Faculty Research
Oct. 16 dance performance capstones CSWS Faculty Fellowship
Graduate Research
When the English breaks: art y etnografia in the margins of the state
The more I encounter other Latine artistas, more I learn about what is possible to say, write, and create under political precarity. There is a common force affecting both our crafts (arte and etnografia) which is state repression. With these interlocutors I share not only vivências of diaspora, but also the struggle to self-express under conditions of silencing. During interviews and daily interactions, I am constantly listening to stories that never quite finish, hesitations, and... Something unclear, often called “climate,” “news,” “what’s happening,” something hunting us, about to knock our doors, about to stop us on traffic, something I can’t quite name, gets disappeared.
Undergraduate Research
2026 Undergraduate STEAM Fellows announced
University of Oregon students Claire Jones and Michelle Rogers have been named 2026 Undergraduate STEAM Summer Fellows by the Center for the Study of Women in Society.
Launched in 2025 with funding from our 50th anniversary Duckfunder campaign, this undergraduate fellowship creates opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborations among science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) faculty and students on campus and to enhance pathways for underrepresented students in STEAM to succeed.
Spotlight
What If Gathering Together Liberated Us?
The Ford Lecture Hall is buzzing as students and faculty chat animatedly, plates of food and drinks in hand. At the front of the high-ceilinged room in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, guest of honor Dr. Durba Mitra chats amiably with CSWS Director Sangita Gopal. There’s a delay while museum staff work to fix the podium’s microphone, but no one is in a rush. Here in this windowless lecture hall, friends and colleagues catch up, laugh at jokes, and talk excitedly about their latest research. There’s a communal feeling in this space that reflects the focus of tonight’s talk: What if gathering together liberated us?
Faculty Fellowships Fall 2026 Deadline
Applications are available for 2027–28 CSWS Faculty Research Fellowships, which provide University of Oregon faculty with one course release for a term of reduced or no teaching to pursue work on any aspect of the study of women and/or gender. All faculty award applications are due Monday, October 26, 2026. Fellowship and grant award funds are for use from July 1, 2027, through June 30, 2028.
2025 Research Fellow: Joyce Chen
Joyce Chen is Assistant Professor of Historical Keyboards and Musicology in the Department of Music at the University of Oregon. She received a 2025–26 CSWS Faculty Research Award for her project "Cherchez la femme: Music by Baroque Woman Composers."
2025 Research Fellow: Hoda Sobhani
Film director Hoda Sobhani was awarded a 2025-2026 CSWS Graduate Student Research Grant in support of her short animated documentary "That Night" (2025).
CSWS Research Grant Fellows
Feminist Environmental Justice in Practice: Women as Agents of Change in the Niger Delta's Oil Conflict
In 2002, in an oil field in the Niger Delta, 200 to 300 women, farmers, mothers, and grandmothers from the Ijaw and Itsekiri villages walked onto a Chevron exploration site and simply refused to leave. They had no weapons. Their only threat was one that struck terror into the company’s representatives: they undressed, and, in their culture, for a woman to bare herself before men who have wronged her community is an act of profound, irreversible shame upon those men. This demonstration lasted ten days, after which Chevron promised to build new schools, clinics, and provide jobs for their husbands and sons. By 2003, none had materialized.
Beyond the Reproductive Gaze: Producing Knowledge, Resistance, and Relief through Nigerian Women's Narratives of Endometriosis
“They said the ‘dirty blood’ will come out when I give birth,” 33-year-old Fola (pseudonym) shared with fresh realization of the false hope she was offered about 20 years ago. She anticipated childbirth as a potential source of relief from her debilitating menstrual cramps, but experienced disappointment when confronted with infertility, another symptom of endometriosis.
Andean Women with No Future: Gender Stereotypes in the Literature of Political Violence in Peru
During the years of internal armed conflict in the Andean country of Peru (1980–2000), as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) concluded, Andean women were victimized because of their gender and ethnicity. They played a significant role in the search for the disappeared and in caring for the survivors. However, their contributions have been recognized only from a paternalistic perspective, positioning them as minor heroines of their Andean communities. For this reason, their voices have not been included or taken into account in constructing the overarching narrative of the 20 years of political violence.
CSWS Faculty Affiliate Research
Chateaubriand Across Empires
Seeking Justice for Gendered Violence: Courts, Communities, and Care in Guatemala
From the publisher: “Guatemala is one of the first countries in Latin America to codify femicide as a crime and establish separate, victim-centric institutions of justice specializing in Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), including specialized courts and public prosecutors. Despite these pathbreaking legal reforms, Indigenous women in Guatemala face formidable barriers to seeking justice and escaping the multiple, overlapping forms of violence that they confront.
Sex and Gender: Toward Transforming Scientific Practice
The Master-Servant Doctrine: How Old Legal Rules Haunt the Modern Workplace
CSWS Spotlight Interviews
CSWS Director Sangita Gopal sits down with Eleanor Paynter, Assistant Professor in Italian, Migration, and Global Media Studies at the University of Oregon to talk about her book Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present (2024).
Sangita Gopal, Director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society, speaks with Professor Alaimo about her research, discussing previous important work as well as her most recent findings, fears and hopes. Alaimo is Barbara and Carlisle Moore Professor in English and Core Faculty in Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. Her most recent book is The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep-sea Life, Posthumanities Series, University of Minnesota Press, 2025.