Dear
 Friends, 

by Jenée Wilde, Senior Instructor, Department of English, CSWS Dissemination Specialist

Last year, in the early stages of pandemic lockdown, then-CSWS director and law professor Michelle McKinley began receiving panicked emails from faculty friends and Center affiliates who are caregivers. With 4J schools and childcare facilities shut down, as well as shortages in long-term elder care services, how were they supposed to fulfill their teaching and research commitments at the university while also meeting the labor-intensive care needs of others?  

by Jenée Wilde, Senior Instructor, Department of English, CSWS Dissemination Specialist

Anthropology professor Gyoung-Ah Lee has stepped up to lead the Women of Color (WOC) Project at CSWS—a role formerly held by Interim Director Sangita Gopal, associate professor of cinema studies. 

Interview by Jenée Wilde, Senior Instructor, Department of English, CSWS Dissemination Specialist

With a background in comparative media studies and postcolonial theory, Associate Professor Sangita Gopal came to the University of Oregon in 2004 to teach cinema studies in the Department of English. Over time she saw the popular program grow from an English concentration into a unique tri-school major, then into its own department housed in the College of Arts and Sciences.  

CSWS events have always served as informal sites for networking, support, and mentorship among women faculty and graduate students across campus. When the pandemic shut down our regular programming last year, the Women of Color (WOC) Project filled this need with a virtual books-in-print event series celebrating recent monographs by WOC faculty affiliates.  

by Judith Raiskin, Associate Professor, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

by Lina Stepick, Lola Loustaunau, Larissa Petrucci, and Ellen Scott 

Despite the continuing threat of COVID-19, and after token efforts such as “hazard pay” to recognize the threat to frontline workers, life in grocery and other retail stores has returned to a new normal of work during a pandemic. Work continues to be dangerous for “essential workers.” 

by Cristina Faiver-Serna, MPH, PhD, Department of Geography

by Parichehr Kazemi, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science 

by Molly McBride, PhD Candidate Department of Anthropology

by Stephanie Mastrostefano, PhD Candidate, Department of English

by Lara Boyero Agudo , PhD Candidate,  Department of Romance Languages 

“If you are white and speak Spanish, people say: ‘Wow, that’s awesome, you speak two languages’; but if you are Hispanic, speaking Spanish, it’s more like: ‘Oh, another wetback’... and people don’t recognize you as bilingual.” —Luz, Mexican woman resident in Springfield, OR  

by Polet Campos-Melchor , PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology

By Katherine M. Huber , PhD Candidate, Department of English