Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Interest Group

Red Washburn

Spring 2022 Minutes

March 31, 2022, 1-2PM, Zoom

April 28, 2022, 1-2PM, Zoom
May 12, 2022, 1-2, Zoom

The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Interest Group is still using Zoom. We focused on Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies, with a focus on Indigenous Studies. We also discussed transdisciplinary studies more generally.

At the first meeting, we began a critical discussion of Tiffany Lethabo King’s The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies: https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-1-4780-0636-7_601.pdf. We talked about the field of indigenous studies and talked about King’s work on decolonial feminisms with a focus on critical indigenous and Black studies.

At second meeting, we continued our discussion of King’s work. We focused on cultural studies, archives, and literary criticism. We talked about doing events on campus focusing on Black indigenous studies and civic engagement.

The third and last meeting of the semester we recapped the semester and talked about what we want next year to look like for the WGSS FIG. We talked much about how to continue intersectional, transdisciplinary, and social justice work in academia and in advocacy. I will be on sabbatical, but Dominic Wetzel will be the interim director of WGSS and the WGSS FIG for AY Fall 2022-Spring 2023 until I return in Fall 2023.

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies FIG
Red Washburn

Spring 2021 Minutes

April 5, 2021, 2-3PM, Zoom
April 19, 2021, 2-3PM, Zoom
May 10, 2021, 10-11AM, Zoom

The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Interest Group is still using Zoom and teach-in videos instead of meetings. We focused on Black Lives Matter, Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies as well as discussed transdisciplinary studies more generally.

At the first meeting, we continued our focus on Black Lives Matter with a feminist focus. On Thursday, March 25, 12-2PM, Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey, member of the historic Combahee River Collective, gave a talk “What Time Is It?: A Transnational Black Feminist Moment”: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/play/EY-bqc6MOeB6zLbIVJp2kmGEVyYxJHNWXx-bRsvW6kDzRcImFqDOfj5dFo2mxtye-TRcmVBNn0oqc_ha.n5niz8Ic3COmcQIV?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=fxscHUQ9SBWX-A1_8F6_kg.1617127538861.64e160c1e5373816b0510a99f1a6dcd0&_x_zm_rhtaid=508&startTime=1616688669000&fbclid=IwAR3t_HCoQx24nI2d9kWcWfLJtuxKo4LkZdG8r8hq3mdzj06ZTLVHZN6fAv8 We, WGS and SICU, also worked with Women Make Movies to show the film Black Feminist for Women’s History Month.  We used this work for our discussion. We debriefed about the importance of transnational Black feminist work now. We also talked more broadly about how to build coalitions with other organizations going forward. We liked working with the National Women’s Studies Association, WSQ, The Feminist Press, the Center for the Humanities, the Center for LGBTQ Studies, other CUNY WGS and LGBTQ Studies programs during this isolated time. We spent much time talking about intellectual solidarity for transdisciplinary work related to social justice.

At second meeting, we discussed Alicia Garza’s lecture about her book The Purpose of Power and her work creating BLM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys-jSp1SScU. We focused on personal politics and lived experiences with race, gender, and other intersecting identities. In addition, we shared our thoughts on experience and authority, connected to the ways in which intellectual, creative, and activist work coalesces. We also discussed to build WGS and Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies on our campus under a larger academic project devoted to transdisciplinary work. We brainstormed about how to use the WGS FIG to connect us to other faculty and write some grants together to promote the work we would like to see thrive on our campus during this moment of austerity.

The third and last meeting of the semester was a panel, “22nd Century Environmental Education: A Transdisciplinary Constructive Dialogue.” This Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies FIG panel, co-sponsored with the Student Union and Intercultural Center, discussed intersectional aspects of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and class as it relates to environmental action and education. Panelists included Wendy Hapgood, Director of Wild Tomorrow Fund, Sachigusa Yasuda, a conceptual artist, and Midori Yamamura, Jason Leggett, Kevicha Echols, Helen Nasser, and Red Washburn.  We discussed environmental racism in the Bronx, racial capitalism and reproductive issues, destruction of habitaats in indigenous communities and Native species, women of color in South Africa, Brazil, and Japan under globalization, trandisciplinary work in WGS and environmental studies, and ways to make our campus more environmentally friendly as part of a larger discussion of systematic anti-corporate change in the world.

April 7, 2020, 3-4pm, Zoom
May 13, 2020, 3-4pm, Zoom
May 27, 2020, 3-4pm, Zoom

Due to the pandemic, the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Interest Group transitioned to Zoom meetings. We also used teach-in videos about gender, sexuality, and the spectrum of difference as connected to the pandemic. We will use Theory and Praxis: Women’s and Gender Studies at Community Colleges, edited by Heather Rellihan and Genevieve Carminati when we meet again in person.

At first meeting, we discussed Angela Davis’ and Naomi Klein’s conversation, Movement Build in the Time of the Coronavirus. We focused on the connections between “disaster capitalism,” the prison industrial complex, and transatlantic solidarity. In particular, we talked much about women of color in prison, health and economic disparities, and state violence as well as intimate partner violence and patriarchal households.

At the second meeting, we discussed Arundhati Roy’s The Pandemic Is a Portal. We talked generally about the pandemic as a condition that makes structural inequality, such as sexism, racism, cissexism, classism, heterosexism, and ableism, among others, hypervisible. We shared that times can get better or worse, that we do not know where the portal is taking us. We also focused mainly on talking about healthcare and the virus impacting more BIPOC folks globally because of intersecting identities and oppressions, and tied it to her points about India’s response. We spent some time discussing CUNY’s portal and how it would affect interdisciplinary work in Women’s and Gender Studies.

At the third meeting, we discussed Ruthie Wilson Gilmore’s COVID 19, Decarceration and Abolition, which is three parts:  1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTOspzD1ZQ 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk3K3xLWL_o and 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toYvNnhojhM  We discussed the reality of prisoners and their health, with almost 70% of them having the virus without basic human rights to adequate healthcare. We focused on the plight of women of color, including trans folks, and the promise of prison abolition as a corrective to racism and sexism under capitalist policing that does not give resources, homes, jobs, education, and healthcare to at risk communities. We also spent some time talking about funding for WGS at Kingsborough and what we want to do next year.

April 18, 3-4, KCTL

May 9, 3-5, KCTL

May 29, 1:50-2:50, KCTL

We discussed Roderick Ferguson’s The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Difference.  We focused on academic cuts to interdisciplinary studies that raise awareness about social inequality in knowledge productions, especially in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and LGBTQ Studies. We reflected on our work within CUNY and how to make sure WGS survives and thrives in this neoliberal climate.

April 30, 3-4PM, KCTL

May 14, 3-4PM< KCTL

June 4, 3-4PM, KCTL

We discussed Alison Kafer’s Feminist, Queer, Crip.  We explored the intersections of queer, feminist, and disability studies with a critical eye on trans and critical race theory. We focused on the “super crip” notion and connected it to time and imaginations of the future.