{"title":"Balancing the Passion for Activism with the Demands of Tenure: One Professional's Story from Three Perspectives","authors":"April L. Few, F. Piercy, Andrew J. Stremmel","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627717.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627717.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"As a Black assistant professor, April L. Few discusses the challenge of balancing the demands of tenure and her commitment to community, diversity, and social justice. In this story about her journey toward tenure, she reflects upon how racism and sexism within the classroom have defined her professional identity as an activist scholar. She also poses questions for feminist scholars who struggle about whether moving toward the center or mainstream of an institution means having to lose pieces of oneself in the tenure process. In order to provide additional perspective on this issue, Fred P. Piercy, the department head, and Andrew Stremmel, the departmental chair of the tenure and promotion committee, also reflect on this dilemma and suggest ways of turning teaching and service into scholarship that counts for tenure. Although it may be said that all new faculty face transitions, this story discusses additional challenges that are often negotiated by untenured ethnic faculty at predominantly White universities.","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"47 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70988337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Iconographies of Gender, Poverty, and Power in Contemporary South African Visual Culture","authors":"Kim Miller","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.118","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the iconography of the feminization of poverty in women's printed textiles produced by artists at the Philani Project in Crossroads, Cape Town. The Philani Project was initially formed as part of an ambitious, nationwide, antipoverty initiative, with the long-term goal of battling child malnutrition and poverty by training unemployed mothers to be artists. An analysis of the Philani Project suggests the artists achieved empowerment through the creation of visually powerful autobiographical narratives and the income earned from their sale.","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"31 1","pages":"118 - 136"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists (review)","authors":"R. Ater","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.211","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"211 - 217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Suzanne Lacy's Three Weeks in May: Feminist Activist Performance Art as \"Expanded Public Pedagogy\"","authors":"V. Fryd","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.23","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Suzanne Lacy's performance, Three Weeks in May (1977), which established her New Genre Public Art, also referred to as the practice of \"expanded public pedagogy,\" in which activism, education, and theory intersect. As a political activist committed to fighting oppression, Lacy learned ways to affect cultural attitudes, the criminal justice system, and the media through her visceral performance that forced discussion about the formerly silent subject of rape. She wielded her strategic agency through this performance to challenge gender norms, end the silence about the subject of rape in American culture, and contribute to the anti-rape movement in the United States.","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"23 - 38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Art, Activism, and Feminisms: Sites of Confrontation and Change","authors":"Julie Cole","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.175","url":null,"abstract":"Much has been written over the last four decades on feminism, art, and the critical relationship between the two. Art as political activism also has been the subject of many scholarly writings, and political artwork frequently intersects or explicitly engages scholarly writing. Much has been written, but much also has been left out, and readers seeking information regarding art informed by feminist concerns and intended as an intervention might be frustrated by current offerings. Texts that are simultaneously engaging, informative, and critically self-conscious of their place in a hotly contested, ideologically loaded-and potentially revolutionary-field, are rare. While content should be the primary focus when evaluating a book, an appealing book can be an important tool or ally, particularly in a course devoted to exploring how art can create, change, or jam culture; aesthetics become content within books on feminism, art, and activism. Even issues of cost, a perennial concern for college students, take on new significance in this context, for accessibility, the power to reach as large and varied an audience as possible, is an important component of art concerned with social and economic justice. Grounded in these thoughts, I began to look at each of the following four books for useful and inspiring discussions of feminists, who make art in order to intervene in, act upon, or change existing modes of culture. I turned first to Art and Feminism by Peggy Phelan and Helena Reckitt. Published in 2001, the book is out of print but still readily available. With the majority of its pages devoted to images of work by dozens of feminist artists (all women), the book's structure is designed to support the claim","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"175 - 180"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bridging Feminist Art, Activism, and Theory: A Review of Three Contemporary Texts","authors":"J. Dallow","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.166","url":null,"abstract":"Suzanne Lacy provides a framework for conceptualizing feminist activist art in a letter to Patricia Hills, editor of the anthology Modern Art in the USA: Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century. Lacy asks, \"How can we work as artists on a broader scale, to create change that will penetrate and affect the institutions, public spaces, and political processes that make up our public culture\" iHills 2001, 452)? This political goal has overwhelmingly driven feminist activism of the last century. Yet, as Lacy suggests, a wider horizon challenges feminist art practice. To date, feminist art-making has played only one role within an expansive field that necessarily includes feminist theory, cultural criticism, and art history. The numerous texts published on feminist art/theory within the last ten years suggest that any singular account of this dense nexus proves daunting. In an increasingly theory-driven moment, we are still sorting out the question: where and when do theory, art-making, and activism, meet? Or, one might ask where, and when, can they be separated? Although none of the three very different texts under consideration here provide direct answers to these questions, they illuminate distinct modes of engaging them. Two of the texts are anthologies: The Feminisim and Visual Culture Reader assembles 62 significant writings on feminism's convergence with visual culture in the Anglophone world in the latter twentieth century, while Modern Art in the USA: Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century is a more varied collection of essays by artists, curators, and critics reaching back one hundred years. As a counterpoint to these volumes, Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building tells of one woman's experiences in a vibrant center of pioneer feminist activism that centered on art, the Woman's Building in Los Angeles. Part coming-of-age and part coming-out tale, writer Terry Wolverton's memoir, Insurgent Muse: Life and Art at the Woman's Building, provocatively chronicles her involvement with the Woman's Building. Founded","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"166 - 174"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (review)","authors":"A. Kinser","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.217","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"217 - 219"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"And Introducing. . . The Female Director: Documentaries about Women Filmmakers as Feminist Activism","authors":"Kelly Hankin","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.59","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.59","url":null,"abstract":"Statistical and anecdotal evidence suggest that, in both the Hollywood and commercial independent film industries, female directors are not given the same support and opportunities as their male counterparts. As a result, there are a number of activist projects and organizations working to challenge and raise awareness about this inequity. This essay examines the role a new genre of documentary plays in this larger activist endeavor. Beginning in the 1990s, several documentaries emerged featuring women filmmakers of varying national, racial, and sexual identities who work in a range of film production practices. I argue that by privileging the voices and experiences of these diverse female directors—something our own feminist film scholarship tends not to do—these documentaries function as important activist texts in women's studies and media studies classrooms. Because most undergraduates are woefully ignorant about the films of female directors, let alone the avenues to and barriers against filmmaking that exist for women, these documentaries play a crucial activist role in raising awareness about the social and cultural forces shaping women directors and their films. Moreover, by modeling a spectrum of \"do-it-yourself\" possibilities, these documentaries encourage female students to imagine their own potential as filmmakers.","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"59 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Considering Feminist Activist Art","authors":"Mary Jo Aagerstoun, Elissa Auther","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.VII","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.VII","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"vii - xiv"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Flanagan, Jennifer A. González, Guerrilla Girls (Group of artists), Margo L. Machida, Marsha Meskimmon, M. Rosler, G. Spivak, subRosa (Cyberfeminist group), Amelia Jones
{"title":"Feminist Activist Art, a Roundtable Forum, August 24-31, 2005","authors":"M. Flanagan, Jennifer A. González, Guerrilla Girls (Group of artists), Margo L. Machida, Marsha Meskimmon, M. Rosler, G. Spivak, subRosa (Cyberfeminist group), Amelia Jones","doi":"10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/NWS.2007.19.1.1","url":null,"abstract":"Mary Flanagan is a game designer, artist, and media theorist based in New York City who leads the Tiltfactor research group at Hunter College. Flanagan's artwork has been shown internationally at venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, ACM SIGGRAPH (Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques), Ars Electronica, the Moving Image Centre in Auckland, ARCO Madrid, and the Guggenheim. She is author or co-editor of three books, including a book on the popular Sims? game.","PeriodicalId":88071,"journal":{"name":"NWSA journal : a publication of the National Women's Studies Association","volume":"19 1","pages":"1 - 22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69200527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}