Premilla Nadasen Named the Winner of the 2020 Ann Snitow Prize

Premilla Nadasen, co-director of the Transnational Black Feminisms and Social Justice After the Welfare State working groups, was awarded the 2020 Ann Snitow Prize for her extraordinary work as a feminist intellectual and activist. Professor Nadasen is the inaugural winner of the annual award, which recognizes a feminist of outstanding vision, originality, generosity, and effectiveness, whose work combines intellectual and/or artistic pursuits with feminist and social justice activism.  After a short award ceremony, Dr. Nadasen was joined by Dr. Barbara Ransby for a conversation, The Politics of Care: Feminism, Race, and Grassroots Organizing.

Pacific Climate Circuits Co-Director Kevin Fellezs Moderates Symposium on Racial Equity

Kevin Fellezs, former co-director of the Pacific Climate Circuits working group, moderated the recent symposium, "Asian American Musicians Advocating for Social Justice and Racial Equity," sponsored by Kul-Arts and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center. The discussion featured Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Jen Shyu, Karl Evangelista, Erika Oba, and Vijay Iyer and focused on connections between these artists' work and their political advocacy as Asian Americans in the face of rising anti-Asian racism.

Women Mobilizing Memory Working Group Co-Director Interviewed by the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM)

Marianne Hirsch, former Director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference and co-director of past working groups including Women Mobilizing Memory, Reframing Gendered Violence, and Engendering the Archive was interviewed by the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) in their Observing Memories Magazine. In the interview, Professor Hirsch spoke about the transmission of trauma across generations, the role of memory in social movements, and memory’s ability to strengthen democracy.

Call for Proposals Now Open

The Center welcomes proposals for new working groups that would begin in Fall 2021 or Fall 2022. CSSD seeks projects that align with the mission of “Women Creating Change” or “Imagining Justice” and favors proposals from an interdisciplinary core working group (usually 5-8 people, not all of whom need be affiliated with Columbia or Barnard). The Center encourages and facilitates international collaborations.

Complete proposals should be directed to CSSD Executive Director Catherine LaSota (cl2866@columbia.edu), by Monday, March 22, 2021 at 11:59pm. Projects will be selected by the CSSD Executive Committee. All applicants will be notified by mid-April 2021.

View the full project guidelines here.

The Menstrual Health and Gender Justice Working Group Officially Launches the Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies

Fellows of the Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group officially launched the Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies at a virtual event on October 8th, 2020.  Lead handbook editor Chris Bobel and co-editors Breanne Fahs, Tomi-Ann Roberts, Katie-Ann Hasson, Elizabeth Arveda Kissling, and Inga Winkler, introduced the 1000+ page handbook and hosted a live Q&A session on handbook’s accessibility and potential to create change around the conversation on menstruation.

Read and download the complete open access handbook here. 

Geographies of Injustice Media Fellow Publishes Article for VICE

Jessica Jacolbe, Geographies of Injustice working group Media Fellow, penned the piece, Rio’s Favela Museum Organizes Community and Memorializes Its People” featured in VICE Magazine. Jacolbe writes about the work of memorialization done by Antonio Firmino and the Sankofa Museum in Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, as COVID-19 storms through Brazil. 

To read the article, click here.

To learn more about the work of the Geographies of Injustice Working Group, read here.

NEW CSSD Podcast - Just Three

The Center for the Study of Social Difference is proud to present our new podcast, Just Three, hosted by Catherine LaSota. Hear artists, activists, scholars, and others from around the world talking about how their work intersects with social justice, and how we can confront the biggest social justice challenges of our time.

Just Three can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Listen and subscribe!

Episodes, show notes, and transcripts can be found on the Just Three podcast page here.

Jennifer Dohrn to Speak on Upcoming Panel "Nurses on the COVID-19 Frontlines: Experiences and Lessons Learned in Wuhan, China and NYC"

Jennifer Dohrn, co-director of the On the Frontlines: Nursing Leadership in Pandemics working group, will be a panelist at the Columbia Global Centers | Bejing virtual event "Nurses on the COVID-19 Frontlines: Experiences and Lessons Learned in Wuhan, China and New York City, USA." The panel will address elements of an effective public health response, valuable lessons learned from being in the COVID-19 frontline, COVID-19 impact on nursing education, nursing training, and capacity building, and recommendations for improving nursing research.

Register for and learn more about the event here.

Fellows of the Menstrual Health and Gender Justice Working Group Author an Article on Evidence-Driven Policy and Practice for Menstrual Health

Fellows of the Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group, Inga T. Winkler, Chris Bobel, Lauren C. Houghton, Noémie Elhadad, Caitlin Gruer & Vanessa Paranjothy co-authored an article titled, The Politics, Promises, and Perils of Data: Evidence-Driven Policy and Practice for Menstrual Health. In their paper, which takes the form of a conversation, members of the Menstrual Health and Gender Justice working group discuss the promises and perils of data about menstruation and bring their various disciplinary backgrounds to bear.

Black Atlantic Ecologies Graduate Assistant featured in Columbia News for Co-Creation of New Podcast

Alyssa James, graduate assistant of the Black Atlantic Ecologies working group, was featured in Columbia News in the Q&A, Anthropology Students’ Podcast Is a Response to Protests and the Pandemic, in which she and her co-host Brendane Tynes discuss the inspiration behind the creation of their new podcast, “Zora’s Daughters.” 

To learn more about Zora’s Daughters read here. 
To listen to the Zora’s Daughters podcast click here.
To learn more about Black Atlantic Ecologies, read here. 

Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi to Speak on Insurgent Domesticities at Cooper Union

Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, Director of the new Insurgent Domesticities working group and Assistant Professor of Architecture at Barnard College, will be giving a lecture on Insurgent Domesticities at Cooper Union as a part of the Student Lecture Series. This online event will take place Thursday, November 5, 2020 from 6:30-8:30PM ET. Register in advance here.

Update
Watch the full lecture here.

Engendering the Archive Fellow Has Won the British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize

Hazel Carby, Engendering the Archive and Women Mobilizing Memory working group fellow, has won the 2020 British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for for Global Cultural Understanding. This prize is awarded to works of non-fiction which contribute towards the cultural understanding of connections and divisions which shape identities across the world. Professor Carby’s book Imperial Intimacies: A Tale Of Two Islands (Verso Books, 2019) tells the story of her family in the context of British Empire.

To learn more about Professor Carby’s award click here.

Co-Director of the Gender & the Global Slum Working Group Has Been Named University Professor

Congratulations to Saidiya Hartman, former co-director of the Gender & the Global Slum and Engendering the Archive working groups, who has been named University Professor, Columbia’s highest academic honor.  President Bollinger, announcing her new title, wrote: "She brings a painstaking and unrelenting focus to retrieving and telling the lost stories of the dispossessed. Deploying the singularly powerful tool of her own invention - 'critical fabulation' - Saidiya weaves together a semi-nonfictional narrative from bits and shreds of historical data in order to give voice to those whose place in history has all too often been unfairly set aside." 

Professor Hartman has previously been the winner of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant and has been a Fulbright, Rockefeller, Whitney Oates, and University of California President's Fellow.  Her most recent book, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval, was awarded a National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Co-Director of the Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women Working Group Has Been Presented with a Society of Columbia Graduates 2020 Great Teacher Award

The co-director of the Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women working group, Farah Griffin has been presented with a Society of Columbia Graduates 2020 Great Teacher Award. Established in 1949, this award is given annually to honor a professor's ability to challenge and inspire undergraduates and to relate positively to students outside the classroom, as well as to recognize the faculty member's standing in their own academic discipline.

Women Mobilizing Memory Collective Solidarity Statement on Artsakh

As scholars, artists and activists who are part of the transnational feminist Women Mobilizing Memory Collective sponsored by Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference, we have studied the memories of violent histories in the interests of promoting peace, social justice, and a democratic future across the globe.

Today, we call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Nagorno- Karabagh.

On September 27, 2020, with the backing of the Turkish government (1) and the mobilization of Syrian mercenaries (2), Azerbaijan launched a military assault on Nagorno-Karabagh, an Armenian enclave known to its residents as Artsakh. The cease fire agreement of October 10 was immediately violated.

The decades-long political conflict over the status of this enclave has erupted again as a violent and destabilizing force that is visiting death and destruction on the people of the region at a moment when the world is reeling from the effects of a deadly pandemic. Critical resources that should be used to respond to people’s medical and economic needs have been diverted into war. What is more, Armenians in Turkey and the Diaspora have been made targets of hate crimes and hate speech.

Wars do not result only in death, displacement, injury and destruction, but they create deep wounds that are transmitted across generations. This region already has a long and painful history of such wounds. As part of our research and collaboration, we have learned a great deal from many individuals and institutions in the Caucasus who have been working diligently, creatively and collaboratively to heal these wounds and to cultivate a peaceful future. We would like to join our voices with the courageous voices of peace from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey who are calling for immediate ceasefire, a permanent cessation of aggression and a peaceful resolution to this conflict that will afford the people of Nagorno-Karabagh the right to determine their own future. (3-7)

It is our hope that rather than spreading into an ever more violent proxy war, this conflict can be brought to an immediate end. We call on the international community, including the governments of the United States, Russia, and Turkey, to work to end the violence immediately and to bring about a lasting settlement. A lasting settlement needs to end all human rights violations in the region and to give voice to women and other marginalized groups through the implementation of the UN Resolution 1325. (8)

1. What lies behind Turkish support for Azerbaijan
2. Syrians Make Up Turkey’s Proxy Army in Nagorno-Karabakh
3. CaucasusTalks
4. To stand for peace, in spite of everything
5. HDP MP Garo Paylan: There are no winners in war and no losers in peace
6. #PEACENOW #BARIŞİSTİYORUZ
7. Armenian, Azeri Youth Speak Out For Peace
8. What’s Really Driving the Azerbaijan-Armenia Conflict

The Women Mobilizing Memory Collective at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference, comprised of over 40 scholars, artists and activists from the United States, Chile, Argentina, Turkey, Germany, and Austria.

Co-Director of the Black Atlantic Ecologies Working Group Interviewed by Wave Hill

 Vanessa Agard Jones, co-director of Black Atlantic Ecologies,  spoke with Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin and Eileen Jeng Lynch at Wave Hill about a variety of topics including queer ecologies, fugitivity, toxicity, and decoloniality.  Professor Jones reflected on Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin’s Sunroom Project Space exhibition M for Membrane, which explores the membrane, mystery, and magic of microbial forms, fungi, and indigenous mold.

Co-Director of Geographies of Injustice to Speak at Institute of Latin American Studies Online Event

Professor Ana Paulina Lee, co-director of the Geographies of Injustice: Gender and the City working group,  will be moderating a conversation with Nilce Naira Nascimento and Sergio Suiama on November 5 from 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM. Liberating the Sacred: Afro-Brazilian Religions, Cultural Heritage, and the Law is hosted by the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.  Between 1889-1945, over 500 sacred objects were confiscated from Candomblé and Umbanda temples in Rio de Janeiro. For more than a century, the sacred objects were held at the building that once served as headquarters to the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), once the center for police administration, a prison, and a torture site, and now the headquarters for the Civil Police. In September 2020, after decades of struggle, the objects were transferred to the Museum of the Republic. This conversation revisits the history to liberate the sacred objects. Participants will discuss plans for the future of these sacred objects and address issues related to cultural belonging, law, appropriation, and heritage.

Unpayable Debt Working Group Co-director Profiled by Feminist Films in the Classroom

The Feminist Films in the Classroom’s piece, We Learn Together: A Conversation about Feminist Film Pedagogy with Frances Negrón-Muntaner and Elisabetta Diorio, is a biographical interview about Professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner's life, teachings, and films. Professor Negrón-Muntaner, CSSD Executive Committee member and co-director of the Unpayable Debt working group, talks about some of her films such as AIDS in the Barrio (1989) and Brincando el Charco (1994). The piece also includes interviews with former students who have followed in her footsteps and relfect the impact of Professor Negrón-Muntaner’s work.

Transnational Black Feminisms Co-Director Featured in New Documentary

Premilla Nadasen, co-director of the Transnational Black Feminisms working group, was interviewed along with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about the history of women’s rights and suffrage in the United States of America. The Nineteenth Amendment: A Woman’s Right to Vote was produced by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. The film is about women’s long, difficult struggle to win the right to vote. It’s about citizenship, the power of the vote, and why women had to change the Constitution with the 19th Amendment to get the vote. 

Co-Director of the Queer Aqui Working Group interview by BBC Worldwide

The co-director of the Queer Aqui working group, Jack Halberstam, spoke with BBC Worldwide about the groundbreaking Hite Report, after the death of its author, Shere Hite. Shere Hite was a prominent feminist whose famous book, “The Hite Report: Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality" gave scientific credibility to the claims that women, especially white heterosexual women, were making about deep dissatisfaction with their domestic lives and heterosexual marriage. The book led to many discussions about the unequal relationship between women and men with regard to pleasure in a heteronormative dynamic and was an important part of the sexual revolution of the 1960s.