CSWS Annual Review

Marcio Freitas’ “Nunca Me Calarei” (I Will Never be Silenced) features the faces of women who have experienced gender-based violence in Brazil / photo by Emily Masucci.

"The Struggle Continues": Gender-Based Violence and the Politics of Justice and Care in Brazil

by Emily Masucci, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology For many historically marginalized women, the state and its institutions are not perceived as reliable. State-sponsored violence against women—low-income, afro-descendant, and indigenous women in particular—is a weapon with which the Brazilian state was founded and has maintained power since. The fabric of Brazil is stained by histories of forced sterilization of indigenous and afro-descendant women, of brutal rapes of young women students by military officials during the dictatorship, and recently by the calculated political feminicide of Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman Marielle Franco. Given this legacy, survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) are justifiably apprehensive of appealing to state institutions as they pursue safety and redress.
(From left) Karla FC Holloway and Ulrick Casimir

Writing A Death in Harlem: A Conversation with Karla FC Holloway

Interview by Ulrick Casimir, Career Instructor, Department of English Nella Larsen’s classic novel Passing (1929) features one hell of an ending. We know that one of its main characters, Clare Kendry, lies dead after falling from a window, but we don’t know whether she was pushed by her friend Irene Redfield or simply slipped and fell. We know what may have led Irene to do what she may or may not have done, but we don’t know whether the betrayal Irene suspects, between her husband and Clare, even occurred. We know the broad strokes and terminus of the connection between these two women—but the novel ends without the hinted-at intimate dimensions of their relationship ever finding air.
San Jose George Floyd Protests: A protester takes a knee in front of San Jose Police officers during a protest on East Santa Clara Street in San Jose, Calif., on May 29, 2020, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. / Photo by Dai Sugano, MediaNews Group, The Mercury News via Getty Images

2019-2020 Year in Review: A Letter from the Director

Dear Friends,

The year in review feature is generally an easy column for the Director to write. As the title suggests, I look back with a sense of pride and satisfaction at a year of successful events, celebrate our guest speakers who sparked insightful conversations, and chronicle our community-building activities that strengthened our bonds as feminist scholars on campus. This year suspends all expectations. I even tried to find a "natural" point of pause to begin this retrospective. There simply wasn't an end to the daily onslaught of misery in these times.

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