in the very chair at the desk where she does her writing, while she sat cross-legged on a twin bed that nearly filled the rest of the small room. During a delightful hour and a half, we discussed (in French) to what extent we can read utopian “moments” amidst the dystopian realities in her fiction.
Collegiate Performances at Historic Hayward Field
by Ola Adeniji, PhD Candidate, Department of Human Physiology
Historic Hayward Field has been home to record-breaking performances set by athletes at many levels. Located on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, Hayward Field has hosted over two dozen elite and collegiate championship track and field meets. The highly touted 2021 NCAA Track and Field Championships, followed by the rescheduled 2020 US Olympic Track and Field Trials, were both held in June of last year in the newly renovated stadium. This summer brought athletes and track fans across the globe to participate in and witness the 2022 Oregon World Championships, the first held on US soil.
Masculinization of Maternal Reproductive Health in Rural Ghana
by Elinam Balimenuku Amevor PhD, School of Journalism and Communication
In 2015, the United Nations passed the 2030 Agenda, a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that provide the framework that all member states have pledged to achieve. Among these is the need for good health and well-being for all regardless of their gender. This has reinforced global equity principles that require that women and men have equal opportunities to realize their health potential.
Informal Labor Blues: Gendered Effects of COVID-19 and Beyond on Backward Caste Women in India
by Malvya Chintakindi, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
These quotes illustrate the lived experiences of women I have worked with in the past two years. They belong to backward caste communities—engaged in informal labor economy working jobs as manual scavengers, domestic help, construction labor, cleaners—in India. They constitute a whopping 90 percent of India’s working population, neither regulated nor protected by the state. My research delves into the short-term and potential long-term effects of COVID-19 on women belonging to backward castes engaged in informal labor work in the city of Hyderabad, state of Telangana, India.
The Danger of a Metaphor: The Female Body and Land in Polish Theatre and Performance
by Anna Dulba-Barnett, PhD Candidate, Department of Theatre Arts
I enrolled in UO’s Department of Theatre Arts in 2018 to study ecodramaturgy under the guidance of Professor Theresa May who coined the term and has significantly contributed to the emerging field. She defines the theoretical concept as “play-making (script development and production) that puts ecological reciprocity and community at the centre of its theatrical and thematic intent.” My PhD dissertation will apply this theoretical frame to the study of dramatic literature and performance from Poland, my home country.
Mapping the Decolonial
by Teresa Hernández-Reed, PhD, Department of English
There are few writers who stir in me what Cisneros has across my life, career, and scholarship, and I knew I could not write my dissertation project without her. To that end, the CSWS research grant has made possible the work I engage with in my forthcoming essay, “Mapping the Decolonial,” in the first critical companion to Sandra Cisneros’s oeuvre, ‘¡Ay Tú!’: Critical Essays on the Work and Career of Sandra Cisneros (University of Texas Press). In addition, I pair my reading of her work alongside a community mapping project in Hidalgo County (Texas) of the pioneer Guadalupe Cemetery, which was the first cemetery in South Texas to “permit” the burial of “newcomers,” Mexican immigrants.
Toward a Multi-Directional Feminist Critique of Gender Oppression in the Global South
by Zeinab Nobowati, PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy
Do Muslim women need freedom? Perhaps at the first glance, most feminists would be inclined to respond with a “yes,” given that most of us believe that all women, and all human beings, need freedom in some sense. In the history of philosophy, especially during modernity, freedom has been defined as one of the most valuable ideals that humans pursue in the hope of overcoming alienating and oppressive social norms and structures and in order to flourish. But when it comes to the question of freedom and emancipation of Muslim women, the issue becomes more complicated because it is a question that has become increasingly politicized in our time.
A Critique of Whiteness as Cleanliness
By Annalee Ring, PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy
This research project takes up a genealogical method that unearths taken-for-granted assumptions regard-ing contemporary beliefs and practices surrounding cleanliness. Today cleanliness practices are enacted and are treated as “normal” without considering how they have been shaped by vectors of contingent influences including social and political institutions, technological developments, global politics, and power discrepancies. Further, we surveil and discipline ourselves and one another to enact cleanliness practices that have been normalized.
Women Defending the Theatre in Early Modern Europe
by Corinne Bayerl, Senior Career Instructor, Clark Honors College
With the support of a Center for the Study of Women in Society faculty grant, I was able to devote one month in summer 2021 to working on a chapter of a book manuscript on transnational debates over the legitimacy of theatre in Early Modern Europe. While the book as a whole examines the conflicts between supporters and opponents of the theatre across national boundaries and confessional divides, this chapter deals specifically with the role of female theatre practitioners who took on a leading role in the defense of public performances.
Resisting and Reclaiming: Housing Occupations by Homeless Mothers in Three US Cities
by Claire Herbert, PhD, and Amanda Ricketts, MA, Department of Sociology
Amidst growing economic inequality and rising housing costs in the US, more people are rent-burdened, homeless, or living in over-crowded, substandard, or unstable conditions. This crisis cleaves along pervasive axes of inequality, disproportionately impacting the well-being of women of color and their children, leading to the feminization of homelessness and other housing problems (Bullock et al. 2020; Desmond 2016). Research also highlights the way mothers, and impoverished Black communities, navigate various obstacles to survive and thrive, using informal strategies and networks, or by engaging in what scholars call “activist mothering” (Pittman and Oakley 2018).
Airing It Out: Women’s Role in Korean Radio Broadcasting
By Jina Kim, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages & Literatures
In recent years, Korean TV dramas have become a significant presence on the international television circuit, so much so that some of the most watched shows on over-the-top (OTT) platforms are Korean TV dramas. The Netflix-produced Korean drama Squid Game (2021) and The Glory (2023) are just two of many that have received critical and widespread acclaim, bringing much attention to Korean dramatic storytelling texts. However, what often gets overlooked in these televisual texts are the scenarists who pen these successful stories, many of whom are women writers.
The Songs of Clara Schumann
by Stephen Rodgers, Professor and Edmund A. Cykler Chair in Music, School of Music and Dance
In April 2023, Cambridge University Press published my book, The Songs of Clara Schumann, the first book in Cambridge’s Music in Context series to be devoted to the music of a woman composer. Clara Schumann was one of the most talented musicians of the 19th century—a formidable pianist who maintained an active career as a concert performer for 63 years, and a composer who wrote piano music, songs, choral works, chamber music, and instrumental music. But to this day she lies in the shadow of her more famous husband, the composer Robert Schumann. My book places Clara Schumann’s music front and center, focusing on her small but extraordinary output of songs.