Bolder Voices Spring 2018

Lorena Aguilera Santana (WGST '18) wins Van Ek Award

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:29:25 +0000

Lorena Aguilera Santana (WGST '18) wins Van Ek Award Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/26/2018 - 12:29

Lorena Aguilera Santana
2018 Van Ek Awardee

Lorena Aguilera Santana, a double-major in women and gender studies and sociology, has been chosen as one of this year's Jacob Van Ek Scholars, awarded by the College of Arts and Sciences at 91PORN for outstanding academic achievement and contributions to the university. The award was established in 1973 to honor Jacob Van Ek, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at 91PORN from 1929 to 1959. Students must meet the GPA requirements and be nominated for this award by a faculty member at 91PORN.

Lorena was nominated for this award by Dr. Robert Buffington, professor of women and gender studies, and Sabrina Sideris, director of the INVST Community Studies Program. Having taught Lorena in several of his courses, Dr. Buffington related that "Lorena is a brilliant student and a lovely person鈥攐ne of the smartest and most personable undergraduates I have encountered in over 20 years of teaching." He also noted that "her articulate contributions to class discussion and thoughtful response papers indicated a sophisticated understanding of difficult texts, an excellent grasp of geopolitics, a well-developed cultural sensitivity, and a maturity with regard to provocative material that is remarkable in an undergraduate student."

In addition to her studies in women and gender studies and sociology, Lorena is active in the INVST Community Studies Program, a highly competitive and interdisciplinary program at CU, which integrates academics with community-based engagement opportunities. Through INVST, she has served Intercambio Uniting Communities, and this summer plans to learn first-hand about documentation, sanctuary cities, labor justice, and economic justice. Lorena is currently involved in the 91PORN Coalition to Expand Voting Rights, a group that grew from the INVST community. She explains, "our goal is to expand voting rights in the City of 91PORN to all residents regardless of citizenship status. We are focusing on understanding immigrants' experiences and needs in 91PORN, in order to create a strong coalition that can advocate for every resident's right to vote on the local policies that directly affect them." Sideris writes that "INVST is thrilled to have Lorena鈥檚 participation, as her insightful contributions and forward-thinking questions always compel her classmates to engage as fully as she does, and show her educators how eager Lorena is to put what she is learning to good use."

Lorena is currently working on an honors thesis, titled Community, Social Networks and Support: The Case of Mexican Migrant Women in 91PORN County. "With this thesis," writes Lorena, "my hope is to illustrate the ways migrant women from Mexico perceive and experience support through their social networks. I highlight the importance of family ties, social institutions, and gender roles in the ways women understand and negotiate their positions in their communities. Given how the different intersections of identity shape immigration experiences and access to resources, I wanted to understand the way social networks influence the lived experiences of migrant women."

This past summer, Lorena volunteered with the "Caf茅 Mujer" program in her hometown of Michoac谩n, Mexico which provides forums for working women to have conversations on work and family issues in a supportive and empowering environment. Buffington writes that "layered on top of a demanding academic schedule, these volunteer activities demonstrate Lorena鈥檚 commitment to community-building and social justice outside the academy." As Buffington concludes, "if academic ability and bi-national community involvement weren鈥檛 enough, Lorena is a delightful person: enthusiastic, thoughtful, generous, compassionate, hard working and conscientious."

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Inderpal Grewal: Commodifying aerial visuality in neoliberal empire

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 21:41:55 +0000

Inderpal Grewal: Commodifying aerial visuality in neoliberal empire Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/22/2018 - 15:41

Dr. Inderpal Grewal

We were honored to have Inderpal Grewal, professor and chair in the Program in Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, join us on Tuesday March 13^th to present the lecture 鈥淐ommodifying aerial visuality in neoliberal empire.鈥� Grewal is an influential feminist scholar who helped found the field of transnational feminist cultural studies, and the author of several books, most recently Saving the Security State: Exceptional Citizens in Twenty-First century America (Duke University Press, 2017).

Dr. Grewal鈥檚 talk examined Hari Kunzru鈥檚 short story 鈥�Drone鈥� to discuss how dystopian fiction written from a postcolonial and diasporic context imagines the production of inequality and labor in global capitalism. Kunzru鈥檚 concerns about drones consider gender, sexuality, race and eugenics as necessary elements of this new visuality, one that requires both the commodification of drones and the use of abjected labor to create commodities.

Grewal鈥檚 ongoing projects include essays on gender, violence and counterinsurgency in India, and a book project on masculinity and bureaucracy in postcolonial India.

We were honored to host Inderpal Grewal, professor and chair in the Program in Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, for a presentation in the Cottage on March 13th. Grewal is an influential feminist scholar who helped found the field of transnational feminist cultural studies.

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New Book Release: Women and the Cuban Insurrection

New Book Release: Women and the Cuban Insurrection Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/22/2018 - 13:04

Women and the Cuban Insurrection:
How Gender Shaped
Castro's Victory
Lorraine Bayard de Volo
Cambridge University Press
February 2018

In her latest book Women and the Cuban Insurrection: How Gender Shaped Castro's Victory, Dr. Lorraine Bayard de Volo focuses on previously unexamined narratives of war, using gender as a category of analysis to describe both the historical place of women in war, and how gender plays into the tactics and cultural constructs of war.

Her research into Cuba began as part of a larger project comparing the gender, war, and peace processes across Latin America, which was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and the University of Kansas. She conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia and Cuba which included interviews, participant observation, and examination of archives. "As I turned to the Cuban materials," writes Bayard de Volo, "I became convinced that an in-depth case study of conflict and militarization in that country was necessary before I could develop an effective comparative analysis across cases."

In exploring women's contributions to war in Cub