WOMEN'S STUDIES PROGRAM

Women's Studies redresses the invisibility of women and gender in the construction of knowledge and reminds us to include women's as well as men's contributions, experiences and perceptions in understanding the world. The inclusion of Women's Studies subjects in the curriculum of an MIT student helps to produce an engineer, scientist, or business executive who is better-equipped to contribute fully and participate effectively in teams made up of men and women.

PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION

The program is directed by Professor Ruth Perry, Professor of Literature, and Founder of MIT Program in Women's Studies. During academic year 1996-97, the Women's Studies Steering Committee consists of Assistant Professor Evelynn Hammonds (STS), Associate Professor Diana Henderson (Literature), Professor Jean Jackson (Anthropology), Associate Professor Henry Jenkins (Literature and Film & Media Studies), Professor Evelyn Fox Keller (STS), Women's Studies Research Librarian Marlene Manoff (Humanities Library), Professor Perry (Literature), and Associate Professor Margery Resnick (FL&L).

CURRICULUM

The Program in Women's Studies offers an undergraduate curriculum consisting of core classes and crosslisted subjects from cooperative departments. Students may concentrate, minor and petition for a major departure in Women's Studies. The Program in Women's Studies offered eighteen subjects during the academic year 1995-96, with approximately 300 students enrolled. The program continues to be an active contributing member of the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies (GCWS), a pioneering effort by faculty at six degree-granting institutions in the Boston area and Radcliffe College to advance women's studies scholarship in a series of team-taught interdisciplinary graduate seminars. This year, the GCWS co-sponsored three graduate level courses, in which one MIT graduate student enrolled.

HONORS AND AWARDS

Lily Koo `97 was the second recipient of the joint writing prize offered jointly by The Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies and the Program in Women's Studies. The Louis Kampf Writing Prize in Women's and Gender Studies honors both Professor Emeritus Louis Kampf's contributions to Women's Studies at MIT and rewards high quality undergraduate writing in women's and gender studies. The Prize is sponsored by Women's Studies and included among the annual writing prizes given by the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. The Prize is judged by faculty from Writing and Humanistic Studies and Women's Studies.

Professor Cynthia Wolff (Writing & Humanistic Studies) won both a Guggenheim and a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to continue her primary research on Willa Cather. Professor Henderson (Literature) won the Jeptha H. and Emily V. Wade Award and the Old Dominion Fellowship. Professor Fox Keller (STS) received an honorary doctorate from Luleå University in Sweden.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

• Maxine Hong Kingston read from her work-in-progress in an event that filled 10-250. It was co-sponsored by Women's Studies, Office of the Arts, the Dean of Humanities and Social Science, Literature Section, Foreign Languages & Literatures, and the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies.

• Also well-attended was a panel discussion on "Generations of Feminism," featuring Nation columnist Katha Pollitt, Harvard School of Education Visiting Professor Linda C. Powell, Pam Prasarttongosoth `97, Alan Shihadeh `G, Lamelle Rawlins--Harvard `99, and moderated by Professor Hammonds (STS).

• A series of events and films offered in connection to Women's Studies subject SP406 "Violence Against Women" was co-sponsored by Women's Studies and Amnesty International. In the fall, Wellesley Assistant Professor Kathy Moon (Political Science) presented on US Militarized Prostitution in Korea, Cambodian American Loung Un presented "Survivors of War, and Survivors of Domestic Violence: Both Were Prisoners, but Only One Is Blamed for their Imprisonment," and a screening of documentary, When Women Unite: The Story of an Uprising, which narrates the struggle of a group of women in the Indian village of Andhra Pradesh to ban the sale of arrack, a state-supplied distilled liquor. In the spring, Calling the Ghosts: A Story about Rape, War and Women , a film examining the Balkan tragedy was screened and introduced by Lecturer Kim Mancuso (Theater Arts).

• "Noble Science and Nobel Lust: Disclosing Tribal Secrets" presentation by author and Stanford Professor Carl Djerassi on research ethics was co-sponsored by Women's Studies, The WWW Ethics Center for Engineering and Science, and the Dean for Graduate Education.

• "The Changing Role of Women in Japan" film series was presented in connection with the freshman seminar on the changing status of women in Japan led by Assistant Professor Takako Aikawa (FL&L) co-sponsored by Women's Studies, FL&L, and Film & Media Studies.

• IAP reading from Sarah's Psalm and celebration of the retiring Bunting Institute director Florence Ladd (former associate dean of the School of Architecture and Planning) co-sponsored by Women's Studies, the Office of the Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs, the Humanities Library, and the Office of the Arts.

• IAP three-session discussion group on Women in the Bible led by Chaplain Constance Parvey and co-sponsored by Women's Studies and the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at MIT.

• A cutting-edge, one-day conference, "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: A Conference on Gender and Computer Games," was sponsored by Women' Studies, the Film and Media Studies Program, the Program in Science, Technology & Society, Media Lab, and the Deans of Engineering and Humanities and Social Science, and content organized by Assistant Professor Justine Cassell (Media Lab) and Professor Jenkins (Literature, Film & Media Studies). The 200+ attendance came from the MIT community and outside, including attendees from New York, California, and Canada.

• 1997 series of readings, "Colored Girls with Pens: Writing by Women of Color," designed to showcase women of color authors, and co-sponsored by the Office of the Arts, Humanities Library, Women's Studies, Wellesley Women's Studies Department and New Words bookstore was presented all spring. It included Thulani Davis, Patricia Powell, Holly Uyemoto, Carmen Abrego, Nuar Alsadir, Sharan Strange, and Shirley Geok-Lim Lin.

• The Second Annual Off-Line Poetry Slam, funded by Council for the Arts and the DeFlorez Fund for Humor, appealed to a whole new constituency of MIT. This event was begun at MIT because of the students in the Women's Studies subject SP452 "History and Politics of US Feminist Movements" offered in the spring of 1996. (A poetry slam is a competitive performance poetry contest with judges chosen randomly from the audience.)

• A lecture series on "Gender, Welfare and Poverty" was co-sponsored by Women's Studies, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the Department of Political Science. The series featured five speakers chosen and introduced by Assistant Professor Aixa Cintron (DUSP). This series enriched her class, Women's Studies subject SP470 "Gender, Work and Public Policy."

• The Women's Studies Brown Bag Lunch Lecture Series featured 10 local scholars, including these from MIT: Assistant Professor Aixa Cintron (DUSP), Assistant Professor Brenda Cotto-Escalera (Theater Arts), Lecturer Manju Mehta (Anthropology), Assistant Professor Maureen Scully (Sloan), PhD candidate Amy Segal (Sloan), and Lecturer Emma Teng (History).

RESEARCH, PUBLICATIONS, AND SERVICE

The Women's Studies Faculty continued their active contributions to their individual fields. Most of these accomplishments are listed in the reports of their home departments, so special attention is given here to achievements relating to work on gender.

Associate Professor Elizabeth Wood published the essay "Class and Gender at Loggerheads in the Early Soviet State: Who Should Organize the Female Proletariat and How?" (Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose, eds. Gender and Class in Modern Europe, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), and gave an invited lecture at Brandeis University entitled "Syphilization or Civilization: The Trial of the Old Way of Life in Revolutionary Russia, 1917-1930."

Professor Resnick (FL&L) is a consultant to Partners Advisory Committee on Women which is conducting a system-wide study of barriers to women's success in academic medicine (MGH, B&W's, Dana Farber, Mass Eye & Ear, Spaulding, McLean's. She also taught a seminar on "Women and Work" for the European Community out of Barcelona. She has completed two more oral history interviews on MIT women graduates; several more are ongoing.

Professor Fox Keller co-edited Feminism and Science with Helen Longino (1996, Oxford University Press).

Professor Hammonds co-edited with B. Laslett, S.G. Kohlstedt, H. Longino, and E. Hammonds, Gender and Scientific Authority (1996, University of Chicago Press). She published the following articles in edited volumes: "Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality" in Feminism Meets Queer Theory, ed. Elizabeth Weed and Naomi Schor (1997, Brown University and Indiana University Press); "When the Margin is the Center: African-American Feminism(s) and `Difference'" in Transitions Environments Translations: Feminisms in International Politics, ed. J. Scott, C. Kaplan, and D. Keates (1997, Routledge); and "Toward a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Silence" in Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, ed. M. J. Alexander, Chandra T. Mohanty (1997, Routledge). She is serving a two-year term as consultant on Women and Scientific Literacy Project for the American Association of Colleges and Universities. She serves on the History of Science Society's Committee on Women. She presented the invited keynote at the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, and papers at the Berkshire Women's History Conference, and the Women in Philosophy meeting at the University of Memphis. She served on the Visiting Committee of the Women's Studies Program at Bates College, She supervised a UROP on "Black Male Physicians and Black Women Health Activists: Two Approaches to Health Care in the African-American Community, 1900-1950."

Professor Sherry Turkle served on the Massachusetts Women's Forum and presented the following lectures: "Identity in Cyberspace" (Alumnae Conference: Women and Leadership: Pathways to Power, Simmons College, Graduate School of Management); "Women, Learning, and Computers" (Wellesley College Center for Learning and Teaching); Keynote Address "Gender Trouble on the Internet" (Conference: Women of Influence: Breaking Boundaries and Challenging Paradigms, Women's Global Business Alliance); "Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet" (Association for Women in Computing); "Gender in the Virtual World" (Women's Forum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Panelist in session "Making History in Cyberspace: Content Control, Gender, and Social Gaps" (Conference: Women Making History, International Women's Forum).

Professor Perry presented the following lectures: "Am I My Sister's Keeper? Intellectual Siblings in Eighteenth-Century England," (Center for Literary and Cultural Studies, Harvard University); "Art, Interdisciplinarity, and the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies" (Pennsylvania State University); "Feminism and the Enlightenment" (Royal Holloway College, University of London); "The Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies" (Arizona State University). She presented the following conference papers: "Good Girls and Fallen Women: Representations of Prostitutes in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction" (Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies; American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies); "Graduate Education in Women's Studies" and "Generations of Feminism" (Conference: Twenty-Five Years of Women's Studies, Arizona State University). She published the following pieces: "Building a Feminist Institution: An Informal History of the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies" (NWSA Journal, 8, 2 Summer 1996); "Inventing a Feminist Institution" (Graduate Women's Studies: Visions and Realities, ed. Ann B. Shteir, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997); review of T.G.A. Nelson's Children, Parents and the Rise of the Novel (Eighteenth-Century Fiction 9,1 - October 1996); review essay "The Contribution of Gender to the Evolution of the Novel" (Modern Language Quarterly 57, 4 December 1996); "Reflections on the writing of women's history" review of Gerda Lerner's Why History Matters (The Boston Globe, April 6, 1997). The following article of Professor Perry has been reprinted: "Women and Computers: An Introduction" (Gender and Scientific Authority ed. Barbara Laslett et al. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

Professor Henderson represented MIT on the Board of Directors of the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies at Radcliffe College. She presented the following papers: "Re-viewing Queen Isabel in Henry V" Seminar on Writing about Performances. Shakespeare Association of America, Washington, D. C.; "The Disappearing Queen: Looking for Isabel in Henry V," (Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, Banff, Canada) and (Meeting of the Group for Early Modern Culture Studies, Pittsburgh, PA). She completed five articles on Women's Studies subjects that are in press and published the following review: The Tears of Narcissus: Melancholia and Masculinity in Early Modern Writing by Lynn Enterline in Shakespeare Bulletin 14.4 (1996): 43.

Lecturer Helen Elaine Lee has been appointed to assistant professor of writing. She has completed her new novel, Water Marked.

Professor Perry will continue as director for one more year.

Ruth Perry

MIT Reports to the President 1996-97