CSSD Executive Committee Member Featured on The Dean’s Table Podcast
Professor Claudio Lomnitz chats with Fredrick Harris, Dean of Social Sciences at Columbia University, on his podcast.
In Episode 2 of The Dean’s Table, Professor Claudio Lomnitz, former co-director of CSSD working group Borders and Boundaries, joins Dean Harris to discuss the multiple migrations of his past; his views on the role of the public intellectual; the challenges of adapting scholarship to the creative arts; and the conflict-ridden relationship between Mexico and the United States.
Click here to listen!
Professor Claudio Lomnitz works on the history, politics and culture of Latin America, and particularly of Mexico. He has a PhD from Stanford in 1987, and his first book, Evolución de una sociedad rural (Mexico City, 1982) was a study of politics and cultural change in Tepoztlán, Mexico.
The Dean's Table is the latest initiative of Dean Fredrick Harris, Dean of Social Sciences, Columbia University. This series features the lives, work, and imagination of scholars from across Columbia's social science disciplines.
RGFGV Media Fellow Published on Elle.com
Samira Shackle writes article discussing the blackmail of Pakistani women on Facebook.
Samira Shackle, Media Fellow for the CSSD working group Religion and the Global Framing of Gender Violence, published an article in Elle UK online detailing increasing harassment and blackmail faced by Pakistani women on Facebook.
The article highlights the growing number of cases of abusive ex-partners who post photos of their non-marital relationships on social media, an act that can cause serious problems for women in Pakistan, including suicide.
Click here to read the article.
Samira Shackle is one of three Media Fellows awarded reporting grants by CSSD working group Religion and the Global Framing of Gender Violence in September 2017. After participating in an international workshop with scholars and activists hosted at the Columbia Global Center in Amman, the media fellows traveled to the Middle East to research stories that could reframe understandings of the relationship between gender violence and religion.
RGFGV Media Fellow Pens article for The Intercept
Maryam Saleh writes about the ways in which Syrian women in Turkey are redefining their independence.
Maryam Saleh, Media Fellow for CSSD working group Religion and the Global Framing of Gender Violence, explores the tangible shift many Syrian women living in Turkey have experienced over the last seven years. As a result of the ongoing conflict in Syria which began in 2011, many Syrian women have found themselves having unexpectedly frank conversations about the political and cultural forces that have stymied their growth. Saleh’s article uncovers how women have been able to renegotiate their social standing and push back against patriarchal norms due to the various factors brought on by the war.
Click here to read more.
Maryam Saleh is a recipient of a media fellowship from CSSD working group Religion and the Global Framing of Gender Violence. After participating in an international workshop with scholars and activists hosted at the Columbia Global Center in Amman, the media fellows traveled to the Middle East to research stories that could reframe understandings of the relationship between gender violence and religion.
RGFGV Faculty Fellow Published on The Express Tribune
Dr. Shenilla Khoja-Moolji discusses the issue of sexual exploitation in the aid sector.
Religion and the Global Framing of Gender Violence faculty fellow Dr. Shenilla Khoja-Moolji discusses the culture of impunity that surrounds sexual violence and exploitation by foreign charities in developing countries. She draws parallels between the recent More Than Me scandal in Liberia and her home country of Pakistan to illustrate the prevalence of this issue, and provides recommendations on what must be done to prevent them from happening and ensure strict action is taken against perpetrators.
Click here to read more.
Dr. Shenilla Khoja-Moolji is a postdoctoral Fellow, in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research problematizes the centering of girls’ education and empowerment as a solution to societal problems, especially in relation to Muslim-majority nations.
CSSD project director shares thoughts on "Period. End of Sentence." winning an Oscar
Menstrual Health and Gender Justice project director Inga Winkler writes about the significance of Period. End of Sentence. Oscar win.
We are thrilled that Period. End of Sentence. won an Oscar at last night's Academy Awards. Here are some thoughts from the Director of our CSSD working group Menstrual Health and Gender Justice:
Is there a better sign of periods finally going mainstream than a documentary about menstruation winning at the Oscars?
”Period. End of Sentence.” documents the efforts of Sneha and other women in Kathikehra in India to produce pads for their village, to improve menstrual health, and to enable women and girls to “rise and fly” as they put it.
The solutions to menstrual health certainly do not lie in pads alone. Menstruation is about so much more than blood. At the root of all challenges related to menstruation lies the stigma that surrounds it, and to change that we need more than pads to bleed on. The film shows how embarrassed girls and boys are when they are asked to speak about periods – and having a pad to hide the fact that you’re menstruating won’t change that.
Yet, the women and girls in Kathikhera show how pads can be an entry point to start a broader conversation about menstruation in Kathikehra, in Delhi, and now at the Oscars. Menstrual stigma certainly not only exists in India, and we need to have the very same conversation in the United States. We should use the current menstrual momentum to start working towards a society where menstruating women are not dismissed as ‘too emotional’ and unfit for decision-making, where health care providers take menstruators' symptoms serious and ensure a quick diagnosis for menstrual disorders, and where adolescents can see menstruation as an opportunity to engage with their body rather than something to be embarrassed about.
The women in Kathikhera find that the world is moving forward because of women, and indeed they are Women Creating Change who set an example for all of us.
-Inga Winkler, Director of CSSD working group Menstrual Health and Gender Justice
Jack Halberstam Featured in Politics/Letters
The director of CSSD working group, Queer Theory, publishes piece entitled, “My Struggle: Confessions of a Tall, Aryan White Man – Volume 7.”
Jack Halberstam, director of CSSD working group Queer Theory and Professor of English and Gender at Columbia, recently published an essay in the quarterly journal and webzine, Politics/Letters. The essay, entitled, “My Struggle: Confessions of a Tall, Aryan White Man – Volume 7,” is on the final book of Karl Ove Knausgaard's autobiographical series.
The full piece can be read here.
To learn more about Jack Halberstam’s contributions to CSSD, see selections on ourblog,YouTube channel and theQueer Theory project page.
Frances Negron-Muntaner Interviewed about Hometown San Juan
Co-Director of the CSSD working group Unpayable Debt interviewed by Worlds Without Borders about life in San Juan and the influence the city has had on her work.
Frances Negron-Muntaner, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia as well as Co-Director of CSSD working group Unpayable Debt, was recently interviewed about her hometown San Juan in Worlds Without Borders.
In the interview she talks about the different neighborhoods of San Juan and how they all represent different sides of the city. She also discusses how the city and her memories there have influenced her work. The full feature can be read here.
CSSD Executive Committee Member Featured in NBC New York Article
Professor Claudio Lomnitz interviewed by NBC New York for a piece discussing Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar-Nominated film “Roma.”
Professor of Anthropology Claudio Lomnitz was interviewed for an NBC New York piece examining the depiction of 1970s Mexico in Alfonso Cuarón's film Roma. Professor Lomnitz offered historical context for the film's story and discussed how Mexican society has changed in the intervening years.
"The movie is to a great extent a story about modernization," said Professor Lomnitz. "We see two rural girls come from Oaxaca who have moved to the city. They are indigenous and they speak Mixtec, but they also speak Spanish, they go to the movies, they have sex."
The movie Roma is a drama that provides a gripping glimpse of Mexican society at the cusp of great social change in the early 1970s, a time of migration, urbanization and cultural transformation.
Click here to read the full article.
Professor Claudio Lomnitz works on the history, politics and culture of Latin America, and particularly of Mexico. He has a PhD from Stanford in 1987, and his first book, Evolución de una sociedad rural (Mexico City, 1982) was a study of politics and cultural change in Tepoztlán, Mexico.
The New Yorker Publishes Book Excerpt from Professor Saidiya Hartman
The forthcoming Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by former co-director of CSSD working group Engendering the Archive is set to be published February 19, 2019.
Saidiya Hartman, former co-director of CSSD working group Engendering the Archive, published in The New Yorker’s February 9, 2019 issue. The piece, “An Unnamed Girl, A Speculative History,” is an essay taken from her soon to be published book. The forthcoming Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval is set to be released February 19, 2019.
To read The New Yorker essay click here.
For more on Saidiya Hartman’s work at CSSD, see selections on our blog, YouTube channel and the Engendering the Archive project page.
Frances Negrón-Muntaner Publishes Article with the Hemispheric Institute
Co-director of CSSD working group Unpayable Debt: Capital, Violence, and the New Global Economy pens essay on the history of population expulsion policies in Puerto Rico.
In “The Emptying Island: Puerto Rican Expulsion in Post-Maria Time,” Unpayable Debt co-director Frances Negrón-Muntaner discusses the recent exodus of Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and its connection to a larger process of population expulsion policies in Puerto Rico over the last 525 years.
Negrón-Muntaner argues that “colonial emptying, rather than “normal” population growth, has been the most common experience in Puerto Rico” since Christopher Columbus claimed it for Spain in 1493. She traces back more than 100 years of US policies on the island that have efficiently exported hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans to the US mainland, highlighting the social, economic, and political implications of this “emptying island.”
Click here to read the article.
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer, curator, scholar and professor at Columbia University, where she is also the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive.
CSSD Welcomes Ayah Eldosougi, Program Coordinator
Join us in welcoming Ayah Eldosougi to the full-time staff of CSSD!
We are thrilled to announce that the Center for the Study of Social Difference has a new full-time staff member. Ayah Eldosougi, who has been invaluable at CSSD as a part-time temporary employee since last September, is now on board as full-time CSSD Program Coordinator.
Ayah played a key role in prepping for our Sep 28th anniversary symposium and in managing volunteer staff for our two-day Vernacular Photography event with the Walther Collection in October. She has been crucial in the smooth operation of several other events and especially of financial operations at CSSD in the past few months.
As Program Coordinator, Ayah will be working with us on event planning, working group communications, publicity and social media, and the management of our work study team, among other projects.
Click here to read Ayah’s bio!
Farah Jasmine Griffin Leads the New African American and African Diaspora Studies Department
Co-director of CSSD working group Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women chairs Columbia’s newly created department.
This past winter, Columbia University’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to create the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department.
Farrah J. Griffin, co-director of CSSD working group Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women and director of CSSD affiliate Institute for Research in African-American Studies, will lead the department as its first chair.
The development of the new department is the latest growth spurt in a scholarly interpretation of the black experience that began at Columbia in the early 20th century. According to Griffin, “the study of black life, in the western hemisphere in particular, is something that Columbia has been engaging in, and has been at the forefront of, since Zora Neale Hurston began her work here.” Griffin believes the new department will bring a fresh approach to the discipline at a crucial moment for race relations and black identity in our society.
Click here to read more.
Click here to learn more about the newly created African American and African Diaspora Studies Department.
Frances Negron Muntaner Launches Social Currency Project in Puerto Rico
The Valor y Cambio project is a response to the current economic crisis faced by the Caribbean island.
Unpayable Debt working group co-director Professor Frances Negron Muntaner, along with artist Sarabel Santos-Negron have created the social currency project Valor y Cambio set to launch in Puerto Rico. The project promotes the values of solidarity, equity, justice and creativity through the development of notes bearing the faces of different figures chosen for their commitment to a more fair Puerto Rico.
The creation of this social currency harkens back to discussions prompted at Unpayable Debt’s Reimagining Money workshop last October, where participants were asked to create their own forms of social currency.
To read the full article on the Valor y Cambio project click here
For more about the project visit the project website.
For coverage of the Unpayable Debt workshop visit our blog and twitter repcaps of the event.
Reframing Gendered Violence Working Group Hosts Public Workshop on Transgender Violence
The two-day Reframing Transgender Violence workshop featured scholars, activists, attorneys, and graduate students working across issues of transgender violence and justice.
Held on Thursday, January 24th and Friday, January 25th, and organized by Reframing Gendered Violence working group co-director Professor Kendall Thomas, the Reframing Transgender Violence workshop served as space for presenters to share their various work on the topic and interact with audience members through discussion. Speakers at the workshop included Catherine Clune-Taylor, Asli Zengin, Chinyere Ezie, Chase Strangio, Sergio Suiama, Joss Taylor Greene, C. Riley Snorton and Christina B. Hanhardt.
For a recap of the workshop visit our blog.
A full-length video of the workshop will be made available to the public in the hope of continuing the conversation.
Tey Meadow Interviewed in a Recent Piece for The Atlantic
Queer Theory: Here, Now, and Everywhere faculty fellow featured in an article on young trans children
Queer Theory: Here, Now, and Everywhere working group faculty fellow Tey Meadow was quoted in a recent piece for The Atlantic on new research findings which demonstrate strong self-knowledge and identity sense of young trans children.
The study by Kristina Olson, a psychologist at the University of Washington, tracked the health and well-being of 85 gender-nonconforming participants, ages 3 to 12, showing, in two separate ways, that those who go on to transition do so because they already have a strong sense of their identity.
According to Professor Meadow, parents contribute greatly to developing this strong self-knowledge and identity in young trans children. Parents are the ultimate arbiters of a child’s access to transition, and they make decisions “in a culture that encourages parents to look for every possible alternative to transness,” says Meadow.
Click here to read the full article.
Tey Meadow is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Columbia. She is the author of Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century, and the coeditor of Other Please Specify: Queer Methods in Sociology.
Menstrual Health and Gender Justice faculty fellow interviewed by public health podcast
Chris Bobel discusses public health field and the increasing attention on menstruation in the latest episode of Case Confirmed
Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group faculty fellow Chris Bobel talks about the public health field and the increasing attention on menstruation in the latest episode of Case Confirmed, a monthly public health podcast series.
In the episode, “Public Health Has Its Period,” Bobel explores the connections between menstrual taboo, public health campaigns, capitalism, and embodiment.
Click here to listen to the episode.
Chris Bobel is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston where she teaches courses on Gender & the Body, Feminist Theory, Feminist Research Methods, Women in US Social Movements and Feminist Activism.
Case Confirmed is a monthly public health podcast series that features interviews with top public health experts from around the world.