by Jenée Wilde, Senior Instructor, Department of English
“One of the things that became clear during the pandemic is that graduate students were the most affected by lockdowns, but the institution made the least room for addressing how they were affected,” says CSWS Director Sangita Gopal. “Faculty could take a break from research, but graduate students didn’t have that leisure.”
This spring, CSWS resumed the Acker–Morgen Memorial Lecture series after winter weather and pandemic conditions had thwarted the event for the last three years. On May 20, we were thrilled to welcome on campus Dr. Raka Ray, a professor of sociology and South and Southeast Asia studies and dean of social sciences at UC Berkeley. She specializes in gender and feminist theory, domination and inequality, the emerging middle classes, and social movements. Below, political science graduate student Olivia Atkinson offers a personal reflection on Ray’s talk:
by Sangita Gopal, CSWS Director
On June 24, 2022, in a historic and far-reaching decision, the US Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion—upheld for nearly a half-century—no longer exists. The majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization proposes that the various provisions of the Constitution contain no inherent right to privacy or personal autonomy. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito stated unequivocally that abortion is a matter to be decided by the states.
CSWS sponsored three talks during winter and spring 2023. We invited five of our graduate student affiliates below to share some thoughts on the talks’ themes.
February 16: “Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America”
March 13: “The Right’s Gender Wars and the Assault on Democracy”
April 21: “Just Get on the Pill: The Uneven Burden of Reproductive Politics”
by Jeongon Choi, PhD Candidate, Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures
The market success of South Korean television dramas in Asian countries during the 2000s was termed Hallyu 1.0, and their narrative trend centered on Cinderella stories. So-called candy girl characters who charm aristocratic men with their cheerful and hard-working attitude still define K-drama now, and even though these Cinderella romances usually end up in the acceptance of patriarchal ideology, the candy girl story is not merely a fantasy about longing for upward marriage.
By Brooke Burns, PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy
After witnessing the cruelty inflicted upon the Indigenous Arawak peoples of the Caribbean islands in 1514, Spanish priest Bartolemé de Las Casas underwent a “conversion experience” that would take him on a journey across the Atlantic Ocean to first meet with King Ferdinand II and later with the co-regents of Charles V. There, he argued for the abolition of the encomienda system, and as a replacement for labor proposed the importation of 4,000 African people into the Caribbean islands.
By Isabella Clark, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology
My dissertation examines multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), a condition where people experience physical symptoms in response to “normal” doses of everyday chemicals. These symptoms vary and include brain fog, rashes, headaches, respiratory problems, nausea, and fatigue, amongst other things. MCS is a contested illness; its material reality is often dismissed in favor of a psychological explanation by both doctors and lay people.
by Gloria Macedo-Janto, PhD Student, Department of Romance Languages
To better understand a 20-year period of political violence in Peru, in this project I analyze the testimonies of Andean women, especially from the Ayacucho area, to make visible their contribution to the reconstruction of an important part of Peruvian history. In accordance with their worldview and their roles as women, in their tragic and painful testimonies they tell how they suffered ethnic and gender discrimination, and it is observed that they are capable of recalling many details and telling their experiences from different perspectives and with their own narrative.
by Daizi Hazarika, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
During the winter of 2023, with the help of a CSWS graduate student research award, I had an opportunity to visit Assam, India, for two months to conduct dissertation research on witch-hunting and witch-killing. During my field trip to Assam, I conducted research in Guwahati (the capital city of Assam) and a village called Dabli, among the Rabha community (a tribal community of Assam) in the Goalpara subdivision of this region. In Guwahati, I interacted with several government officials regarding their perceptions of the current-day witch-hunting in Assam and the steps taken by the Assamese government to combat this practice.