News
PhD candidate Esther Ajayi-Lowo accepts faculty position at Spelman College
4/26/21
Esther Ajayi-Lowo, doctoral candidate in Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies, recently accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Comparative Women’s Studies (CWS) Program at Spelman College.
Spelman is a private liberal arts college that was founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1881. It was the only school in the nation that welcomed women from across the African Diaspora. Currently, Spelman is one out of only two historically black colleges for women, and it is home to the very first program in WGS at an HBCU and the first Black women’s archive at a college.
Esther is an expert on reproductive justice with a focus on maternal health issues among Nigerian women. She will contribute significantly to the development of the health concentration of the CWS undergraduate major program.
The program is housed in the Women’s Research and Resource Center where scholars and grassroots organizers from around the world come together to engage in feminist theorizing, pedagogy, and institution building. The director and faculty of CWS are looking forward to Esther joining this expansive community and becoming their colleague in the fall.
On-campus thought leadership program funded by Jane Nelson Institute for Women's Leadership
4/26/21
A team of ESFL and MWGS faculty (Dr. Busl, Dr. Phillips-Cunningham, Dr. Bender and Dr. Hoermann-Elliott) submitted a proposal to the Jane Nelson Institute for Women's Leadership that has been funded. The program will start this summer to lay the groundwork for an on-campus thought leadership program for students, faculty, staff and the larger community to develop specific skills needed to lead. If the program is funded through the biennium, it will explore the creation of a thought leadership certificate to be housed in the department.
Veronica Popp and Dr. Phillips-Cunningham co-author Nannie Helen Burroughs article
4/26/21
Veronica Popp (doctoral candidate in Rhetoric) and Dr. Danielle Phillips-Cunningham (MWGS Program Director) co-authored an article entitled “Justice for All: The Womanist Labor Rhetoric of Nannie Helen Burroughs” published by Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition. Popp is first author on this article, which is a labor organizing of African American educator Nannie Helen Burroughs. In the article, Popp and Dr. Phillips-Cunningham document Burroughs’ historic efforts to establish the first national labor union for Black women.
Phillips-Cunningham discusses book, research in NYU series and Rutgers talk
4/26/21
Dr. Danielle Phillips-Cunningham, MWGS Program Director, was a featured speaker in the Black, Brown, and Green Voices Series at New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House. She engaged in a conversation with Dr. Miriam Grey (founder of the series) about the comparative labor histories of southern Black women and Irish immigrant women.
Phillips-Cunningham also delivered a book talk moderated by Dr. Naomi Williams of the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.
TWU alumni Rikki Willingham and Sharmeen Jariullah launch 'Gray Matters' blog
4/19/21
"Gray Matters the Blog" was created on the impetus to bridge academia and activism by two TWU students and alumni, Rikki Willingham, who received her MA in Multicultural Women's and Gender Studies in 2019 and is currently working on her PhD in the program, and Sharmeen Jariullah, who received her MA in Multicultural Women's and Gender Studies in 2020. Gray Matters the Blog utilizes a website-based blog and podcast platforms to contribute to the digital humanities. The goal of Gray Matters the Blog is to make complex theory accessible, prompt conversations about uncomfortable topics, and provide tangible resources while centering disenfranchised voices and experiences. Gray Matters is an inclusive space for all backgrounds and abilities, examples of which are the episode transcripts available on the website and alternate text available on the website and social media pages. The website specifically features pages explaining different epistemologies and showcases the works of various literary and creative perspectives. Utilizing both a podcast and blog format, the audience has options in the ways they wish to connect with complex theories while social media provides broad-reaching access.
Anchor Podcast // Apple Podcast // Spotify Podcast // Instagram