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2023-2024
Spring 2024 Welcome
Each Spring, the CSGS welcomes a UChicago alumnae/i working in the field of gender and sexuality back to present their work. On Wednesday, May 1 at 4:30pm, TreaAndrea M. Russworm (PhD, English, 2008; Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California) will deliver the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Lecture, “Utopian Funk: What Video Games Can Teach Us About Failed Utopias and Black Arts.”
If you missed, or would like to revisit a few of our 2023-24 events, video is now available for “After Dobbs: Reproductive Freedom, Justice, and the Power of the State” featuring Michele Goodwin, Dorothy Roberts, Mary Ziegler, and Geoffrey Stone and our annual OUTstanding Speaker Series lecture featuring Jules Gill-Peterson on “Great Society Transsexualism: On the Political Economy of Transition.”
2022-2023
Congratulations GNSE Class of 2023!
The CSGS is proud to present the Class of 2023! We invite everyone to see all of the work that our students have put into their BA theses by visiting our virtual GNSE Class of 2023 Showcase. Congratulations to all of our wonderful majors and minors, and good luck in your next endeavors!
Student Prize Winners
We are pleased to announce that Sophia McCreary (Classics & English) and Shreya Ram (Political Science) are this year’s winners of the Ruth Murray BA Thesis Prize in Women's Studies, Feminist Criticism, Gender or Sexuality Studies! The committee was very impressed with the extraordinary level of work of the over 30 submissions, which came from 17 different academic departments and showed the breadth and depth of the study of gender and sexuality across campus.
We are also pleased to announce that Samantha Usman (Ph.D. candidate in Astronomy and Astrophysics) has won the inaugural UChicago LGBTQ+ Community Engagement Award! In October 2020, Samantha founded the UChicago Plus (UChicago+) Discord Server, creating a much-needed peer-led forum for queer students across the University to connect and support one another. UChicago+ is now a flourishing Registered Student Organization and a Q-Group under LGBTQ Student Life. Samantha has demonstrated exceptional leadership and made numerous contributions to advance and support the interests of the LGBTQ+ community at UChicago, within her academic and professional field, and more broadly. Our gratitude goes to the members of each committee for their time and expert consideration in choosing the prize winners.
2021-2022
Remembering James C. Hormel
We at the CSGS are saddened by the loss of the Hon. James Hormel (JD ’58). The first openly gay U.S. Ambassador, James Hormel was a dedicated and generous supporter of the Center – funding our first graduate student fellowships for work in LGBTQ Studies at a time (in the late 1990’s) when such programs were rare. Through this fund, we were able to support student research that became books such as Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against AIDS by Deborah B. Gould (The University of Chicago Press, 2009); Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics by Timothy Stewart-Winter (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); and Screw Consent: A Better Politics of Sexual Justice by Joseph J. Fischel (University of California Press, 2019). Our love and support go out to his family and friends.
In Memory of Lauren Berlant
We at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality are mourning the loss of our colleague and dear friend, Lauren Berlant. Lauren helped found the CSGS in 1996 and served as the faculty director from 1999-2002. Since the formation of the GNSE major, Lauren was a central teacher, starting with “Problems in the Study of Sexuality,” and more recently with our signature courses, “Theories of Gender and Sexuality” and “Advanced Theories of Gender and Sexuality.” They organized conferences, writing workshops, and teach-ins, all of which pushed the boundaries of gender and sexuality scholarship forward in new ways. While authoring six monographs, numerous edited volumes, and countless articles, Lauren served on more than 100 dissertation committees, M.A. theses, and B.A. theses since 1984. They cared deeply about finding new ways to build a world with faculty, students, and staff, and in supporting radical ideas and new ways of thinking that do not always find nourishment in institutions of higher learning. We will miss Lauren’s energy and wit and generosity at the Center and remain deeply committed to continuing their mentorship and world-building with new generations. We will be announcing plans for a public celebration of Lauren’s legacy in the 2021-2022 academic year, as well as plans for an endowed fund for graduate student research – what Lauren imagined as “the Unfundable Fund” that would support a new generation of scholars producing theory that doesn’t fit the current norm.
Read a letter about the impact of Lauren’s research and teaching co-authored by Professors Debbie Nelson and Kristen Schilt.
2020-2021
Congratulations GNSE Class of 2021!
The CSGS is proud to present the Class of 2021! Graduating this Spring and Summer are Gender and Sexuality Studies majors Emilio Balderas, Tai Davidson Bajandas, Max Grayzel-Ward, Janelle Hartley, Brian Johnson, Alice May, José Morin, Catherine O’Carroll, Chiara Theophile, and Imaan Yousuf. We invite everyone to see all of the work that our students have put into their BA theses by visiting our virtual GNSE Class of 2021 Showcase.
We would also like to congratulate our graduating minors, Angel Chesney (Philosophy/Visual Arts), Celia Hoffman (Political Science) and Sebastian Oberkfell (Economics).
Congratulations to all of our wonderful majors and minors, and good luck in your next endeavors!
2021 Ruth Murray Essay Prize
We are pleased to announce that the recipients of the 2021 Ruth Murray Essay Prize are Janelle Hartley and Jake La Fronz. Gender and Sexuality Studies major Janelle Hartley won for their BA thesis, “Houses, Individuals, and Generations: A Transfeminist Theory of Chosen Family.” The selection committee summarizes their work as looking “to the rhetoric of grassroots organizations, visual art, and histories of trans kinship to give the term ‘chosen family’ heft.” The committee praised the “attention to reproduction as a tactic of survival for Black and brown trans women,” noting that “Janelle powerfully contributes to trans studies, feminist studies, and queer studies as well as Black studies and ethnic studies.” History major Jake La Fronz is sharing the prize for his thesis, "Chicago Police Raid Gay Bars, 1969-1989," which examines the relationship between the gay community and the Chicago Police Department over the course of three decades. The committee stated that his thesis “triangulates primary and secondary data to present a compelling narrative of change” and “can help us understand negotiations of power and privilege for many minority groups." Congratulations Janelle and Jake!
Faculty Affiliates and Graduate Student Teacher Win Teaching Awards, Named Convocation Speaker
Patrick Jagoda (English, Cinema and Media Studies), Jonathan Lyon (History), and Ada Palmer (History) were awarded the Quantrell Award for undergraduate teaching. The Quantrell Award is believed to be the nation’s oldest prize for undergraduate teaching. Based on letters of nomination from students, the award is among the most treasured by faculty. Watch 2021 Quantrell Award winners Jagoda, Lyon, and Palmer discuss their experiences teaching undergraduate students at the University of Chicago on YouTube.
Rachel DeWoskin (English) and Jessica Kirzane (Germanic Studies) have been awarded the Glenn and Claire Swogger Award for Exemplary Classroom Teaching. Based upon nominations from University of Chicago undergraduates, the award recognizes outstanding teachers with College appointments who introduce students to habits of scholarly thinking, inquiry and engagement in the Core Curriculum, the College’s general education program.
Additional congratulations to Gregory Valdespino (History) on being named one of the five winners of the 2021 Wayne C. Booth Prize for Excellence in Teaching! The Booth Prize is awarded annually to University of Chicago graduate students for outstanding instruction of undergraduates, and recipients were selected on the basis of nominations from students in the College. This winter, Valdespino taught a Gender and Sexuality Studies Concepts course—“Home and Empire: From Little House on the Prairie to Refugee Camps”—on the global history of imperialism and domestic life since the 18th century.
Finally, former director of the CSGS, Deborah Nelson (English), has been named the speaker for Convocation on June 9. Congratulations to all!
2021 Faculty Book Celebration
This year, we celebrated a fantastic array of recently published books by our faculty affiliates. Our books this year cover a wide selection of fields, including contemporary translations, Latin American and U.S. history, comics, art history, East Asian studies, media studies, literary criticism, and law. To showcase this immense and diverse talent, we launched a website that features all of the books alongside links to “extras,” such as op-eds, interviews, and podcasts with the authors. We encourage you to browse this well-stocked “bookshelf” and to engage with the authors about their work on social media until we can all meet again in person.
You can find the website at www.csgsfacultybooks.com
Please join us in congratulating our faculty affiliates for their accomplishments this year!
Women and Leadership discussion with Professor Linda Zerilli on C-SPAN
On February 8, 2021, former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former Nigerian Foreign Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala discussed women and leadership with Professor Linda Zerilli (Political Science, Gender and Sexuality Studies). This virtual event was recorded by C-SPAN and is available to watch on their website.
The rise of women in U.S. politics—from the 19th Amendment to Kamala Harris
Professor Linda Zerilli (Charles E. Merriam Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and former faculty director of the CSGS) discussed the 19th amendment, misconceptions about the first wave of feminism, and the upcoming election with UChicago News. Read the full interview here!
2019-2020
Congratulations Class of 2020!
The CSGS is proud to present the Class of 2020! Graduating this Spring and Summer are Gender and Sexuality Studies majors Anna Aguiar Kosicki, Maddy Birmingham, Deimy Chavez, Apoorva Krishnan, Brooke Nagler, Ramona Pfaender, Rebeka Pushkar, and Mo Rodriguez Cruz. To learn more about fantastic the work that our majors completed this year, please visit our GNSE Class of 2020 BA Showcase.
We would also like to congratulate our graduating minors Larry Coldon, Katriona Guthrie-Honea, Daniel Hartman, Madison Johnson and Emily Lynch.
Congratulations to all of our wonderful majors and minors, and good luck in your next endeavors!
2020 Ruth Murray Essay Prize
We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2020 Ruth Murray Essay Prize is Gender and Sexuality Studies and Linguistics major Deimy Yolanda Chavez Oropeza for her memoir/essay “Drawn to the Blood.” Reviewers noted that Deimy's "brilliant and searching" essay "translates the flesh of the world of internal thought and external encounter into an experience of critical method at its most powerful and autobiography at its most tender and alive." Congratulations Deimy!
Our reviewers also selected two honorable mentions: Sophia Vale’s “Gender, Violence, and Protest: The Ni Una Menos Movement in Argentina"and Alexis Wolf’s “As Eve, So All Women: Patriarchal Biases in Interpretations of Genesis 2-3." Kudos for your excellent work!
2020 Faculty Book Celebration
We are excited to announce the fantastic array of recently published books by our faculty affiliates. Our books this year cover a wide selection of fields, including art history, critical race studies, education, fiction, history, literary criticism, musicology, philosophy, and political theory. To showcase this immense and diverse talent, we are launching a new website that features all of the books alongside links to “extras,” such as op-eds, interviews, and podcasts with the authors. We encourage you to browse this well-stocked “bookshelf” and to engage with the authors about their work on social media until we can all meet again in person.
You can find the website at www.csgsfacultybooks.com
Please join us in congratulating our faculty affiliates for their accomplishments this year!
Spring 2020 Update
With the latest measures from the university administration moving classes online and closing parts of campus, the CSGS has canceled all events planned for the spring quarter and our building is closed. We hope to reschedule many of these events in the fall or next academic year. In-person meetings, events or gatherings will not be scheduled at the Center until further notice.
In addition to these measures supporting the health and wellbeing of our communities, our priority will continue to be to support our students, to facilitate the courses originated by the CSGS in the coming quarter, and to adapt our research initiatives under the new conditions.
Questions or concerns for the CSGS should be directed to csgs@lists.uchicago.edu.
We encourage you to take care of yourselves and each other. Information and regular updates may be found on the university’s coronavirus update page.
CSGS Alum Wins Cultural Horizons Prize
Former CSGS Dissertation Fellow Sarah Luna was awarded the 2019 Cultural Horizons Prize by the Society for Cultural Anthropology for her article, “Affective Atmospheres of Terror on the Mexico–U.S. Border.” The jurors praised the article as “a beautifully written ethnography of how rumors of violence shaped affective atmospheres of terror, very much grounded in the individual lives of Luna’s interlocutors.”
Sarah Luna was a James C. Hormel Dissertation Fellow at the CSGS from 2011-2012; currently she is and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University.
2018-2019
Ruth Murray Prize
We are pleased to announce that the recipients of the 2019 Ruth Murray Essay Prize in Women's Studies, Feminist Criticism, Gender Studies are Political Science and History major Marliese Dalton for her essay “Astai and Astê: Rethinking Female Social and Political Membership in Athens in the 4th Century B.C.E.” and History major Madeline de Figueiredo for her essay “‘A colored girl, of very superior qualifications’: Virginia’s Public Spectacle of the Fancy Trade, 1831-1839." Congratulations to Marliese and Madeline!
Nelson Wins Laing Prize
Congratulations to Professor Deborah Nelson--current CSGS affiliated faculty member in English and former Faculty Director 2006-2009--on winning the Gordon J. Laing Prize! The University of Chicago Press awarded its top honor to Prof. Nelson for Tough Enough, her exploration of how six women faced pain with unsentimentality—and her argument for it as an alternative response to empathy or irony.
Framing Agnes at Tribeca Film Festival
The Center’s faculty director, Kristen Schilt, along with her collaborator, Chase Joynt, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in residence at the Center are in the news with their project and short film, Framing Agnes, as it premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival this spring. The project examines decades of trans history and the impact of a case study from the mid-20th century which still reverberates in the field of sociology today.
CSGS Welcomes Professor C. Riley Snorton
This year the Center has been very excited to welcome C. Riley Snorton, who has joined the Department of English Language and Literature as Professor, and the CSGS as an affiliate, in which he is now in residence. Snorton is a cultural theorist who analyzes representations of race and gender throughout history. He is the author of Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) and Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction and an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book in Nonfiction. You can read more about Professor Snorton here.
The Radius Podcast
In 2017 the Center launched our student-led and produced podcast, The Radius. The podcast is a space to chat about gender and sexuality throughout and beyond campus to the city at large and the field as a whole, from the center to the fringes. You can check out the latest episodes on Soundcloud. UChicago students can submit stories at bit.ly/csgsradiuspitch.
2017-2018
Class of 2018
The CSGS is proud to present the Class of 2018! Gender and Sexuality Studies majors musa bouderdaben, Katie Iacovelli, Athena Kern, Wendy Lee, Aliya Slayton, and Adie Tuohey will graduate in spring quarter and Joshua Kramer and Seph Mozes will graduate this summer. GSS minors Alyssa Bell-Padgett (CRES) and Jessica Law (CRES/Sociology) will graduate in spring and Emily Levin (Political Science) will graduate in autumn. Well done, all!
Faculty Teaching Awards
Two CSGS faculty affiliates have been recognized by the university as inspiring teachers: Professor Kimberly Hoang of Sociology won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, believed to be the oldest prize for undergraduate teaching in the U.S. Professor Niall Atkinson of Art History won the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring. The CSGS is incredibly fortunate to have faculty affiliates from around the university who contribute their time and energies to the gender and sexuality studies curriculum and intellectual life of the Center. Congratulations, Kimberly and Niall!
Ruth Murray Prize
We are pleased to announce that the recipients of the 2018 Ruth Murray Essay Prize in Women's Studies, Feminist Criticism, Gender Studies are GSS major musa bouderdaben for his project “Narratives of Overruption: An Examination of The Effects of Trauma on Process of Self-Narration” and CRES/History major Julie Xu for her project “Foreign Pleasures: Sex in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Chicago.” Congratulations to Julie and musa!
Care@Chicago
Care@Chicago, a series organized by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS) and co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC), will run throughout the month of February 2018. It will include an exhibition of hand-printed wood type letterpress posters, free yoga classes on Fridays, a sexual health workshop, and a panel discussion on understandings and practices of care for researchers, students and teachers who regularly engage with difficult issues related to sexism, racism, homophobia and other forms of violence and inequalities in their work. Details are available on the Care@Chicago project page.
The CSGS Welcomes a new Faculty Director
We are pleased to welcome Professor Kristen Schilt, Associate Professor of Sociology, as the new faculty director of the Center. Professor Schilt has been active at the CSGS since coming to the University of Chicago in 2008, having served on the board of directors and as Director of Studies for several years.
Her research interests center on sociology of gender and sexualities, the sociology of culture, and the sociology of work and occupations. A central focus of her work is finding new ways to make visible the taken-for-granted cultural assumptions about gender and sexuality that serve to naturalize and reproduce social inequality.
2016-2017
Congratulations to the Class of 2017!
Please join us in congratulating the newly minted Gender and Sexualities Studies B.A.s: Olivia Adams, Rose Al Abosy, Gabriella Mulder, Anna Nathanson, Alyssa Sanchez, Skylar Spear, Elizabeth Stark, Dido Tzortzi, Charlotte Von De Bur, and Miranda Wack!
Affiliated Faculty and Graduate Student Awards
Alison James, Associate Professor in Romance Languages & Literatures and the College and Affiliated Faculty at the CSGS, has received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring. Learn more about the award and Professor James’ work.
Political Science PhD Student Omie Hsu has won the Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prizes for Excellence in Teaching. Hsu is a coordinator of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Working Group and an instructor in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Read more about Hsu’s classroom approach and the award.
Congratulations Alison and Omie!
Ada Palmer named to Tiptree Honor List
Congratulations to Ada Palmer, whose novel, Too Like the Lightning (Tor Books, 2016) was named to the Honor List of the 2016 Tiptree Award, an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. In the twenty-fifth century future in which Palmer's novel is set, gendered language is considered taboo in most circles and gender/sex-related cues are minimized and overlooked in clothing, vocation, and all other public areas of life. However, the book slowly reveals that gender stereotypes, sexism, and sexual taboos still remain strong despite the century’s supposed enlightenment and escape from such notions.
Winter Quarter at the CSGS
As we begin a new year, the work we do at the CSGS seems more important than ever. Through our research projects, we challenge orthodoxies and dominant ways of looking at the world; through our teaching, we develop skills of critical inquiry and thought; and through our outreach we promote positive change and encourage connection and action across our campus and in the wider world. We could not do any of this work without the support of our faculty, our students, our alumni and our friends. Thank you.
On January 19th join us, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and other partners on campus as we mark the inauguration of the forty-fifth president of the United States in our own way, with RE:action - a day of resistance and rebuilding, an event designed to reconnect and reinvigorate our community by sharing resources and opportunities for political and social action and by celebrating our strengths, our power and our voices. The day will include an activism fair for members of the UChicago community to connect with local organizations and activist groups working on issues relevant to and with people impacted by the national political climate and a Trump presidency, a book exchange of titles related to radical politics, theory and history, a film screening and an evening celebration.
Throughout the month of February, the Center will run a series called Care@Chicago. The University of Chicago is associated more with rigor, ambition and social division than care and caring: care is traditionally associated with women and emotions, often delegated to the economically hyper-exploited, and not often considered central to the life of ideas. But however unevenly distributed, vulnerability, stress, and compensations for them are everywhere in our immediate as well as larger cultural environment. Care@Chicago will investigate structural stressors and reparative acts and practices for individuals and communities in the contemporary world.
Other highlights coming this quarter: The LGBTQ Studies Project and Artists' Salon will bring to campus E. Patrick Johnson on January 12th and Joshua Chambers-Letson on February 9th. On February 1st, CSGS graduate student fellows have organized Gender, Sexuality, & Pedagogy: A Roundtable, an interactive panel which will explore strategies for and challenges related to teaching gender and sexuality across disciplines. On March 9th, the Center has collaborated with the Film Studies Center on a screening of Sonita, a film about a teenage Afghan rapper and refugee living in Tehran, using her art to address forced marriage practices. The Center is co-sponsoring the Doc Film series, Film and AIDS: Early Queer Responses to the AIDS Epidemic on Mondays this quarter. On March 13th, Kimberley Hoang (Sociology) and Adom Getachew (Political Science) will host a panel on Engendering Global Capitalism at the Center.
Welcome to the Class of 2020!
Founded in 1996, the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS) at the University of Chicago is a major center for faculty and graduate research and pedagogical training and has developed an extensive undergraduate program in gender and sexuality studies. Areas of faculty interest include gender and sexuality studies in the fields of literature and language, history, political science, biology, sociology, anthropology, economics, visual arts, media studies, human development, law, religion, and medicine. We host classes and workshops, most of our events and community activities in our building at 5733 S University Ave.
Please join us on October 3 from 4:30-6:00pm as we celebrate the beginning of the new year with a Welcome Reception co-hosted with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. This is a great chance to meet students, faculty and staff also with interests in gender, sexuality and race studies.
On September 28 at 6:15, we join with the IOP, the CSRPC, and other organizations to bring Alicia Garza to the Logan Center. Garza, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, will discuss the national movement’s past, present and future in a wide-ranging discussion about activism and organizing, supporting the voices of black cisgender, transgender and immigrant women, and the totality of black lives.
Christiane Taubira, former Minister of Justice for France and co-founder of the left-wing Guianese party Walwari, will speak on October 10th at 6pm at International House. As Justice Minister, Taubira oversaw fundamental penal reforms that prevent recidivism and promote rehabilitation, and introduced a law that both legalized same-sex marriage in France, and allows same-sex couples to adopt children.
Join us as we host queer punk band PWR BTTM for an afternoon social from 4-6 pm on October 26 in the Community Room at 5733 S. University, with a discussion moderated by Addie Barron.
The Center’s LGBTQ Studies Project and the Artists’ Salon will host Lily Hoang (English, New Mexico State) and Jackie Wang (writer, performer, filmmaker, PhD candidate, Harvard) for a reading and discussion at 4:30pm on October 27 and a collaborative workshop at noon on October 28. Ann Cvetkovich (English and Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Texas, Austin) will discuss her work on “Ordinary Lesbians and Special Collections: The June L Mazer Lesbian Archives at UCLA” and run a writing workshop starting at 4:30pm on November 3.
On November 18 at 7pm, the Counter Cinema/Counter Media Project welcomes filmmaker Sarah Price (The Yes Men, Summercamp!, American Movie) for a screening and discussion with Professor Jennifer Wild at Logan 201.
And on November 29, the Center, in partnership with the Law School welcomes Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and a tireless activist for women’s healthcare and reproductive freedom. She will deliver the Schwartz Memorial Lecture at the Law School at 4 pm.
CSGS at 20
Thank you to all who participated in celebrating the past 20 years of scholarship at the Center!
We will soon have video of the 20th Anniversary Symposium, held in May, which will include sessions on the founding and development of the CSGS, the impact of the Center from the viewpoint of our GSS College alumni, the landscape of some faculty scholarship over the last 20 years, and new directions in interdisciplinary and intersectional research from the viewpoint of current graduate students, a graduating senior and a future post-doc. Video and updates will be available on our 20th anniversary information page.
2015-2016
CSGS at 20
Thank you to all who participated in celebrating the past 20 years of scholarship at the Center!
We will soon have video of the 20th Anniversary Symposium which will include sessions on the founding and development of the CSGS, the impact of the Center from the viewpoint of our GSS College alumni, the landscape of some faculty scholarship over the last 20 years, and new directions in interdisciplinary and intersectional research from the viewpoint of current graduate students, a graduating senior and a future post-doc. Check back here for the video.
On June 3, 25 former CSGS fellows and current graduate students gathered for the CSGS at 20 Graduate Fellows Reunion, which included a lively networking lunch, a panel on new directions of research and activism and a discussion of the history of the CSGS and our close partner, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture (CSRPC). And on June 4, we welcomed alumni, students, faculty, staff and other community members for a celebration for CSGS @ 20 with delicious cocktails and snacks, dancing and cake.
Thank you to the current and former graduate fellows of CSGS who produced a stellar program at the reunion!: Amanda Blair (Ph.D. candidate, Political Science) Joan Blakey (Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Kathleen Frederickson (Associate Professor of English, University of California, Davis), Korey Garibaldi (Ph.D. 2016, History), Alison Lefkovitz (Assistant Professor of History, New Jersey Institute of Technology), Sarah Luna (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Houston), Claire McKinney (Postdoctoral Fellow, Washington University in St. Louis), Monica Mercado (Postdoctoral Fellow, Bryn Mawr College), Erin Moore (Ph.D candidate, Comparative Human Development) and Gina Olson (Associate Director (CSGS).
Updates will also be available on our 20th anniversary information page.
Alison Winter, AB’87, Historian of the Mind, 1965–2016
Alison Winter, professor of History, the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, and the College, died on June 22. She was fifty years old. Her research encompassed the history of sciences of mind, the history of modern medicine, modern British history (especially the Victorian era), and historical issues of gender. Emilio Kourí, chair of the Department of History, expressed the feelings many: “We will all miss her uncommon intelligence, her boundless curiosity, and her joie de vivre.” A memorial service for Alison is planned for autumn quarter.
Congratulations to the Class of 2016!
Gender and Sexuality Studies will graduate 13 majors in 2016 – a record! Congratulations to Jay Bach, Walker Brewer, Aura Chapa, Jennifer Chukwu, Jean Cochrane, Lauren Daurizio, Elizabeth Ellingboe, Clair Fuller, Carson Gaffney, Madison Lands, Kris Rosentel, Sara Rubinstein, and Mallory VanMeeter! Kris Rosentel was the winner of the 2016 Ruth Murray Essay Prize.
Our majors are completing their BA projects with faculty advisers from Anthropology, Art History, English Language and Literature, History, and Sociology. Congratulations as well to our three graduating GSS minors, Helena Ambrose (Linguistics), Sophie Ettinger (Physics), and Dani Wieder (Theater and Performance Studies).
2016 marks our 20th Anniversary!
The Center is planning a number of events to celebrate and assess the past 20 years of scholarship at UChicago and in the study of gender and sexuality. We welcome UChicago students, alumni, faculty, staff, and other community members to participate.
On Thursday-Friday, May 19-20, a 20th Anniversary Symposium will look at the history, impact and future of the Center. A Thursday evening panel will open the symposium looking at the organization and founding of the Center. Friday Panels include a Transformative Texts panel of UChicago faculty about work they generated while at UChicago, program alumni will discuss how gender and sexuality studies impacted their education and how it has informed what they are doing now, and a final panel will expand the discussion on intersectionality and future directions for work in gender and sexuality. Faculty participants will include: Leora Auslander, Lauren Berlant, John Boyer, Jane Dailey, Michael Dawson, Norma Field, Susan Gal, Rochona Majumdar, Debbie Nelson, Kristen Schilt, Geoffrey Stone and Linda Zerilli. Special guests will include George Chauncey, UChicago Professor of History, 1991-2006 (now at Yale) and co-founder of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project (now LGBTQ Studies) of the CSGS.
A committee of nine former and current graduate students have organized a Reunion of Graduate Fellows of the CSGS at the Center on Friday, June 3 from 12-5pm. The afternoon will include a networking lunch for current and former graduate students, a roundtable on new directions in research and activism, and a panel reflecting on the Center’s history and the impact of interdisciplinary research, teaching and public debate at the University. Current graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to attend the discussions. Questions about the reunion? Please email Gina Olson at golson@uchicago.edu.
And please join us over Alumni Weekend on Saturday, June 4 from 6-8 pm, for a Cocktail Celebration for CSGS @ 20! Students, staff and faculty, college alumni, and former graduate fellows will gather to celebrate 20 years with food, drinks and music.
Updates to anniversary plans, including schedule details, will be made available on our calendar and 20th anniversary information page.
Undergraduate Summer Internships for 2016
The CSGS is again offering funding for up to four internships at gender- and LGBTQ-related service, educational, or activist organizations in the U.S. The deadline to apply for funding is Friday, February 26, 2016 and this opportunity is open only to UChicago undergergraduate students. Please contact Sarah Tuohey at stuohey@uchicago.edu or 773-702-2365 for more information and to get the application form and guidelines.
Gender and Sexuality Studies is part of the Core curriculum in the College!
All UChicago students have the opportunity to learn about the fundamental importance of gender and sexuality as analytic categories as part of their general education requirement teaching the introduction to the tools of inquiry used in every discipline. Read more about Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations here.
Check out this year's course offerings and more about the undergraduate major and the graduate certificate.
2016 marks our 20th Anniversary!
The Center is planning a number of events to celebrate and assess the past 20 years of scholarship at UChicago and in the study of gender and sexuality. We welcome UChicago students, alumni, faculty, staff, and other community members to participate.
This fall, we will kick off the celebrations by taking an historical view of gender and sexuality at the University. On November 5, the CSGS will host Hanna Holborn Gray, former president of the University and professor of history emeritus. Professor Gray will discuss the reissue of More than Lore: Reminiscences of Marion Talbot, originally published in 1936, for which she has written a new foreword. And on November 18, we will host a screening of the film Regarding Susan Sontag followed by a discussion led by Professor Deborah Nelson. At this event, we will explore the life and work of the famous writer, filmmaker and political activist, Susan Sontag, AB’51 who is among UChicago’s best known alumni.
Other events in the planning for 2016 are a Spring fellows’ reunion with panel discussions on activism and scholarship inside and outside the academy culminating with a party over Alumni Weekend (June 3-4, 2016), the Feminist Queer Praxis series featuring Gender and Sexuality Studies alum who have gone on to amazing careers in the arts, special distinguished alumni and distinguished faculty lectures, and a symposium featuring some of the Center’s founding faculty and students.
This year we will continue the series on Sexual Violence on Campus. On October 28, the Center will host Jennifer Doyle to speak about her book, “Campus Sex, Campus Security.” And the Precarious Citizenship Series, led by Faculty Director Linda Zerilli, will focus on the attacks on reproductive rights and the implications for the exercise of full citizenship.
Also at the Center this year, our fabulous faculty are planning some great events and series – Lauren Berlant and Kristen Schilt will lead the LGBTQ Studies Project with an artists’ series, Jennifer Wild will again lead the Counter Cinema/Counter Media project and Kristen Schilt and Patrick Jagoda will organize Alternate Realities and Virtual Worlds, a series on gaming at the Center.
We look forward to seeing you!
2014-2015
Congratulations, GSS Graduates!
The CSGS is proud to present the graduating class of 2015: Jenn David, Rebecca Edwards, Jade Goodwin Carter, Veronica Heap, Clare Koury, Bea Malsky, Emma Stone and Elise Wander. We would also like to congratulate those graduating this year with a GSS minor: Nadine Brown, Mich Elliott, Lyn Han, Zori Paul, and Emily Roznowski. We wish our majors and minors the very best in all their future endeavors!
The 2015 Ruth Murray Essay Prize of the CSGS was awarded to Stephanie Xiao for her paper, “Love in the Time of Chinatown: Marriage, Race, and the Making of the Chinese American Family, 1879-1909.”
Congratulations to these students on the following awards: Rebecca Edwards, Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize (English); Phi Beta Kappa: Mich Elliott, Meaghan Murphy, Emma Stone, Mallory VanMeeter (3rd year), and Elise Wander; and Mallory Van Meeter, Student Marshall.
Closeted/Out in the Quadrangles Now Open!
The Center, in partnership with the Special Collections Research Center, is proud to present “Closeted/Out on the Quadrangles: A History of LGBTQ Life at the University of Chicago,” a special exhibition opening April 1 and running through June 12. By delving into the University’s past, and reflecting on the present, we wanted to facilitate a new conversation about the ways in which sexuality, identity, and notions of community shape and are shaped by the intellectual and practical mission of the University. Since the autumn of 2011, we have been engaged in several modes of training, research and discovery to meet this goal: undergraduate coursework, extensive oral history and archival research, collection of new materials, a speaker series, and the development of this exhibition.
Spring Program Highlights
On April 2 Nayan Shah (Professor and Chair, American Studies and Ethnicity, USC and History MA '90, PhD '95) will deliver the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Lecture, “Forcible Feeding and the Crisis of Care in Indefinite Detention.” The talk will explore the visual and visceral experiences of refusing food and the procedure of tube-feeding by force, such as the political mobilization and controversies of medical ethics during the imprisonment of suffragettes in Britain and U.S in the early 20th century and currently with detainees and deportees struggles in South Africa, Guantanamo and Europe.
The Center, along with a number of amazing collaborators, is continuing to develop the Sexual Violence on Campus Series. Please check the series page for updates.
A number of student-led conferences are planned for this quarter: Engendering Change: The Fifth Annual Chicago Area Graduate Gender/Sexualities Conference featuring keynote speaker, C.J. Pascoe on April 11, The Family and the Unfamiliar undergraduate conference on April 17, Masculinities on the British Fringe on April 24 and the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Graduate Working Conference on May 15.
In May, the Counter Cinema/Counter Media Project continues, including a visit from artist Zackary Drucker on May 8. On May 14, the Artists’ Salon will host Ramzi Fawaz on his work on comics and the queer history of the Fantastic Four.
We hope you will join the conversation!
Undergraduate Summer 2015 Internship Program
CSGS Undergraduate Summer Internship applications are out! The CSGS Undergraduate Summer Internship Program will offer up to four off-campus, Chicago-area internships in organizations involved in gender- or sexuality-related service, research, or activism. For more information, please see the Internship Opportunities page.
Winter Program Highlights
The Center has a number of exciting series and events this quarter. The LGBTQ Studies Project in collaboration with 3CT and as part of the series, Sexuality, Power, and the Empirical, will host Glenda Carpio (African and African American Studies/English, Harvard), on February 19 for “On Kara Walker’s ‘A Subtlety, or The Marvelous Sugar Baby.’” And on March 5, Shaka McGlotten (Media, Society and the Arts, Purchase College, SUNY) will discuss “Black Data” with a workshop the next day.
The Center’s Closeted/Out in the Quadrangles Project hosted Anya Jabour (History, University of Montana) in January on her work on the relationships of Sophonisba Breckinridge, Marion Talbot, and Edith Abbott. Jabour’s visit previewed some of the earliest material in the coming special exhibition opening April 1. Read an article in The University of Chicago Magazine about Jabour’s talk here.
Continuing the Sexual Violence on Campus Series, in January the CSGS hosted a townhall meeting with incoming Associate Dean of Students in the University for Disciplinary Affairs, Jeremy Inabinet. In February, we collaborated with Northwestern University to create common reading lists and brought together students, faculty, and staff from both universities to discuss what’s happening on each campus. Stay tuned for more programming and a teach-in on campus sexual violence later this year.
For more information on this quarter’s activities, see our newsletter.
2014-2015
Call for Proposals: Presentations at 4/17/15 student conference “The Family and the Unfamiliar”
Click here for the CFP flier for the CSRPC-CSGS annual student conference. Contact CSRPC-CSGS student affairs administrator Sarah Tuohey (stuohey@uchicago.edu) with questions or ideas!
Congratulations!
Several CSGS fellows and graduate student teachers have secured wonderful positions for 2014-15 and beyond. Alisha Jones, 2013-14 CSRPC-CSGS Dissertation Fellow, will be an assistant professor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Claire McKinney, 2012-13 CSGS Dissertation Fellow and teacher, will be the American Cultural Studies Postdoctoral Fellow in Family and Intimate Relations at Washington University-St. Louis. Monica Mercado, 2012-13 CSGS Dissertation Fellow, preceptor, teacher, and Co-coordinator of the Closeted/Out in the Quadrangles: A History of LGBTQ Life at the University of Chicago project, will be Director of the The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education at Bryn Mawr College. Emily Remus, 2012-13 CSGS Dissertation Fellow and teacher, will be a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. And finally, Emily Swafford, 2013-14 Residential Fellow and teacher, has already taken up her position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute. Learn more about their work here.
Two GSS majors garner Binyon Prize!
We are excited to announce that two of our graduating fourth-years, Ellen Kladky and Amber Sollenberger Matthews, are joint recipients of the Millard Pierce Binyon Prize for “distinction in humanistic pursuits in the College community.” The award is an acknowledement of the work they put into the very successful “#followus” project, which was part of Kristen Schilt and Chase Joynt’s yearlong undertaking “Tell Me the Truth,” as well as for Amber’s establishment of the zine-making workshop “Communist Crafting” and Ellen’s coordination of “Queer Art Night.” Their work – joint and independent — on of these programs and events demonstrates Ellen’s and Amber’s strong commitment to the interaction of art and social justice-oriented politics.
NEH Award goes to Sonali Thakkar
We are happy to announce that Sonali Thakkar, CSGS Faculty Affiliate, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers to support her project “Race, Religion, and Holocaust Memory in the Literature of Postwar European Diasporic Communities.” Sonali is an Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature who trained as a comparatist and whose work focuses on global Anglophone and postcolonial literatures as well as contemporary transnational culture. She has worked closely with the center for the past few years, serving as part of the faculty group that created the two-quarter core sequence “Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations” and as one of the two instructors in the inaugural quarter of this sequence. You can read more about Sonali Thakkar at http://english.uchicago.edu/faculty/thakkar.
Congratulations to Monica Mercado!
We are delighted to spread the news that Monica Mercado has been appointed the Director of the The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education at Bryn Mawr College. Monica, who will complete her PhD in History this spring, has contributed to CSGS in a variety of ways. She is currently the co-coordinator of the Closeted/Out in the Quadrangles Project at the Center, and she has held a CSGS dissertation fellowship as well as serving as a preceptor and frequent teacher of free-standing courses, including “"Sex and Sexualities in Modern US History" and “Queer on the Quads: Uncovering LGBTQ History at the University of Chicago.”
To read more about Monica’s work and new position, click here!
...and to Emily Swafford!
We are also delighted to pass on the news that, beginning in April, Emily Swafford will be joining the GHI as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to work on her second project, Ambassadors in Pigtails: U.S. Girl Scouts and the Transnational Cold War, 1950-1989. This project examines the entangled narratives of these two sometimes opposed organizations—a national military dedicated to defending America’s interests and a youth movement that pitched peaceful internationalism—even while both were simultaneously engaged in producing and reproducing an American "way of life" on foreign soil. Emily’s first project, her doctoral dissertation in the History Department, also an examination of American-German relations, is titled "Democracy‘s Proving Ground: U.S. Military Families in West Germany Between World War II and Vietnam." Emily has been invaluable to CSGS this year, holding a residential fellowship and serving as a teaching intern in the autumn civilization sequence and as a co-teacher for “Problems in the Study of Sexuality” in winter. We are sorry to lose Emily before the end of the academic year but very happy about her new position!
Congratulations to Kathy Forde!
Please join us in congratulating Kathy Forde, Assistant Dean of Students in the College and liaison to the Gender and Sexuality Studies program, who is the recipient of a University of Chicago 2014 Diversity Leadership Award for her work creating the College’s LGBTQ Mentoring Program, helping establish the 5710 diversity center, and in general contributing to the quality of life for students at the university. See more here.
Bertram Cohler, psychologist and esteemed teacher, 1938-2012
James C. Hormel, JD'58, shares his private and public battles.
Coverage of Catharine MacKinnon's visit hosted by CSGS.
Rebecca Zorach, Art History professor and Director of CSGS' Social Media Project comments on "Why computer voices are mostly female"