News

Durba Mitra to give May 13 Acker-Morgen lecture

On May 13, Harvard scholar Durba Mitra will be presenting the 2026 Acker-Morgen Lecture, "What if Gathering Together Liberated Us?" Mitra is the Richard B. Wolf Associate Professor in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. 

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RIG applications due May 1

Graduate students and faculty are invited to apply for up to $1,000 in funding to organize CSWS Research Interest Groups (RIGs) for the 2026-27 academic year. 

RIGs provide participants the opportunity to discuss readings of emerging and established feminist scholars and share their research. Funding may be used to pay for reading materials, catering, visits by scholars, on-campus symposia and conferences, and similar campus events. Groups are encouraged to use RIGs as the foundation for future conferences and symposia, course development, and publications. 

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CSWS seeks panelists for Utopian Studies conference

For the Nov. 5–7 Portland conference, CSWS is organizing a panel that engages with gender and utopia, and we are seeking graduate student and faculty participants who can address the topic of "feminist futures" through their research across disciplines at the University of Oregon.

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April 29 Noon Talk to feature Baroque music live performance

For the first time, a CSWS Noon Talk will feature live musical performances. 2025 Faculty Research Fellow Joyce Wei-Jo Chen, an assistant professor in the School of Music and Dance, will be sharing her research, “Cherchez la femme: Music by Baroque Women Composers.” The talk explores how music by Baroque women composers comes to life through performance, teaching, and collaboration.

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CLLAS research cooloquium to explore Latine worldmaking

The Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) is pleased to host a research colloquium, "Latine Worldmaking: Queer Ecologies, Migration, and Belonging," featuring faculty and graduate student scholars whose work explores how migration, embodiment, environment, and cultural production shape Latine experiences of belonging. Through literature, media, performance, and critical theory, this event highlights interdisciplinary approaches to identity, place, and community across Latinx and Latin American contexts.

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Alisa Freedman featured in CAS Connection

Japanese Popular Culture and the World is a well-attended class in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) taught by Alisa Freedman, professor of Japanese literature and culture and CSWS faculty research fellow. She created the class a decade ago to help students better understand the trends they love, their culture and social meanings, and the patterns of globalization they represent.

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RIG info session set for April 8

Graduate students and faculty are invited to apply for up to $1,000 in funding to organize CSWS Research Interest Groups (RIGs) for the 2026-27 academic year. An info session for prospective and returning RIG applicants will be held 4–5 p.m. Wednesday, April 8 in the CSWS Acker Room (340A Hendricks Hall).

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Martinez awarded prestigious Oregon-based Fields Fellowship

On Jan. 13, 2026, Martínez was awarded $150,000 over two years from the Oregon Community Foundation in partnership with Oregon Humanities. The fellowship supports Oregon artists who use creativity and cultural expressions to address communities. The fellowship award comes at a time when Martínez is wrapping up and beginning film stories that tell the experiences of queer Latinx youth and the immigrant experience in the US.

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Students and faculty mentors invited to Feb 18 info session

CSWS is hosting an Information Session for students an faculty mentors interested in applying for our newest research initiative—the CSWS Undergraduate STEAM Summer Fellowship.

Over summer, undergraduate fellows collaborate with University of Oregon faculty mentors to develop interdisciplinary research and creative projects that engage with STEAM fields—science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. Our STEAM fellows approach their inquiry with gender and intersectionality as an analytical framework. 

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CSWS affiliate Tien-Tien Yu investigates dark matter

Research by University of Oregon particle physicist and CSWS affiliate Tien-Tien Yu is featured in Oregon News this week. Yu is investigating the mysterious material known as dark matter. She co-founded an experiment called SENSEI, which uses highly sensitive detectors similar to those found in digital cameras to look for dark matter candidates and interactions.

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Bayerl featured in CHC Newsletter

Teaching secrets: Tapping into our innate curiosity and affinity for sharing coded messages, award-winning CHC instructor and CSWS Faculty Research Grant Fellow Corinne Bayerl leverages her research on cryptography to engage students and create community in the classroom.

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New NW comics art exhibit curated by Kate Kelp-Stebbins

CSWS affiliate Kate Kelp-Stebbins, associate professor of English and director of comics and cartoon studies, has curated the grand opening exhibit for the new Northwest Museum of Comic Arts (NWMOCA) in Portland.

According to NWMOCA, the Pacific Northwest is recognized as one of the most vital comics hubs in the United States. Portland has one of the highest population of professional cartoonists per capita of any major city, and its status as a cartoon capital has grown steadily since the early 2000s.

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Registration open for Dec. 9 grant writing workshop

The grant writing workshop with Michael Murashige, writing consultant for the Center on Diversity and Community, will be held 12–1 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 9, in the Knight Library DREAM Lab (Room 122). The workshop will help graduate students write a strong CSWS grant application by reviewing important elements and some common oversights. Registration required.

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2025 Annual Review now available

Thanks to your continued support, CSWS is uniquely privileged in offering space, time, and resources that enable faculty and students to attend to the unfinished projects of feminism. Enjoy the articles and interviews featured in this issue that provide a window into the field-changing work undertaken by our associates as they shape just and egalitarian feminist futures.

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Worried About Graduate-level Writing? You’re Not Alone

Writing is a foundational skill for success in graduate school. Unlike undergraduate writing, which often focuses on summarizing research, graduate-level writing asks students to develop and articulate new knowledge, adding to scholarship and inspiring change. Many incoming graduate students, even at top institutions, are not prepared for this level of academic writing. Innovative and accessible writing resources address this disconnect, strengthening essential writing skills and expanding meaningful mentorship opportunities.

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Affiliates win Trustee Excellence Fund awards

Three CSWS faculty affiliates have received the University of Oregon Foundation’s Trustee Excellence Fund awards that support high-impact research, scholarship, and creative activity by UO faculty. The awards were selected for their potential to generate meaningful societal outcomes and their commitment to student engagement.

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Burkert's London Stage Datatbase project featured in CAS Connection

Excerpted from June 9 CAS Connection, story by Jenny Brooks — Going to the theater in London in the 18th century was a good time—and a transformative time. Playhouses across the city were bursting with activity as crowd-pleasing favorites from the heyday of Shakespeare mixed with slapstick entertainments and boundary-pushing artistic experimentation. These shows drew lively, often raucous audiences from a mix of social and economic classes that seldom crossed paths elsewhere. 

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Guillemin named as 'Emerging Inventor'

From Oregon NewsCSWS affiliate Karen Guillemin, Biology, has been named to the National Academy of Inventors, a designation that recognizes visionaries and innovators whose technologies brought, or aspire to bring, a real impact on society.

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Affiliates win 2025 UO Distinguished Teaching Awards

Adapted from Oregon News.

Four CSWS affiliates — Lana Lopesi, Adell Amos, Corrine Bayerl, and Amanda Wojick — have been selected to win this year’s Distinguished Teaching Awards, which recognize exceptional teaching at the University of Oregon. 

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CSWS to take part in 2025 Ducks Give

May 15 is the University of Oregon's 10th annual Ducks Give, and CSWS is participating for the first time. 

On Thursday, we ask for your help in funding interdisciplinary undergraduate projects focused on gender across the disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and the Arts (STEAM) that will solve the problems of tomorrow with innovative thinking and cutting-edge research. 

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2025-26 CSWS research grant awards announced

The Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) is pleased to announce funding awards for AY 2025-26 totaling $80,000 for scholarship, research, and creative work on women and gender at the University of Oregon. A total of 17 grants were given to 12 graduate students and four faculty members.

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Back at the UO, Geri Richmond looks back on her federal service

Story by Matt Cooper. Photo by Nicolas Walcott. Published April 9, 2025 in OregonNews. Geri Richmond is a CSWS faculty affiliate.

After serving four years as undersecretary for science and innovation at the U.S. Department of Energy, chemistry professor Geraldine “Geri” Richmond is back at the University of Oregon’s Eugene campus.

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Faith Barter explores antebellum Black authorship in new book

A new book by CSWS affiliate Faith Barter, assistant professor of English at the UO, explores Black writers as architects of legal possibility in the antebellum South. Her book, Black Pro Se: Authorship and the Limits of Law in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature (2025) was published by University of North Carolina Press. She received a 2019-20 CSWS Faculty Research Grant for this project.

Publisher's description:

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Info session for CSWS research interest groups set for April 9

Graduate students and faculty are invited to apply for up to $1,000 in funding to organize CSWS Research Interest Groups (RIGs) for the 2025-26 academic year. An info session for prospective and returning RIG applicants will be held 3–4 p.m. Wednesday, April 9 in the CSWS Jane Grant Room (330 Hendricks Hall).

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Feb. 28 teach-in to address post-election politics impacting minority groups

On Feb. 28, the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) presents “Gender as Target: US 2024 Elections and Aftermath,” a teach-in featuring University of Oregon faculty and GTFF representatives discussing how gender and race discourses informed the recent election cycle and ways we can collectively respond to the barrage of policies impacting immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities today. 

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Feb. 12 info session for new CSWS undergraduate fellowship

An info session will be held 3 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12, in 330 Hendricks (CSWS Jane Grant Room) for students and advisors interested in applying to the 2025 CSWS Undergraduate STEAM Summer Fellowship.

Launching this year with funding from our 50th anniversary Duckfunder campaign, the new fellowship is intended to create 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.

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Julie Weise receives NEH grant

CSWS research fellow Julie Weise, associate professor of history, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. Her project "Guest Worker: Lives across Borders in an Age of Prosperity, 1919-75" examines the experiences of guest workers in the middle of the twentieth century, focused on three cases—Mexicans in the U.S., Spaniards in France, and Malawians in South Africa. 

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CSWS launches undergraduate fellowship

University of Oregon undergraduate students have a new way to participate in the research mission of CSWS.

Launching this year with funding from the Center's 50th anniversary Duckfunder campaign, the CSWS Undergraduate STEAM Summer Fellowship is intended to create 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. 

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CSWS research grant applications due Jan. 27

CSWS invites applications for all 2025-26 faculty, staff, and graduate student research grants to support research and/or creative work that addresses women and gender from a range of disciplines across UO colleges and schools. Applications are due 5 p.m.

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CSWS grants info session set for Nov. 18

If your research, scholarship, or creative work engages with the complexities of women’s lives or the complicated nature of intersectional gender identities and inequalities, then you should apply for research funding from the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS).

As the 2025-26 grant funding cycle rapidly approaches, CSWS will be hosting an information session and a grant writing workshop to support graduate students, faculty, and staff through the funding application process.

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Oct. 25 talk looks at soft-porn in South Asian cinema

Darshana Sreedhar Mini, assistant professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be giving a talk Friday, Oct. 25, on "Madakarani as Screen Pleasure: Scandal and Soft-porn Imaginary." The free lecture will be held 3–5 p.m. in 145 Straub Hall, 1451 Onyx St, at the University of Oregon, Eugene. 

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