Elinor Accampo (History and Gender Studies) published "The Gendered Nature of Contraception in France: Neo-Malthusianism, 1900-1920," in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. She also participated in a roundtable discussion on "French Feminism and the Universal/Difference Dilemma," at the annual meeting of the Western Society for French History.
Lois Banner (History and Gender Studies) published Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle. She has given talks on it at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society, Mt. Holyoke College, the Kinsey Institute. She also delivered a paper on the topic at the American Anthropological Association Convention.
Estela Bensimon (Rossier School of Education) published a brochure, "Why Equity Matters" and prepared a paper for the Harvard Civil Rights Project: The State of Equity in California's Postsecondary Education System. Bensimon et al published "Doing Research that Makes a Difference" in The Journal of Higher Education. "The Diversity Scorecard: A Learning Approach to Institutional Change" was published in Change. Several of these works can be viewed at: http://www.usc.edu/dept/education/CUE/index.htm . Bensimon was honored by the President of the University of LaVerne for her work on the Diversity Scorecard Project and her contributions to the University of LaVerne community. She has been invited, along with Linda Serra Hagedorn, to manage the technical assistance component of The Lumina Foundation's new national community college initiative, "Achieving the Dream."
Diana York Blaine (Writing Program and Gender Studies) published "Death and The Crying of Lot 49" in Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the Margins. She moderated the "F Word" panel for the Women's Student Assembly and will be giving a slide presentation at USC "The Only Good Woman is a Dead One: Images of the Beautiful Female Corpse in Art and Advertising" on Dec 2 for the Women's Student Assembly. Blaine is also working on a book on breast implants for a lay audience.
Velina Hasu Houston (Theatre) received the 2003 Silver Medal from the Pinter Review Prize for Drama for Calling Aphrodite. In November, the Chicago Cultural Center will present her play Tea as the kick-off event for the opening of its exhibit on the history of tea. She will be the guest speaker at the Hawai'i International Conference on Arts and Humanities, speaking on "Crisis, Asian Identity Transformation, and Theatrical Articulation," January, 2004, Honolulu. She will be the Michi and Walter Weglyn Endowed Chair for Multicultural Studies Speaker, at Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona, California, presenting "Nikkei Women Playwrights: Circling the Nest and Taking Flight." LA Theatre Works will feature its "The Play's the Thing" production of Tea on National Public Radio on December 7, 2003, including an interview with her about Japanese and American relations.
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (Sociology) edited Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends published by the University of California Press.
Janet Hoskins (Anthropology) presented her paper "Postcards from the Edge of Empire: Images and Messages from French Indochina" at a panel on "Revisiting Orientalism" at the American Anthropological Association Meetings in Chicago. Last July, she presented a paper titled "The Camera as Global Vampire: Photography in Remote Indonesia and Elsewhere" at an international conference on Tourism and Photography in Sheffield, England UK. In December, she will present a paper titled "Gendered Christianities: Protestants, Catholics and Sumbanese Sexual Politics" at an international conference on Christianity and Power in Indonesia.
Dorrine Kondo's (Anthropology and the Program for American Studies and Ethnicity) play But Can He Dance -- a multiracial relationship comedy--ran at Asian American Repertory Theatre in San Diego. It's a first production for the playwright--very exciting to enter theatre as a participant and not a critic. The play chronicles the picaresque adventures of SHE, an Asian American woman, in her search for love and the perfect dance partner. An interview with the playwright will appear in theatermania.com. Kondo presented a paper at the American Anthropological Association meetings on "Corporeal Epistemologies: Ethnography and Performance," on the panel "Performance and Performativity."
Rebecca Lemon (English) is writing a book while on research leave right now. She has received two fellowships to support her work one from the Stanford Humanities Center and the other is an ACLS/Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Philippa Levine (History) published Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire with Routledge. She also published several articles: "What Difference Did Empire Make? Sex, Gender and Sanitary Reform in the British Empire," in National Healths: Gender, Sexuality and Health in a Cross-Cultural Context , and a roundtable discussion of Catherine Hall's new book, Civilizing Subjects, in the Journal of British Studies. She has delivered several talks this semester: "Sexuality and Imperialism: The View from South Asia" at the University of British Columbia; "Is There Anything Victorian about Victorian Sexuality?" at the North American Victorian Studies Association; and "Sex and Editing: Disruptions of Complacency in Gender and Imperial History" at the North American Conference on British Studies.
Susan McCabe (English) published a book of poetry, Swirl, with Red Hen Press.
Michael Messner (Sociology and Gender Studies): The sixth edition of Michael Messner's co-edited book, Men's Lives, has been published by Allyn & Bacon. He also published "Men as Superordinates: Challenges for Gender Scholarship" in Michael S. Kimmel & Abby L. Ferber's edited volume, Privilege.
Gloria Orenstein writes: I am Co-chairing an event entitled "Tribute to Feminist Artists," co-sponsored by the Veteran Feminists of America and the Rockland Center for the Arts in NY. on Nov. 6, 2003. We will honor feminist artists who changed the world of Art from 1966--1980. Our Ruth Weisberg will be one of the artists whose works will appear in our exhibition. I will chair a panel. My article "The Greening of Gaia: Ecofeminist artists Revisit the Garden" appeared in Ethics and the Environment's special issue on Art. I wrote the brochure for the exhibition "Illumination: Gold Series," the art of Ginette Mizraki—held at La Artcore and The Brewery in July 2003. My article "Vision and Visibility: Contemporary Jewish Women Artists Envision The Invisible" is due to appear this month, Oct. 2003 in the Fall issue of FEMSPEC .
I became a grandmother for the second time on Aug. 12, 2003. My granddaughter, Sophie Grace was born in NYC to Claudia Orenstein (a grad. of USC. and now a Prof. of Theatre at Hunter College in NY). Also, my daughter, Nadine Orenstein, curated an important exhibition on the prints and drawings and paintings of Henrik Goltzius (From 17th century Holland) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY. The exhibit was reviewed in The New York Times, and she appeared on t.v. as well. She is a Full Curator of Northern European Prints and Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This was a very productive year for all of us. In addition my son-in-law, Taylor Carman was awarded tenure in Philosophy at Barnard College. This was the first time in 30 years that a Barnard Prof. received tenure in Philosophy under the aegis of Columbia. I'm very proud of everyone.
Connie Rogers (Affiliated Scholar) traveled to Belgium in September for the meetings of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association where she presented a paper on the measurement of transgender identity and role. Her present research concerns the public and private life of Christine Jorgensen. While a good deal has been written about Jorgensen's public life as a pioneer transsexual and entertainer, a complete biography has never been published. Dr. Rogers will visit the Royal Library in Copenhagen in December to review the Jorgensen papers and films, and to interview professionals and family members who knew Ms. Jorgensen.
Anne Sokolsky (East Asian Languages and Cultures) is a new professor at USC; she is currently teaching an upper division course and a graduate seminar that both focus on early images of the modern Japanese woman in Japanese literature. She received her Ph.D. in Japanese Literature with a subspeciality in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her dissertation focuses on an early modern Japanese feminist writer, Tamura Toshiko, who, despite a prolific writing career from 1910 to 1945, has only had two short stories translated into English. Tamura Toshiko is significant in Japan's literary history as a writer who challenged Japan's militarist and nationalist policies, but did so through coded language to avert censorship. As a result of Tamura's experience living in North America at the height of anti-Asian sentiment during the 1930s, Tamura's perspective to Japanese nationalism is unique in the canon of wartime Japanese literature. Sokolsky presented a paper based on her dissertation at UCLA in November. She has also had published an article titled "Miyamoto Yuriko and Socialist Writers" for The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature. Future projects include: translating Tamura's fiction into English, tracing the New Woman writer phenomenon from the West to East Asia, postcolonial Japanese literature written by women, and translating and analyzing literary byproducts of Japan's first feminist magazine, Seitô ( Bluestocking ).
Nelly P. Stromquist (EDPA) organized a panel on "Purposes and Strategies of Public Policies in Education and Gender" and presented a paper on "Theoretical and Implementation Issues on Gender Equity Policies in Education" at the 51st Congress of Americanists, held in Santiago, Chile, in July. She contributed a chapter, "While Gender Sleeps: Neoliberalism's Impact on Educational Policies in Latin America," which appears in Stephen Ball, Gustavo Fischman, and Silvina Gvirtz (eds.) Latin America's Educational Hopscotch: Understanding the Legacy of Neo-Liberal Approaches to Educational Reform. During her Fulbright fellowship in Lima, Peru (May-August 2003), Stromquist taught at Universidad Catolica de Lima, conducted research on educational policies from a gender perspective, and gave several public lectures at San Marcos, Catolica, and Cayetano Heredia universities.
Ruth Wallach (ISD ) presented a paper, "Public Art and the Digital Library - What's in the Collection?" at the International Federation of Library Associations conference in Berlin, August 4. In November, she will be making a presentation at the Social Science History Association's meeting in Baltimore on public art as a layer of city culture.
Walter Williams (Anthropology and Gender Studies) received a joint appointment in the USC History Department. He and Yolanda Retter published a new book, Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States: A Documentary History.