News and Announcements
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.
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.
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National Endowment for the Humanities awards grant to TWU faculty
4/14/21
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced that it awarded a Humanities Connections Grant of $99,426 to Texas Woman’s University. The grant will support the very first interdisciplinary and experiential learning initiative to integrate the history of Quakertown into courses at TWU. It will also enable the future development of a digital humanities archive of Quakertown-related research and reflection, which the project co-directors aim to connect to a public platform that will promote community engagement with Quakertown’s history for decades to come.
Doctoral student Chelle Luper Wilson isn’t just preserving history, she’s making it
2/5/21
Historian, speaker, entrepreneur and social justice activist Chelle Luper Wilson is no stranger to the limelight, and her activism was recognized when she was awarded the 2020 National Association of Black Journalists’ (NABJ) Angelo B. Henderson Community Service Award. The honor, named after the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is given to a journalist who goes above and beyond to make a positive impact in their community.
Doctoral student Morgan May accepts Sierra Canyon School faculty position
9/22/20
Morgan May, a doctoral student in Multicultural Women's and Gender Studies, recently accepted a faculty member position in the Sierra Canyon School’s Department of World Languages and will also serve as coordinator of the school's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force.