Faculty and Staff
Core Faculty
Anima Adjepong
Associate Professor & Department Head, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3302 French Hall
Chandra Nirmala Frank
Asst Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3322 French Hall
Chandra Frank is Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is the 2024-2027 Taft Professor of Public Humanities and will be working on collaborative and multi-modal methodologies related to art, ecology and public histories. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on feminist and queer of color movement work, possibilities of dissent, and the ways in which race and the environment work as terrains of power. She is completing her first monograph in progress, Tidal Politics: Feminist Queer Diaspora & Refusal in the Netherlands, which charts the creative and strategic interruption of feminist queer movement work in the 1980s alongside the literal and figurative sinking landscape and racial climate of the Netherlands. Over the last decade, she has been active as an independent curator working across continents and with various institutions such as the Bonnefanten Museum, Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, and District Six Museum.
Lisa M Hogeland
Associate Professor, English and WGSS, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
214D ARTSCI
Lisa Maria Hogeland holds a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. She previously served as Acting Director and Acting Associate/Graduate Director of the Center for Women’s Studies and now holds a joint appointment in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature and Women's Studies. She is the author of Feminism and Its Fictions: The Consciousness-Raising Novel and the Women's Liberation Movement. She is co-General Editor of The Aunt Lute Anthology of U.S. Women Writers, Volume I: 17th through 19th Centuries, and of the forthcoming Volume II: 20th Century. She is working on a book on American women’s sentimental novels and their relevance to contemporary fiction. An award winning teacher, she prepares graduate students to teach the undergraduate Introduction to Women’s Studies and serves on M.A. committees, teaches such core graduate courses as Feminist Theory: Current Issues, and offers such cross-listed English/Women’s Studies courses as American Women Writers and Feminist Literary Criticism.
Carolyn J Peterson
Undergraduate Director, Educator Instructor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3316 French Hall
Olga Sanmiguel-Valderrama
Associate Professor in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3314 French Hall
Born and raised in Colombia, South America, Dr. Sanmiguel-Valderrama practiced law in Colombia for five years before migrating to Canada in her late 20s. Dr. Sanmiguel-Valderrama earned her LLM in international human rights law at the University of Ottawa, where she also worked at the Human Rights Research and Education Center co-directing a women's project with CEMUJER in El Salvador (Central America) funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). In 2004, she graduated with her Ph.D. in Law from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, where she was also affiliated to CERLAC, The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at York University.
On the basis of extensive fieldwork in Colombia, her research and publications examine the contradictions between neoliberal international trade and military aid on the one hand, and respect for individual and collective human rights –in particular labor, environmental, and equality rights for women and racial minorities—on the other hand. These relationships and contradictions are examined through case studies where both trade and human rights laws and practices are in operation: first, the Colombian export-led flower industry. Her upcoming book (2012) is provisionally titled “No Roses Without Thorns: Trade, Militarization, and Human Rights in the Production and Export of Colombian Flowers” (click here to see book prospectus). Second, though the case of NAFTA and undocumented migration of Mexican and Central American into the USA.
Dr. Sanmiguel -Valderrama have published various articles in prestigious international academic journals presenting her research findings on the interrelationship between globalization, international trade, militarism, social reproduction, and human rights from multidisciplinary and transnational anti-racist feminist approaches. Her research have been supported by competitive grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center, and the University of Cincinnati Research Council. Professor's Sanmiguel-Valderrama current areas of research and teaching are family-work conflict under globalization, the relationships between military aid, trade, and human rights in Colombia, feminist mothering, women, gender and law, international women's rights, and women's labor rights.
Giao Q. Tran
Associate Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3408 French Hall
Dr. Tran is an Ohio-licensed clinical psychologist who focuses on research and treatment of anxiety and alcohol disorders. Dr. Tran has taught several graduate and undergraduate courses related to clinical psychology, health psychology, and research methods.
Valerie A. Weinstein
Professor & Graduate Program Director of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Niehoff Professor of Film and Media Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3314 French Hall
Valerie Weinstein earned her PhD in German Studies with a concentration in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Cornell University in 2000. She came to UC in 2012 after having served on the faculty at Williams College, University of Nevada, Reno, and Tulane University. She teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses, from Feminist Theory to Nazi Cinema. Prof. Weinstein is the author of Antisemitism in Film Comedy in Nazi Germany (Indiana University Press, 2019) and co-editor, with Barbara Hales and Mihaela Petrescu, of Continuity and Crisis in German Cinema 1928-1936 (Camden House, 2016) and, with Barbara Hales, of Rethinking Jewishness in Weimar Cinema (Berghahn Books, 2021). Weinstein has authored refereed articles and book chapters on gender, sexuality, and Jewishness in German film between the two world wars, and on other topics ranging from early twentieth-century anthropological film footage to Turkish-German literature, to music videos by the heavy metal band Rammstein.
Adjunct Faculty
Yvonne Fulbright
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
French Hall
Melanie Rose Nipper
Instructor - Adjunct, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
French East
Tristan Nicholai Vaught
Instructor - Adjunct, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
French East
Erin Mary Winchester
Instructor - Adj, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
French East
Affiliate Faculty
Kristen Elizabeth Aanstoos
Asst Professor - Visiting, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5111 CLIFTCT
Dr. Aanstoos is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), and affiliate of the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). She researches the role of women and gender in peace processes and political and security outcomes in post-conflict states. Her current book project, based on her dissertation, examines the effects of different types of women's participation in peace processes on women's political empowerment in post-conflict states. Her other research interests include the Women, Peace, and Security agenda; peace processes and conflict resolution; gender and politics; gender and conflict; international security; international negotiations; diplomacy; military learning; and East Asian Security. Dr. Aanstoos's research has been supported by the Kugelman Citizen Peacebuilding Research Fellowship, the Institute for Humane Studies Fellowship, and a University of California Office of the President grant.
Dr. Aanstoos has a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Irvinea, an MA in Conflict, Security, and Development from King's College London, and a BSFS in International Politics from Georgetown University. Previously, she worked as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State, where she served in Hong Kong, Doha, and Washington, DC.
Dr. Aanstoos has a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Irvinea, an MA in Conflict, Security, and Development from King's College London, and a BSFS in International Politics from Georgetown University. Previously, she worked as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State, where she served in Hong Kong, Doha, and Washington, DC.
Omotayo O Banjo
Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Van Wormer Hall
Omotayo Banjo, PhD (Penn State University, 2009) focuses on representation and audience responses to racial and cultural media. Her work has been published in peer reviewed journals including Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Communication Theory, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Media and Religion, and Race and Social Problems. She has also presented her research at regional, national and international conferences which include the International Communication Association, National Communication Association, Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication, and the Collegium for African-American Research. Dr. Banjo teaches courses related to media theory, identity, and race. She is also an affiliate faculty of Africana Studies, Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, and Journalism.
Danielle Bessett
Professor (PhD, New York University), Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
206C ARTSCI
Danielle Bessett is Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty affiliate at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, where she teaches courses on medicine, family, and reproduction. She contributes to the Medical Scientist Training Program in UC's College of Medicine and is Director of the Kunz Center for Social Research. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she received her Master’ degree and Ph.D. from New York University and held the prestigious Charlotte Ellertson Social Science Postdoctoral Fellowship from 2008-2010.
Bessett's current research projects examine patient experiences of abortion care and disparities in contraceptive access, prenatal care, and infant mortality. Bessett co-leads OPEN, the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network, which conducts rigorous, interdisciplinary research to assess the reproductive health and well-being of Ohioans in the context of federal and state laws, regulations, and policies. Her research has also been supported by the National Science Foundation, among other funders, and has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Science & Medicine, Sociology of Health & Illness, and Women's Health Issues. Bessett's monograph on women's pregnancy experiences, Pregnant with Possibilities: Constructing Normality in Stratified Reproduction, is under contract with New York University Press, and her co-edited volume, Ohio Under Covid, is forthcoming with University of Michigan Press.
Bessett is a past board member of the academic Society of Family Planning, where she led the Junior Fellows Committee, and recently concluded her term as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Sociological Association's Medical Sociology section. She received the 2004 Dr. Mary P. Dole Medical Fellowship from the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association; the 2007 Rose Laub Coser Best Dissertation Proposal in Family or Gender Studies from the Eastern Sociological Society; the Cincinnati Women’s Political Caucus’s 2017 Outstanding Achievement Award; the 2021 Society of Family Planning's Mentor Award; and UC's 2021 Faculty Excellence Award from Office of the Provost and Office of Research. She is most proud of her student-initiated honors, including the 2012 “Professor Funnybone” award for funniest Sociology professor and the 2017 UC Women's Center Woman of the Year award for mentoring.
When Bessett is not working, you may find her hiking, knitting, traveling, reading, and/or spending time with friends. An ice cream aficionado, Bessett enthusiastically dances to 80's music and tries to prevent her three mischievous cats from burning through all of their nine lives.
Danielle Bessett CV
Bessett's current research projects examine patient experiences of abortion care and disparities in contraceptive access, prenatal care, and infant mortality. Bessett co-leads OPEN, the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network, which conducts rigorous, interdisciplinary research to assess the reproductive health and well-being of Ohioans in the context of federal and state laws, regulations, and policies. Her research has also been supported by the National Science Foundation, among other funders, and has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Science & Medicine, Sociology of Health & Illness, and Women's Health Issues. Bessett's monograph on women's pregnancy experiences, Pregnant with Possibilities: Constructing Normality in Stratified Reproduction, is under contract with New York University Press, and her co-edited volume, Ohio Under Covid, is forthcoming with University of Michigan Press.
Bessett is a past board member of the academic Society of Family Planning, where she led the Junior Fellows Committee, and recently concluded her term as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Sociological Association's Medical Sociology section. She received the 2004 Dr. Mary P. Dole Medical Fellowship from the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association; the 2007 Rose Laub Coser Best Dissertation Proposal in Family or Gender Studies from the Eastern Sociological Society; the Cincinnati Women’s Political Caucus’s 2017 Outstanding Achievement Award; the 2021 Society of Family Planning's Mentor Award; and UC's 2021 Faculty Excellence Award from Office of the Provost and Office of Research. She is most proud of her student-initiated honors, including the 2012 “Professor Funnybone” award for funniest Sociology professor and the 2017 UC Women's Center Woman of the Year award for mentoring.
When Bessett is not working, you may find her hiking, knitting, traveling, reading, and/or spending time with friends. An ice cream aficionado, Bessett enthusiastically dances to 80's music and tries to prevent her three mischievous cats from burning through all of their nine lives.
Danielle Bessett CV
Nimisha Bhat
Asst Librarian, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Langsam Library
Dana Elaine Bisignani
Dir Women's Center, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
830N Steger Student Life Cntr
RJ Boutelle
Assoc Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
110G ARTSCI
RJ Boutelle is associate professor of English, affiliate faculty in Africana Studies, affiliate faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the author of The Race for America: Black Internationalism in the Age of Manifest Destiny (UNC Press, 2023). He teaches courses on African American literature and 19th-century US literature.
Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown
Asst Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
260C ARTSCI
Black Feminism; Sociology of Sport; Sociology of Race and Ethnicity; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Food Studies; Critical Race Feminism; Qualitative Methods
Jennifer Ann Caplan
Assoc Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
French Hall
I am a scholar of American religion and popular culture. I specialize in American Judaism and work extensively with film, television, internet media, humor, graphic novels, video games, board games, and other sites of pop culture engagement.
Steve L Carlton-Ford
Professor (PhD, University of Minnesota), Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
260D ARTSCI
My recent work, Legacies of Injustice, examines the impact of the African slave trade and colonialism on today's human rights.in general, I am concerned with Peace, War, and Social Conflict; Militarization, Armed Conflict, Quantitative Analysis; Research Methodology
Steve Carlton-Ford CV
Steve Carlton-Ford CV
J. A. Carter (she/her)
Assoc Professor
155B BA MUNTZ
J.A. Carter is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Behavioral Science Department at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. She consistently teaches Introduction to Sociology, Global Community, and Sociology of Gender. Her research focuses in the areas of gender and sexualities, especially as they relate to the body, sports, and the health institutions. Recent projects have examined masculinity in women’s football, the availability of sexual health resources on the websites of regional campuses in Ohio, and LGBTQ health education for family medicine residents.
Erynn Masi de Casanova
Professor of Sociology & Head of the Sociology Department, (PhD, City University of New York Graduate Center) , Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
260B ARTSCI
Gender; Work; the Body; Popular Culture; Globalization/Development; Latin American societies; U.S. Latinos/as; Ethnography and qualitative research methods.
Erynn Masi de Casanova CV
Erynn Masi de Casanova CV
Katherine Castiello Jones
Undergraduate Program Director (PhD, University of Massachusetts-Amherst), Sociology , Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
260A ARTSCI
Dr. Castiello Jones' research focuses on gender, sexuality, and culture. Her current research projects examine abstinence promotion in the US, and movements (re)claiming sexuality after experiences with purity culture. They also write extensively on topics related to games and game design including sexuality in games, inclusive design, and integrating feminist theories of play into game design scholarship.
In addition to their research, they been writing table-top and live-action role-playing games (larps) for over a decade. Dr. Castiello Jones' games have been featured at festivals such as Indiecade and BlackBox Copenhagen, and she was an invited guest at The Smoke festival in London in 2020.
In addition to their research, they been writing table-top and live-action role-playing games (larps) for over a decade. Dr. Castiello Jones' games have been featured at festivals such as Indiecade and BlackBox Copenhagen, and she was an invited guest at The Smoke festival in London in 2020.
Carla Jeanne Cesare, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Art History, Affilliate of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
136 BA ANNEX
Carla Cesare is a design historian whose focus is on design and identity as understood through everyday design practices. Her primary research era is the interwar period. She has an interest in the relationship of boundaries between space, body and material, particular relating to domesticity and femininity. Current projects include research on how women in design were networked through research, making and marketing in the 1920s and 30s; pedagogical methodologies for teaching history and theory to studio-based students; and a chapter in the upcoming Interior Urbanism Reader(Routledge) on the evolution of coffee shops, their history, forms, place-making and practices. Her doctorate in the History of Art, Design and Visual Culture is from Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England and her MA in the History of Design is from Parsons School of Design, NYC.
Michelle Lindsay Colpean
Asst Professor - Educator, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
4241 CLIFTCT
Laura D. Dudley Jenkins
Professor of Political Science, Faculty Affiliate WGSS and Asian Studies , Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5140 CLIFTCT
Laura Dudley Jenkins' research focuses on social justice policies in the context of culturally diverse democracies, including India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United States.
Her book Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India (Penn Press 2019) won the Hubert Morken Best Book Prize from the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). A study of mass conversions to Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism and ongoing efforts to prevent conversions, Jenkins reveals how "religious freedom" arguments and laws have actually undermined the religious freedom of women, lower castes, and religious minorities.
Jenkins' book Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged (Routledge, 2003, 2009) examines competing demands for affirmative action on the basis of caste, religion, class, and gender and the ways the government identifies recipients through the courts, census, and official certificates. Her research as a Fulbright New Century Scholar in South Africa and India resulted in Affirmative Action Matters: Creating Opportunities for Students Around the World, co-edited with Michele S. Moses (Routledge 2014).
In her articles, she analyzes religious freedom and conversion, competing minorities’ claims for affirmative action, colonial and contemporary government anthropology, the role of social science in anti-discrimination law, reserved legislative seats for women, and the role of culture and the arts in sustainable development.
Jenkins' book chapters examine anti-Muslim political communication in the US and India, religious family laws, mass religious conversion as protest, comparative affirmative action, minority rights, historically Dalit colleges, anxious secularism, women and development, regulation of religion, and methodological diversity in political science.
In addition to two Fulbrights, Dr. Jenkins has received fellowships from the Dartmouth Humanities Center and the United States Institute of Peace.
Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Hubert Morken Best Book Award
APSA Religion and Politics Section
Affirmative action matters: Creating opportunities for students around the world. (with Michele S. Moses). New York: Routledge, 2014.
Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2003, reissued in paperback by Routledge 2009.
Her book Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India (Penn Press 2019) won the Hubert Morken Best Book Prize from the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). A study of mass conversions to Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism and ongoing efforts to prevent conversions, Jenkins reveals how "religious freedom" arguments and laws have actually undermined the religious freedom of women, lower castes, and religious minorities.
Jenkins' book Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged (Routledge, 2003, 2009) examines competing demands for affirmative action on the basis of caste, religion, class, and gender and the ways the government identifies recipients through the courts, census, and official certificates. Her research as a Fulbright New Century Scholar in South Africa and India resulted in Affirmative Action Matters: Creating Opportunities for Students Around the World, co-edited with Michele S. Moses (Routledge 2014).
In her articles, she analyzes religious freedom and conversion, competing minorities’ claims for affirmative action, colonial and contemporary government anthropology, the role of social science in anti-discrimination law, reserved legislative seats for women, and the role of culture and the arts in sustainable development.
Jenkins' book chapters examine anti-Muslim political communication in the US and India, religious family laws, mass religious conversion as protest, comparative affirmative action, minority rights, historically Dalit colleges, anxious secularism, women and development, regulation of religion, and methodological diversity in political science.
In addition to two Fulbrights, Dr. Jenkins has received fellowships from the Dartmouth Humanities Center and the United States Institute of Peace.
Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Hubert Morken Best Book Award
APSA Religion and Politics Section
Affirmative action matters: Creating opportunities for students around the world. (with Michele S. Moses). New York: Routledge, 2014.
Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2003, reissued in paperback by Routledge 2009.
Anjali Nichole Dutt
Assoc Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3259 CLIFTCT
My research focuses on psychological processes that are associated with resistance to oppression and increasing the realization of human rights in different contexts. I collaborate with grassroots community organizations to conduct mixed-methods research, exploring how structural changes in communities such as women’s ownership of land, and women’s participation in educational workshops and cooperative enterprises impact women’s empowerment and well-being. I have also recently begun projects on neoliberal ideology and refugee rights. I teach courses in community and social psychology at the graduate and undergraduate levels.
Jenn Dye
Asst Dean, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
320 COLLAW
Dr. Dye combines her interdisciplinary research, scholarly background, and community work to continue her work in the space of race, gender, and social justice in her current role as Director of the Nathaniel R. Jones Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice. As Director, she is responsible for overseeing programming, community outreach, Social Justice Fellows, among other initiatives.
With a Ph.D. in political science, J.D., and graduate certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Dr. Dye's earlier research focused on marginalized communities, access to resources, and the resulting relationship to political power and structures. Her more recent research focuses on race and gender and how these impact identity, agency, and political power, looking at systems and structures within soceity. Dr. Dye has taught the following courses: Introduction to American Politics, International Relations, Introduction to Women's Studies, Women and Politics, International Human Rights, Criminal Justice Policy and Legislative Advocacy, and Political and Legal Processes.
With a Ph.D. in political science, J.D., and graduate certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Dr. Dye's earlier research focused on marginalized communities, access to resources, and the resulting relationship to political power and structures. Her more recent research focuses on race and gender and how these impact identity, agency, and political power, looking at systems and structures within soceity. Dr. Dye has taught the following courses: Introduction to American Politics, International Relations, Introduction to Women's Studies, Women and Politics, International Human Rights, Criminal Justice Policy and Legislative Advocacy, and Political and Legal Processes.
Cassidy D. Ellis
Asst Professor - Educator, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
4242 CLIFTCT
Cassidy D. Ellis (PhD, University of New Mexico) is a critical cultural communication and media studies scholar. Her work is duly invested in unearthing ideologies that underly contemporary social debates and in unpacking the material histories of settler colonialism in the present. Her current project interrogates strategic anti-abortion rhetorics with a particular interest in discourses of race and personhood that produce a racialized conceptualization of "life" within the social imaginary.
In addition to scholastic experience Dr. Ellis is a seasoned grassroots activist who has primarily worked on reproductive justice issues focused in the Deep South, West and Southwest. Her academic work and activist projects go hand-in-hand, both informing each other. Dr. Ellis believes that the best scholarship is praxis-based, applied, and informed by experiences of on-the-ground organizers. She is a co-founder of the Yellowhammer Fund (the first state-wide abortion fund in Alabama), a founding member and lead organizer of the West Alabama Clinic Defenders (a patient escort collective), the founder of the University of Alabama's Feminist Caucus (the first feminist activist organization on the campus), and has experience working in the nonprofit sector as well.
Her most recent scholarship will appear or has appeared in The Journal of Autoethnography, The Fat Studies Journal, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking. She also has chapters the edited collections Reconstructing the South: Critical Regionalism and Southern Rhetoric (edited by Christina Moss & Brandon Inabet, University of Mississippi Press); Badass Feminist Politics: Exploring Radical Edges of Feminist Theory, Communication, and Activism (Eds. Sarah Jane Blithe & Janell C. Bauer, Rutgers University Press); The Routledge Handbook of Ethnicity and Race in Communication (Eds. Bernadette Marie Calafell & Shinsuke Eguchi, Routledge Press).
The information on this page is partial. Click here to check out a more recent CV.
In addition to scholastic experience Dr. Ellis is a seasoned grassroots activist who has primarily worked on reproductive justice issues focused in the Deep South, West and Southwest. Her academic work and activist projects go hand-in-hand, both informing each other. Dr. Ellis believes that the best scholarship is praxis-based, applied, and informed by experiences of on-the-ground organizers. She is a co-founder of the Yellowhammer Fund (the first state-wide abortion fund in Alabama), a founding member and lead organizer of the West Alabama Clinic Defenders (a patient escort collective), the founder of the University of Alabama's Feminist Caucus (the first feminist activist organization on the campus), and has experience working in the nonprofit sector as well.
Her most recent scholarship will appear or has appeared in The Journal of Autoethnography, The Fat Studies Journal, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking. She also has chapters the edited collections Reconstructing the South: Critical Regionalism and Southern Rhetoric (edited by Christina Moss & Brandon Inabet, University of Mississippi Press); Badass Feminist Politics: Exploring Radical Edges of Feminist Theory, Communication, and Activism (Eds. Sarah Jane Blithe & Janell C. Bauer, Rutgers University Press); The Routledge Handbook of Ethnicity and Race in Communication (Eds. Bernadette Marie Calafell & Shinsuke Eguchi, Routledge Press).
The information on this page is partial. Click here to check out a more recent CV.
Muhammad U. Faruque
Associate Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5240 CLIFTCT
Muhammad U. Faruque is the Inayat Malik Associate Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Environmental Studies and a former Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He earned his PhD (with distinction) from the University of California, Berkeley, and served as Exchange Scholar at Harvard University and as George Ames Postdoctoral Fellow at Fordham University. He was also educated at the University of London and Tehran University. In addition to his formal college education, he has traveled throughout the world to learn and explore, and studied with many scholars in South Asia, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, North Africa, and Malaysia.
A prominent global philosopher who has lectured widely across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, his books and academic articles have been translated into numerous languages and have been recognized by important funding bodies across the United States, such as the Templeton Foundation and the US Department of Education. He gives public lectures on a wide range of topics such as the environmental crisis, spirituality, meditation, AI, Islamic psychology, and Islam and the West.
His first book Sculpting the Self (University of Michigan Press, 2021) received the prestigious World Book of the Year Award. The book addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of selfhood and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical literatures, including modern philosophy and neuroscience. He is the author of five books and over fifty academic articles, which have appeared (or are forthcoming) in numerous prestigious, peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes such as Philosophy East and West, Philosophical Forum, Journal of Contemplative Studies, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge), Sophia, and Ancient Philosophy.
While his past research has explored modern and premodern conceptions of selfhood and identity and their bearing on ethics, religion, and culture, his forthcoming book project entitled The Interconnected Universe aims to develop a new theory of the human and the more-than-human world based on a cross-cultural, transdisciplinary approach that draws on the environmental humanities, on one hand, and Sufism and Islamic Contemplative Studies, on the other. Alongside developing a theory of the “interconnected universe,” this study also argues that Sufi contemplative practices support and foster an active engagement toward the planet’s well-being and an ecologically viable way of life and vision through an “anthropocosmic” vision of the self.
He is also at work on a book on AI and the existential threats of information technology. He also just published an edited volume entitled From the Divine to the Human: New Perspectives on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic (co-edited with M. Rustom and published by Routledge). In addition, he has a forthcoming book Why Read Mullā Ṣadrā Today? (Cambridge University Press, under contract).
In his personal life, he loves gardening (plant life fascinates him), spending time in nature, travelling (he always likes to explore new places!), trying out new cuisines, hiking, cooking, sports (esp. tennis, table tennis, and chess), and watching movies. He also has a passion for classical Indian (raag) and Persian music.
He is affiliated with the departments of Philosophy, Environmental Studies, and RALL.
A prominent global philosopher who has lectured widely across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, his books and academic articles have been translated into numerous languages and have been recognized by important funding bodies across the United States, such as the Templeton Foundation and the US Department of Education. He gives public lectures on a wide range of topics such as the environmental crisis, spirituality, meditation, AI, Islamic psychology, and Islam and the West.
His first book Sculpting the Self (University of Michigan Press, 2021) received the prestigious World Book of the Year Award. The book addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of selfhood and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical literatures, including modern philosophy and neuroscience. He is the author of five books and over fifty academic articles, which have appeared (or are forthcoming) in numerous prestigious, peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes such as Philosophy East and West, Philosophical Forum, Journal of Contemplative Studies, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge), Sophia, and Ancient Philosophy.
While his past research has explored modern and premodern conceptions of selfhood and identity and their bearing on ethics, religion, and culture, his forthcoming book project entitled The Interconnected Universe aims to develop a new theory of the human and the more-than-human world based on a cross-cultural, transdisciplinary approach that draws on the environmental humanities, on one hand, and Sufism and Islamic Contemplative Studies, on the other. Alongside developing a theory of the “interconnected universe,” this study also argues that Sufi contemplative practices support and foster an active engagement toward the planet’s well-being and an ecologically viable way of life and vision through an “anthropocosmic” vision of the self.
He is also at work on a book on AI and the existential threats of information technology. He also just published an edited volume entitled From the Divine to the Human: New Perspectives on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic (co-edited with M. Rustom and published by Routledge). In addition, he has a forthcoming book Why Read Mullā Ṣadrā Today? (Cambridge University Press, under contract).
In his personal life, he loves gardening (plant life fascinates him), spending time in nature, travelling (he always likes to explore new places!), trying out new cuisines, hiking, cooking, sports (esp. tennis, table tennis, and chess), and watching movies. He also has a passion for classical Indian (raag) and Persian music.
He is affiliated with the departments of Philosophy, Environmental Studies, and RALL.
Jan Marie Fritz
Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
6213 DAA Addition
Dr. Jan Marie Fritz is a Professor in the School of Planning (and affiliated with the Department of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Department of Sociology) at the University of Cincinnati as well as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg. She has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Human Rights and International Studies at the Danish Institute of Human Rights in Copenhagen, Denmark and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. She has received many awards including the DAAP College Award (University of Cincinnati) for Outstanding Research and Creative Work, the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology, the Ohio Mediation Association’s Better World Award for a distinguished career in mediation and awards from the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology and the practice division of the American Sociological Association. She is a past Vice-President of the International Sociological Association (ISA), the lead representative of the ISA to the United Nations and a member of the ISA Executive Committee. She was the founder and convener of the Cincinnati for CEDAW Community Coalition (CCCC) that led to a Gender Study of Cincinnati's city administration and the establishment of the Mayor of Cincinnati's Gender Equality Task Force. She was appointed by the Mayor to be a member of the Task Force. She also was appointed by the director of the US Environmental Protection Agency to be member of two US EPA advisory councils. She currently is a member of NEJAC - the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. She has written or edited more than 130 publications including the award-winning International Clinical Sociology, “Special Education Mediation in the United States,” “Women, Peace, Security and the National Action Plans, “Addressing Environmental Racism,” “Including Sociological Practice” inThe Shape of Sociology for the 21st Century, “Practicing Sociology: Clinical Sociology and Human Rights,” Moving Toward a Just Peace: The Mediation Continuum, (with Jacques Rhéaume) the award-winning Community Intervention: Clinical Sociology Perspectives and (with Tina Uys) Clinical Sociology for Southern Africa. She edits Springer's Clinical Sociology book series.
Jennifer Glaser
Associate Professor and Head of Department, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
248 ARTSCI
Jennifer Glaser received her B.A. in English from Columbia University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and teaching interests include 20th and 21st century American literature, comparative ethnicity, diasporic and transnational studies, Jewish studies, gender and sexuality, digital humanities, disability studies, and comics and the graphic novel. Her book, Borrowed Voices: Writing and Racial Ventriloquism in the Jewish American Imagination, is was published by Rutgers University Press in 2016. She publishes work on race, Jewish studies, viusal culture and disability studies. She is currently finishing a scholarly book on Jews, disability, and modernity. In addition to her scholarly work, she writes essays, short fiction, and cultural criticism, and is working to expand one of her published narrative non-fiction pieces into a full-length manuscript on mourning and technology. She has published or has publications forthcoming in venues such as PMLA, MELUS, Safundi, American Literature, ImageText, Images, Prooftexts, Early American Literature, the LA Review of Books, the New York Times, the Faster Times, the Forward, the UK Telegraph, and an anthology of personal essays from Random House.
Janine C Hartman
Professor of History,, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5259 CLIFTCT
Professor of
History
Dept Romance Languages and Literatures
College of Arts & Sciences
717D Old Chem Bldg
Ph 556-1596
My field is the history of ideas. Current research interests are Catulle Mendés,Parnassian poet and his role as witness to the Franco-Prussian war, the Commune insurrection and fall of Paris in 1871, as refracted through "ruin studies." Additional fields include witchcraft, ritual in early modern society and symbolic sovereignty in French colonial history..
Affliiate: History,Judaic Studies, Women & Gender Studies
History
Dept Romance Languages and Literatures
College of Arts & Sciences
717D Old Chem Bldg
Ph 556-1596
My field is the history of ideas. Current research interests are Catulle Mendés,Parnassian poet and his role as witness to the Franco-Prussian war, the Commune insurrection and fall of Paris in 1871, as refracted through "ruin studies." Additional fields include witchcraft, ritual in early modern society and symbolic sovereignty in French colonial history..
Affliiate: History,Judaic Studies, Women & Gender Studies
Emily Houh
Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts | Co-director, Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
420 COLLAW
Emily Houh, the Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, has been teaching contracts, commercial law, and critical race theory since 2003 at UC Law, where she has twice won the Goldman Prize for Teaching Excellence and also serves as co-director of the College’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice.
Prior to joining the faculty at UC Law, Professor Houh was an assistant professor of law (2000-2003) at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. A graduate of Brown University, Professor Houh earned her JD from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was a founding member and article editor of the Michigan Journal of Race & Law. After law school, Professor Houh served as law clerk to the Honorable Anna Diggs Taylor, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, and then as a staff attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and later as a commercial litigation associate at Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone, PLC, in Detroit.
Much of Professor Houh’s past and current scholarship focuses on the interplay between contract law, critical race theory, and socioeconomic (in)equality. Additionally, her recent research with UC Law colleague Prof. Kristin Kalsem looks at how participatory action research methods can be used to engage in critical race/feminist praxis, by exploring the raced and gendered nature of the “fringe economy.”
Prior to joining the faculty at UC Law, Professor Houh was an assistant professor of law (2000-2003) at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. A graduate of Brown University, Professor Houh earned her JD from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was a founding member and article editor of the Michigan Journal of Race & Law. After law school, Professor Houh served as law clerk to the Honorable Anna Diggs Taylor, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, and then as a staff attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and later as a commercial litigation associate at Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone, PLC, in Detroit.
Much of Professor Houh’s past and current scholarship focuses on the interplay between contract law, critical race theory, and socioeconomic (in)equality. Additionally, her recent research with UC Law colleague Prof. Kristin Kalsem looks at how participatory action research methods can be used to engage in critical race/feminist praxis, by exploring the raced and gendered nature of the “fringe economy.”
Joanna Seung Ah Huh
Asst Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
ARTSCI
Joanna Huh is an Assistant Professor of early modern literature and culture and an affiliate faculty member of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She received her dual B.A. in English and Biology from Cornell University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University, where her dissertation earned the Robert Manson Myers Award for best dissertation in English in 2020. Her work and teaching focus on early modern English drama, queer and anti-racist approaches to Shakespeare, and (early) modern theories of community and selfhood.
Her current project, Damaging Intimacy: Reimagining Communities in Shakespeare and Marlowe, explores the portrayal, in Renaissance texts as well as in early modern and current political theory, of how radical risk-taking and vulnerability can form the basis for community. Damaging Intimacy works to disrupt the narrative that as the subject becomes more modern, the subject becomes more bounded and then joins a community in order to protect those bounds. As an alternative, she envisions communities that are dependent on selves willing to embrace experiences, both costly and pleasurable, offered by unprotected existence. At a juncture consumed with security, protection, and boundaries, her work rethinks radical ways of being and belonging that reimagines new visions of how to ethically share life with others.
Her current project, Damaging Intimacy: Reimagining Communities in Shakespeare and Marlowe, explores the portrayal, in Renaissance texts as well as in early modern and current political theory, of how radical risk-taking and vulnerability can form the basis for community. Damaging Intimacy works to disrupt the narrative that as the subject becomes more modern, the subject becomes more bounded and then joins a community in order to protect those bounds. As an alternative, she envisions communities that are dependent on selves willing to embrace experiences, both costly and pleasurable, offered by unprotected existence. At a juncture consumed with security, protection, and boundaries, her work rethinks radical ways of being and belonging that reimagines new visions of how to ethically share life with others.
C. Jeff Jacobson Jr
Professor, University of Cincinnati, Department of Anthropology, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
466 Braunstein Hall
I am a clinically oriented medical and psychological anthropologist who specializes in the application of qualitative cultural and ethnographic methodologies to patient- and provider-centered health services research, and to problems of interpretation, validity, and translation of behavioral and psychological constructs and measures in health research. As a social scientist, my theoretical and methodological commitments align broadly with meaning- and discourse-centered approaches in the social sciences and with phenomenological, constructivist, and socio-linguistic traditions in medical and psychological anthropology. In my research, as in my teaching and advising, I emphasize attention to the kinds of humanistic, person-centered, and “experience-near” interviewing and analytic approaches highlighted in these traditions, particularly the focus within psychological anthropology on how people in the context of language, culture and socialization come to understand, characterize and construct their own and others’ minds, intentions, emotions or subjectivities. The wider aims and products of my research collaborations are not strictly anthropological nor are the venues in which they are published. I have three main areas of interest and collaboration which cover most of my publications as sole, lead, or major co-author: Trauma, Coping and Sense-Making; Health Services Research; and Occupational Health and Safety.
Melissa Jacquart
Asst Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
CLIFTCT
My research focuses on epistemological issues in the philosophy of science, specifically on the use of models and computer simulations in astrophysics. My research also examines the role philosophy can play in general public understanding of science, and in science education. I’m also interested in ethics & values in science, science policy, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of education, particularly developing effective teaching methodologies for philosophy.
Please visit my website for more information on my research and teaching: melissajacquart.com
Please visit my website for more information on my research and teaching: melissajacquart.com
Kristin Kalsem
Charles Hartsock Professor of Law | Co-director, Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
417 COLLAW
Professor Kalsem teaches in the areas of commercial law, bankruptcy, feminist legal theory, and law and literature, receiving several teaching awards since joining the faculty in 2001. She also is co-director of the College’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice and the university's joint-degree program in Law and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a pioneer program for which the College of Law is nationally known.
Professor Kalsem writes in the areas of women's legal history and the cultural study of law and received the 2012 Harold C. Schott Scholarship Award for her book In Contempt: Nineteenth-Century Women, Law, and Literature. She also writes about issues of gender, race, and class in the contexts of bankruptcy reform and consumer protection. Her scholarship has been published in such journals as the Harvard Women's Law Journal, the Southern California Review of Law and Women's Studies, the UCLA Women's Law Journal, and The Michigan Journal of Race and Law.
Professor Kalsem has presented papers at national and international conferences, including meetings of the Law and Society Association and the Association of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. She has served as chair of the American Association of Law School's Section of Law and the Humanities and currently sits on the Executive Board of the Section.
Prior to joining the UC faculty, Professor Kalsem taught at the University of Iowa's College of Law and Department of English while completing her doctoral studies. Her interdisciplinary scholarship on 19th-century women and the law was supported by numerous fellowships and grants, including a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Grant and an American Fellowship from the Association of University Women.
Professor Kalsem practiced law in Chicago with the law firm Sidley & Austin before entering academia.
Professor Kalsem writes in the areas of women's legal history and the cultural study of law and received the 2012 Harold C. Schott Scholarship Award for her book In Contempt: Nineteenth-Century Women, Law, and Literature. She also writes about issues of gender, race, and class in the contexts of bankruptcy reform and consumer protection. Her scholarship has been published in such journals as the Harvard Women's Law Journal, the Southern California Review of Law and Women's Studies, the UCLA Women's Law Journal, and The Michigan Journal of Race and Law.
Professor Kalsem has presented papers at national and international conferences, including meetings of the Law and Society Association and the Association of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. She has served as chair of the American Association of Law School's Section of Law and the Humanities and currently sits on the Executive Board of the Section.
Prior to joining the UC faculty, Professor Kalsem taught at the University of Iowa's College of Law and Department of English while completing her doctoral studies. Her interdisciplinary scholarship on 19th-century women and the law was supported by numerous fellowships and grants, including a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Grant and an American Fellowship from the Association of University Women.
Professor Kalsem practiced law in Chicago with the law firm Sidley & Austin before entering academia.
Elizabeth Lanphier
Assistant Professor of Clinical-Affiliate, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Childrens Hospital Bldg R
Elizabeth Lanphier is a faculty member in the Ethics Center and in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the UC College of Medicine and a Research Assistant Professor in the UC Department of Philosophy. Elizabeth is also affiliated faculty in the UC Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department and Center for Public Engagement With Science as well as a non-resident Fellow at the George Mason Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy.
In addition to her published scholarship in peer reviewed journals and book volumes, Elizabeth has written for a variety of outlets including the Hastings Bioethics Forum and Ms. Magazine. Her research has also been featured in "The ethical questions raised by COVID-19 vaccines: 5 essential reads" and "50 years after Roe, many ethics questions shape the abortion debate" in The Conversation as well as "What is Trauma Informed Care?" in Health, and "We're All Second Guessing Ourselves" in The Atlantic. She was quoted in TIME Magazine for the article "How Do You Even Calculate Covid-19 Risk Anymore?" and was an expert cited in "Motivated Reasoning: Emily Oster's COVID Narratives and the Attack on Public Education" in Protean Magazine.
Elizabeth currently chairs the Committee on Accessibility and Inclusion for the North American Society for Social Philosophy, and is an elected Board Member of the Bioethics Network of Ohio. From 2021-2024 she was a co-chair of the Feminist Approaches to Bioethics Affinity Group for the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities.
In addition to her published scholarship in peer reviewed journals and book volumes, Elizabeth has written for a variety of outlets including the Hastings Bioethics Forum and Ms. Magazine. Her research has also been featured in "The ethical questions raised by COVID-19 vaccines: 5 essential reads" and "50 years after Roe, many ethics questions shape the abortion debate" in The Conversation as well as "What is Trauma Informed Care?" in Health, and "We're All Second Guessing Ourselves" in The Atlantic. She was quoted in TIME Magazine for the article "How Do You Even Calculate Covid-19 Risk Anymore?" and was an expert cited in "Motivated Reasoning: Emily Oster's COVID Narratives and the Attack on Public Education" in Protean Magazine.
Elizabeth currently chairs the Committee on Accessibility and Inclusion for the North American Society for Social Philosophy, and is an elected Board Member of the Bioethics Network of Ohio. From 2021-2024 she was a co-chair of the Feminist Approaches to Bioethics Affinity Group for the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities.
Amy C Lind
School of Public and International Affairs, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
CLIFTCT
Amy Lind is Professor of Politics in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). Her areas of interest include global political economy, feminist international relations, Latin American politics, critical development and postcolonial studies, and contemporary political theory. She teaches courses in these areas at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Dr. Lind has lived, worked, and conducted research in Latin America for over 40 years, including in Ecuador and Bolivia, where she has held Fulbright awards, and in Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, and Chile. She is the author of Gendered Paradoxes: Women’s Movements, State Restructuring, and Global Development in Ecuador (Penn State University Press, 2005), and editor of four volumes, including Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance (Routledge, 2010) and Feminist (Im)mobilities in Fortress(ing) North America: Rights, Citizenships and Identities in Transnational Perspective (Ashgate Publishing, 2013, co-edited with Anne Sisson Runyan, Patricia McDermott and Marianne Marchand). Her forthcoming book, Constituting the Nation: Resignifying Nation, Economy and Family in Postneoliberal Ecuador (with Christine Keating), addresses the cultural, economic, and affective politics of Ecuador's postneoliberal Citizen Revolution. Her current research focuses on international solidarity in socialist Chile (1970-1973), military authoritarianism (1973-1990), and political memory in postdictatorship Chile.
She has held distinguished visiting professor positions in Ecuador, Bolivia and Switzerland and has delivered invited lectures at universities, governmental and non-governmental institutions around the world. Over the years, she has served in elected and appointed leadership positions in the International Studies Association, Latin American Studies Association, and National Women's Studies Association. Currently she is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Feminist Journal of Politics (2022-2025) and a Member of the International Advisory Board of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (2019-2025).
Prior to joining SPIA in August 2024, Dr. Lind was Mary Ellen Heintz Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). She has held administrative positions at UC, including as Taft Research Center Director (2019-2024), WGSS Department Head (2015-2018), and Provost Fellow (2017-2018). She also holds faculty affiliations in Sociology; Romance & Arabic Languages & Literatures; the Latin American, Latinx, Indigenous and Caribbean Studies Program; and the School of Planning/DAAP.
Dr. Lind has lived, worked, and conducted research in Latin America for over 40 years, including in Ecuador and Bolivia, where she has held Fulbright awards, and in Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, and Chile. She is the author of Gendered Paradoxes: Women’s Movements, State Restructuring, and Global Development in Ecuador (Penn State University Press, 2005), and editor of four volumes, including Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance (Routledge, 2010) and Feminist (Im)mobilities in Fortress(ing) North America: Rights, Citizenships and Identities in Transnational Perspective (Ashgate Publishing, 2013, co-edited with Anne Sisson Runyan, Patricia McDermott and Marianne Marchand). Her forthcoming book, Constituting the Nation: Resignifying Nation, Economy and Family in Postneoliberal Ecuador (with Christine Keating), addresses the cultural, economic, and affective politics of Ecuador's postneoliberal Citizen Revolution. Her current research focuses on international solidarity in socialist Chile (1970-1973), military authoritarianism (1973-1990), and political memory in postdictatorship Chile.
She has held distinguished visiting professor positions in Ecuador, Bolivia and Switzerland and has delivered invited lectures at universities, governmental and non-governmental institutions around the world. Over the years, she has served in elected and appointed leadership positions in the International Studies Association, Latin American Studies Association, and National Women's Studies Association. Currently she is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Feminist Journal of Politics (2022-2025) and a Member of the International Advisory Board of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (2019-2025).
Prior to joining SPIA in August 2024, Dr. Lind was Mary Ellen Heintz Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). She has held administrative positions at UC, including as Taft Research Center Director (2019-2024), WGSS Department Head (2015-2018), and Provost Fellow (2017-2018). She also holds faculty affiliations in Sociology; Romance & Arabic Languages & Literatures; the Latin American, Latinx, Indigenous and Caribbean Studies Program; and the School of Planning/DAAP.
Annulla Linders
Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
206D ARTSCI
Qualitative Methods; Historical and Comparative; Social Movements; Culture; Capital Punishment; Abortion
Annulla Linders CV
Annulla Linders CV
Ailsa Lipscombe
Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
4234 Emery Hall
Ailsa Lipscombe, PhD, begins her new role at CCM on Aug. 15, 2024. Lipscombe holds a PhD in Music from the University of Chicago. Her primary research explores intersectional experiences of medicalization, with a focus on reimagining listening praxes through embodiment, relationality and trauma. Her work has been supported by the Fulbright Association, Te Tūapapa Mātauranga o Aotearoa me Amerika, the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Music Theory.
Lipscombe regularly presents research at the nexus of ethnomusicology, sound studies and critical disability studies at conferences across North America and Australasia. She was awarded the 2021 Charles Seeger Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology for her paper "When Silence Is Heard: Embodied Listening in Medical Facilities' Competing Sonic Epistemes." Her first monograph—titled Listening Beyond Crisis: Disability and the Medicalization of Everyday Life—is under contract with the University of Michigan Press, to be published within their Music and Social Justice series.
In her postdoctoral position at Te Herenga Waka, Lipscombe is building on her expertise in digital ethnography and the decolonization of research methodologies to explore ethical transformations of Indigenous archiving in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this work, she centers community engagement and an ethics of care, guided by her own intersectional positionality as a queer, disabled researcher whose family whakapapas (traces their genealogy to) the Māori iwi of Te Whakatōhea.
Lipscombe regularly presents research at the nexus of ethnomusicology, sound studies and critical disability studies at conferences across North America and Australasia. She was awarded the 2021 Charles Seeger Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology for her paper "When Silence Is Heard: Embodied Listening in Medical Facilities' Competing Sonic Epistemes." Her first monograph—titled Listening Beyond Crisis: Disability and the Medicalization of Everyday Life—is under contract with the University of Michigan Press, to be published within their Music and Social Justice series.
In her postdoctoral position at Te Herenga Waka, Lipscombe is building on her expertise in digital ethnography and the decolonization of research methodologies to explore ethical transformations of Indigenous archiving in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this work, she centers community engagement and an ethics of care, guided by her own intersectional positionality as a queer, disabled researcher whose family whakapapas (traces their genealogy to) the Māori iwi of Te Whakatōhea.
John A. Lynch
Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
4263 CLIFTCT
Dr. Lynch studies bioethics, health communication, and the rhetoric of science and medicine. He was previously the clinical research ethicist at the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training at UC’s College of Medicine, and he has collaborated for more than 15 years with faculty at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center to research social and ethical issues related to returning genetic research results to families and adolescents. He is the author or editor of three books and more than 60 essays and articles. His 2011 book, What Are Stem Cells? Definitions at the Intersection of Science and Politics, received the 2016 Distinguished Book Award from the National Communication Association’s Health Communication Division, and his most recent book The Origins of Bioethics: Remembering When Medicine Went Wrong received the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine’s 2020 Book award.
Bradford Clayton Mank
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, James B. Helmer, Jr. Professor of Law, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
421 COLLAW
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor Mank teaches and writes in the areas of environmental law and administrative law. A prolific scholar, he has authored many articles and book chapters on environmental justice, regulatory reform, standing, and statutory interpretation. He also has worked with the City of Cincinnati on a number of environmental ordinances and implementation matters, including climate change, environmental justice, recycling, and air pollution issues.
He was named the James B. Helmer, Jr. Professor of Law in 2001 in recognition of his scholarly and teaching accomplishments. Professor Mank’s has also been honored with the 2004 Harold C. Schott Award and in 2001 with the Goldman Prize for Teaching Excellence. He was also awarded the Dean’s Award for Faculty Excellence in 2016.
Before joining the College of Law faculty in 1991, Professor Mank served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Connecticut. He also was an associate with the Hartford, Conn., law firm of Murtha, Cullina, Righter and Pinney, where his emphasis was environmental law.
Professor Mank received his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale University where he served as the Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After graduation, he clerked for Justice David M. Shea of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
He was named the James B. Helmer, Jr. Professor of Law in 2001 in recognition of his scholarly and teaching accomplishments. Professor Mank’s has also been honored with the 2004 Harold C. Schott Award and in 2001 with the Goldman Prize for Teaching Excellence. He was also awarded the Dean’s Award for Faculty Excellence in 2016.
Before joining the College of Law faculty in 1991, Professor Mank served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Connecticut. He also was an associate with the Hartford, Conn., law firm of Murtha, Cullina, Righter and Pinney, where his emphasis was environmental law.
Professor Mank received his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale University where he served as the Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After graduation, he clerked for Justice David M. Shea of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
Wanda McCarthy
Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
253 CC West Woods Acad Cntr
Michelle McGowan
Asst Professor - Adj Volunteer, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
French Hall
Michelle McGowan is a Research Associate Professor in the Ethics Center and Division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center within the Department of Pediatrics in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in the University of Cincinnati College of Arts and Sciences. She is the Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies Graduate Program Director.
Dr. McGowan conducts research on the gendered ethical and social implications of reproductive and genomic technologies, with a particular focus how users of reproductive and genomic technologies conceptualize the risks and benefits of the integration of these technologies into research, clinical, and consumer settings. Her research aims to illustrate how the perspectives of users of novel technologies – including patients, families, health care providers, researchers, and consumers - can contribute to bioethical and feminist theory and the development of institutional, professional, and social policies and practice guidelines. Her recent scholarship has focused specifically on oocyte donation, preimplantation genetic diagnosis and screening, fertility preservation, reproductive carrier screening, direct-to-consumer and clinical genomic testing, precision medicine, and participant-centric approaches to genomic research.
Dr. McGowan teaches courses on reproductive politics, gendered aspects of health, feminist methods and methodologies, and comparative health policy.
Dr. McGowan conducts research on the gendered ethical and social implications of reproductive and genomic technologies, with a particular focus how users of reproductive and genomic technologies conceptualize the risks and benefits of the integration of these technologies into research, clinical, and consumer settings. Her research aims to illustrate how the perspectives of users of novel technologies – including patients, families, health care providers, researchers, and consumers - can contribute to bioethical and feminist theory and the development of institutional, professional, and social policies and practice guidelines. Her recent scholarship has focused specifically on oocyte donation, preimplantation genetic diagnosis and screening, fertility preservation, reproductive carrier screening, direct-to-consumer and clinical genomic testing, precision medicine, and participant-centric approaches to genomic research.
Dr. McGowan teaches courses on reproductive politics, gendered aspects of health, feminist methods and methodologies, and comparative health policy.
Laura R. Micciche
Area Director of Rhetoric and Composition, Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
225B ARTSCI
Laura R. Micciche teaches a wide variety of writing courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as interdisciplinary workshops for faculty and students. Her research focuses on the collaborative, material realities that encompass writing, teaching, administrative, and editorial practices. She has published two monographs and three edited collections on writing-related themes: revision, writing pedagogy, collaboration and materiality, and rhetorics of emotion. In addition, she has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, many with collaborators, demonstrating her commitment to shared authorship. She has served in a variety of administrative roles while at UC, including Director of Composition, Assistant Director of Composition, Area Director of the Rhetoric and Composition Graduate Program, and Co-Director of the Copyediting & Publishing Certificate program. She currently chairs the Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric & Composition. For six years, she served as editor of Composition Studies, an independent journal in rhetoric and composition, and is currently co-editor, with Chris Carter, of the WPA Book Series for Parlor Press. See her full cv here.
David Niven
Associate Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5116 CLIFTCT
David Niven (Ph.D., Ohio State University) teaches American politics and conducts research on political campaigns, gerrymandering, political communication and death penalty policy. David is the author of several books including The Politics of Injustice: The Kennedys, The Freedom Rides and the Electoral Consequences of a Moral Compromise (University of Tennessee Press) and has published research in numerous journals including the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Polity, Social Science Quarterly, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and the Journal of Black Studies. David has testified as an expert witness and consulted on gerrymandering cases in state and federal courts and wrote an amicus brief submitted to the Ohio Supreme Court in Preterm Cleveland v. Yost. David's political analysis has been quoted widely including in the New York Times, Washington Post, and The New Yorker. David has worked as a speechwriter for political and academic leaders including Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, and Ohio State University President Gordon Gee.
Shailaja D Paik
Taft Distinguished Professor of History and Affiliate Faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Asian Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
340 B ARTSCI
I am the Charles Phelphs Taft Distinguished Research Professor of History and Affiliate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Sociology, and Asian Studies. I am 2024 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellow. My research, writing, and teaching interests lie at the intersection of a number of fields: modern South Asia; Dalit studies; women's, gender, and sexuality studies; social and political movements; oral history; human rights and humanitarianism. As a historian, I specialize in the social, intellectual, and cultural history of modern India. My first book Dalit Women's Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination (Routledge, 2014 ) examines the nexus between caste, class, gender, and state pedagogical practices among Dalit ("Untouchable") women in urban India. My second book, The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India (Stanford University Press, 2022 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34163) analyzes the politics of caste, class, gender, sexuality, and popular culture in modern Maharashtra. The book won the American Historical Association's John F. Richards Prize for "the most distinguished work of scholarship on South Asia" (https://www.historians.org/award-grant/john-f-richards-prize/) and the Association of Asian Studies Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize (https://www.asianstudies.org/aas-2024-prizes/). I am working on several new book projects: Caste Domination and Normative Sexuality in Modern India, Caste, Race, and Indigeneity in and beyond South Asia, and the Cambridge Companion to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. My research is funded by the MacArthur Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Stanford Humanities Center, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Institute of Indian Studies, Yale University, Emory University, the Ford Foundation, and the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center, among others. I have published several articles on a variety of themes, including the politics of naming, Dalit and African American women, Dalit women’s education, new Dalit womanhood, and kissing and nationalism in prestigious international journals. My scholarship and research interests focus on anti-colonial struggles, transnational women’s history, women-of-color feminisms, and particularly on gendering caste and subaltern history. I co-organized the "Fifth International Conference on the Unfinished Legacy of Dr. Ambedkar" at the New School of Social Research and I direct the "Ambedkar-King Justice Initiative" at the University of Cincinnati.
Angela Potochnik
Department Head; Professor; Director of the Center for Public Engagement with Science, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5215 CLIFTCT
Potochnik's research interests include philosophy of biology, philosophy of science, and history of logical empiricism, including especially the role of idealization in science, the properties of scientific explanations, arguments against levels of organization, the relationships between science and the public, and Otto Neurath.
Visit Potochnik's website.
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Cheli M Reutter
Associate Professor, Educator, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
110-H ARTSCI
My specializations are African American literature and medical humanities. Many of my courses include a service learning component and community engagement.
Stephanie N Sadre-Orafai
Taft Research Center Director & Faculty Chair
Critical Visions Co-Director,
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
1100C EDWARDS 1 Edwards Center
Stephanie Sadre-Orafai is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the production of difference and types among expert communities in the United States. Her ethnographic work examines media and cultural producers, emerging forms of expertise, the intersection of race, language, and visual practices in aesthetic industries, and forms of evidence and the body. She studied anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley (BA, 2000) and received her Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology at New York University in 2010, when she also joined the faculty at UC. She co-edited Visual Anthropology Review, the journal of the Society for Visual Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association from 2018–2021, and currently serves as the Director & Faculty Chair of the Taft Research Center.
Her essays on casting, model development, and fashion reality television have appeared in several edited volumes (PDFs). She is currently working on her first book, tentatively titled Real People, Real Models: Casting Race and Fashion in 21st Century America, which examines the history of casting in the New York fashion industry, the rise of non-professional or "real people" models, and how modeling and casting agents produce models' bodies as forms of media, creating new articulations of mediation, visibility, and difference in the process. Building on four years of ethnographic fieldwork in the New York fashion industry, the book explores the political implications of how these new articulations are refracted through idioms of beauty, desirability, and justice.
She is also working on a comparative project, Type by Design, that explores the overlapping concerns of inanimate (typefaces) and animate (models) type production in the commercial font and high fashion modeling industries in New York City. In both sites, there are tensions between visibility and invisibility, legibility and aesthetic nuance, and the management of lay and expert visions in producing culturally recognizable types and individual faces. Joining together ethnographic and archival research, she examines the mutually vivifying and dehumanizing dimensions of type production and what their professional practices can reveal about underlying changes in cultural ideas of “difference” and how they are visually encoded across time, technologies, and markets. This project extends her earlier comparative work on fashion and policing, where she examined the temporal dimensions of mug shots alongside casting photographs, and the spatial dimensions of street scouting and stop-and-frisk practices.
She co-directs the Critical Visions Certificate, a joint effort between faculty in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning and College of Arts and Sciences, which she established with Jordan Tate in 2011. The program is aimed at teaching students how to effectively combine critical theory and social analysis with art, media, and design practice. She co-edits CVSN, the experimental publication of student work from the program. Themes have included "space" (2013), "the future" (2015), "color" (2016), "surface" (2018), "identity" (2020), "land/water" (2022), "subject/object" (2023), and "artifact" (2024).
Her essays on casting, model development, and fashion reality television have appeared in several edited volumes (PDFs). She is currently working on her first book, tentatively titled Real People, Real Models: Casting Race and Fashion in 21st Century America, which examines the history of casting in the New York fashion industry, the rise of non-professional or "real people" models, and how modeling and casting agents produce models' bodies as forms of media, creating new articulations of mediation, visibility, and difference in the process. Building on four years of ethnographic fieldwork in the New York fashion industry, the book explores the political implications of how these new articulations are refracted through idioms of beauty, desirability, and justice.
She is also working on a comparative project, Type by Design, that explores the overlapping concerns of inanimate (typefaces) and animate (models) type production in the commercial font and high fashion modeling industries in New York City. In both sites, there are tensions between visibility and invisibility, legibility and aesthetic nuance, and the management of lay and expert visions in producing culturally recognizable types and individual faces. Joining together ethnographic and archival research, she examines the mutually vivifying and dehumanizing dimensions of type production and what their professional practices can reveal about underlying changes in cultural ideas of “difference” and how they are visually encoded across time, technologies, and markets. This project extends her earlier comparative work on fashion and policing, where she examined the temporal dimensions of mug shots alongside casting photographs, and the spatial dimensions of street scouting and stop-and-frisk practices.
She co-directs the Critical Visions Certificate, a joint effort between faculty in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning and College of Arts and Sciences, which she established with Jordan Tate in 2011. The program is aimed at teaching students how to effectively combine critical theory and social analysis with art, media, and design practice. She co-edits CVSN, the experimental publication of student work from the program. Themes have included "space" (2013), "the future" (2015), "color" (2016), "surface" (2018), "identity" (2020), "land/water" (2022), "subject/object" (2023), and "artifact" (2024).
Gila Safran Naveh
Professor, Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati Chair, Judaic Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Professor Gila Safran-Naveh received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at San Diego, where she received a highly interdisciplinary formation, and one of her undergraduate degrees from The Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is now Department Head and the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati Chair in Judaic Studies, at University of Cincinnati. Her primary scholarly interests are the Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Critical Theory, Freud and Judaism, Kafka, and Gender and Judaism.
BOOKS
Professor Safran-Naveh is author of a pivotal study on parables entitled Biblical Parables and Their Modern Recreations: from Apples of Gold in Silver Settings to Imperial Messages (2000) which was nominated for the 2001 National Jewish Book Award in the scholarly division.
She has co-edited a comprehensive volume in linguistic studies entitled The Formal Complexity of Natural Language (1987).
Presently, she is working on a book-length manuscript entitled Unpacking the Heart with Words: Women Survivors of the Holocaust Writing and Healing. This work investigates problems in memory, writing, healing, and women's unique experience in the Holocaust.
Professor Safran Naveh has also completed a book of poetry entitled Another Door: A Woman's Inquisitions and is preparing it for press.
Professor Safran-Naveh has published book chapters (in Semiotics, Jewish Literary Studies, Film and Cultural Studies) and numerous scholarly articles and book reviews. She lectures nationally and internationally and serves on national and international committees promoting human rights and the advancement of women.
Professor Safran Naveh has organized and brought to Cincinnati two International Conferences of Semiotic Society of America (in 1988 and in 2010). Among her most popular courses are Literature of the Holocaust, Jewish/Women's Humor, Freud and Judaism, Jews in Film, American Jewish Fiction, and Salon Culture. For her outstanding teaching, Professor Safran Naveh was awarded the University A. B. Dolly Cohen Award for Excellence in Teaching (1996), the Edith Alexander Award for Outstanding Teaching (2000), and the prestigious George C. Barbour Award (2006). In 2010, she was elected Fellow of the Academy for Teaching and Learning. The recipient of numerous research and travel grants, Professor Safran-Naveh was awarded the prestigious Skirball Fellowship in Hebrew and Judaica, at the Oxford Center for Postgraduate Jewish Studies (1997). She is an Associate Fellow of the Oxford Center and serves on the board of several scholarly journals. Since 2010, Professor Safran Naveh spearheaded the launching of the Center for Jewish Cultures and Ideas, transformed Judaic Studies into a full-fledged Taft Department, and created a Joint UC- HUC Graduate Program in Judaic Studies, which is housed in the Judaic Studies Department. Presently, in addition to her regular duties, Professor Safran Naveh serves on the boards of the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute and the Rockwern Academy.
BOOKS
Professor Safran-Naveh is author of a pivotal study on parables entitled Biblical Parables and Their Modern Recreations: from Apples of Gold in Silver Settings to Imperial Messages (2000) which was nominated for the 2001 National Jewish Book Award in the scholarly division.
She has co-edited a comprehensive volume in linguistic studies entitled The Formal Complexity of Natural Language (1987).
Presently, she is working on a book-length manuscript entitled Unpacking the Heart with Words: Women Survivors of the Holocaust Writing and Healing. This work investigates problems in memory, writing, healing, and women's unique experience in the Holocaust.
Professor Safran Naveh has also completed a book of poetry entitled Another Door: A Woman's Inquisitions and is preparing it for press.
Professor Safran-Naveh has published book chapters (in Semiotics, Jewish Literary Studies, Film and Cultural Studies) and numerous scholarly articles and book reviews. She lectures nationally and internationally and serves on national and international committees promoting human rights and the advancement of women.
Professor Safran Naveh has organized and brought to Cincinnati two International Conferences of Semiotic Society of America (in 1988 and in 2010). Among her most popular courses are Literature of the Holocaust, Jewish/Women's Humor, Freud and Judaism, Jews in Film, American Jewish Fiction, and Salon Culture. For her outstanding teaching, Professor Safran Naveh was awarded the University A. B. Dolly Cohen Award for Excellence in Teaching (1996), the Edith Alexander Award for Outstanding Teaching (2000), and the prestigious George C. Barbour Award (2006). In 2010, she was elected Fellow of the Academy for Teaching and Learning. The recipient of numerous research and travel grants, Professor Safran-Naveh was awarded the prestigious Skirball Fellowship in Hebrew and Judaica, at the Oxford Center for Postgraduate Jewish Studies (1997). She is an Associate Fellow of the Oxford Center and serves on the board of several scholarly journals. Since 2010, Professor Safran Naveh spearheaded the launching of the Center for Jewish Cultures and Ideas, transformed Judaic Studies into a full-fledged Taft Department, and created a Joint UC- HUC Graduate Program in Judaic Studies, which is housed in the Judaic Studies Department. Presently, in addition to her regular duties, Professor Safran Naveh serves on the boards of the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute and the Rockwern Academy.
Rebecca Sanders
Assistant Director, School of Public and International Affairs , Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5135 CLIFTCT
Website: https://www.rebeccasandersphd.com
I am an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Assistant Director of the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at the University of Cincinnati. I also direct the interdisciplinary International Human Rights Certificate and am affiliate faculty with the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
My research agenda addresses pressing global challenges at the intersection of international human rights, international security, and public health. I am especially interested in how societies grapple with rights tradeoffs in real and perceived emergencies and the dynamics of rights advancement and retrenchment.
I am an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Assistant Director of the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at the University of Cincinnati. I also direct the interdisciplinary International Human Rights Certificate and am affiliate faculty with the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
My research agenda addresses pressing global challenges at the intersection of international human rights, international security, and public health. I am especially interested in how societies grapple with rights tradeoffs in real and perceived emergencies and the dynamics of rights advancement and retrenchment.
Simone Nicole Savannah
Asst Professor - Visiting, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
ARTSCI
Simone Savannah, Ph.D. is a Black feminist writer and teacher born and raised in Columbus Ohio. She is the author of Uses of My Body (Barrow Street 2020) and Like Kansas (Big Lucks 2018). She is the winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Book Prize chosen by Jericho Brown.
Her work has been published in Apogee, The Fem, Powder Keg, GlitterMob, Shade Journal, BreakBeat Poets, and several other journals and anthologies. She earned her M.Ed and B.A. from Ohio University. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kansas.
Simone is also a certified personal trainer.
Her work has been published in Apogee, The Fem, Powder Keg, GlitterMob, Shade Journal, BreakBeat Poets, and several other journals and anthologies. She earned her M.Ed and B.A. from Ohio University. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kansas.
Simone is also a certified personal trainer.
Sarah M Stitzlein
Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
610F Teachers College
View full website, including publications and information about current writing projects, at http://sarahstitzlein.wix.com/portfolio
I am a Professor of Education and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. As a philosopher of education, I use political philosophy to uncover problems in education, analyze educational policy, and envision better alternatives. I am especially interested in issues of political agency, educating for democracy, and equity in schools. I consider how to best educate citizens, with special attention to addressing current struggles in democracy related to matters of truth, political dissent, polarization, populism, and political hope.
I am Co-Editor of the journal, Democracy & Education and President of the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society. I am a scholar of American Pragmatism and previously served as President of the John Dewey Society.
I have received the the University of Cincinnati Jack Twyman Award for Service Learning, the Distinguished Teaching Award, and Golden Apple awards. At my previous university, I earned the University of New Hampshire Outstanding Professor award. I am also the recipient of the American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching Development Fellowship.
I am a Professor of Education and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. As a philosopher of education, I use political philosophy to uncover problems in education, analyze educational policy, and envision better alternatives. I am especially interested in issues of political agency, educating for democracy, and equity in schools. I consider how to best educate citizens, with special attention to addressing current struggles in democracy related to matters of truth, political dissent, polarization, populism, and political hope.
I am Co-Editor of the journal, Democracy & Education and President of the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society. I am a scholar of American Pragmatism and previously served as President of the John Dewey Society.
I have received the the University of Cincinnati Jack Twyman Award for Service Learning, the Distinguished Teaching Award, and Golden Apple awards. At my previous university, I earned the University of New Hampshire Outstanding Professor award. I am also the recipient of the American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching Development Fellowship.
Evan Torner
Associate Professor of German Studies, Niehoff Professor of Film & Media Studies; Undergraduate Director of German Studies; Director, UC Game Lab, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
4253 CLIFTCT
Dr. Evan Torner works between three fields: German, Film, and Game Studies. After earning his teaching licensure in German from Grinnell College, he began work at the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2005), where he received an MA (2008), a Fulbright scholarship to study at Potsdam-Babelsberg (2009-2010), and a PhD in German with a certificate in Film Studies (2013). He subsequently spent 2013-2014 at Grinnell College as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, before accepting a position at the University of Cincinnati. In 2016, he became the director of the UC Game Lab, a hub of events and materials for games and playable media at UC. He was tenured in 2020 and, in 2025, accepted a position as a Niehoff Professor of Film & Media Studies.
Dr. Torner's work on East German cinema pertains to questions of representation in transnational genre productions, which also extends to his work on German science fiction. A lifelong player and facilitator of games, he joined the game studies subfield as a role-playing game specialist, and subsequently co-edited (with William J. White, 2012) Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, which explores the intersection of role-playing and media. He is one of the founding editors of the Analog Game Studies journal (http://analoggamestudies.org), and has served as a long-time editor for the International Journal of Role-Playing.
Dr. Torner's work on East German cinema pertains to questions of representation in transnational genre productions, which also extends to his work on German science fiction. A lifelong player and facilitator of games, he joined the game studies subfield as a role-playing game specialist, and subsequently co-edited (with William J. White, 2012) Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media, which explores the intersection of role-playing and media. He is one of the founding editors of the Analog Game Studies journal (http://analoggamestudies.org), and has served as a long-time editor for the International Journal of Role-Playing.
Patricia Valladares-Ruiz
Professor of Latin American and Caribbean literature and film., Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
5262 CLIFTCT
Professor Patricia Valladares-Ruiz's major research and teaching interests focus on race, gender, sexuality, geographical imagination, and political dissent in Latin American and Caribbean literature, cinema, and popular culture.
She is the author of Narrativas del descalabro: La novela venezolana en tiempos de revolución (Tamesis, 2018), Sexualidades disidentes en la narrativa cubana contemporánea (Tamesis, 2012), the editor of Afro-Hispanic Subjectivities (Cincinnati Romance Review, 2011), and the coeditor of El tránsito vacilante: Miradas sobre la cultura venezolana contemporánea (Rodopi, 2013). Professor Valladares-Ruiz has also published book chapters and articles on Latin American and Caribbean literature and cinema in scholarly journals such as Revista Hispánica Moderna, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, MLN: Modern Language Notes, Revista Iberoamericana, Romance Quarterly, Hispania, La Torre, Neophilologus, Monographic Review, Inti, eHumanista: Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Studies, Cuadernos de literatura, and Letras Femeninas.
Research and Teaching Interests: Latin American and Caribbean literature, film, and popular culture; Neo-slave narratives; geographical imagination in early colonial Spanish America; digital humanities and textual analysis; large language models in humanities research; migrant literature; critical analysis of AI; politics and aesthetics.
Theoretical interests: Cultural Theory, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Race Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).
www.patriciavalladares.com
She is the author of Narrativas del descalabro: La novela venezolana en tiempos de revolución (Tamesis, 2018), Sexualidades disidentes en la narrativa cubana contemporánea (Tamesis, 2012), the editor of Afro-Hispanic Subjectivities (Cincinnati Romance Review, 2011), and the coeditor of El tránsito vacilante: Miradas sobre la cultura venezolana contemporánea (Rodopi, 2013). Professor Valladares-Ruiz has also published book chapters and articles on Latin American and Caribbean literature and cinema in scholarly journals such as Revista Hispánica Moderna, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, MLN: Modern Language Notes, Revista Iberoamericana, Romance Quarterly, Hispania, La Torre, Neophilologus, Monographic Review, Inti, eHumanista: Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Studies, Cuadernos de literatura, and Letras Femeninas.
Research and Teaching Interests: Latin American and Caribbean literature, film, and popular culture; Neo-slave narratives; geographical imagination in early colonial Spanish America; digital humanities and textual analysis; large language models in humanities research; migrant literature; critical analysis of AI; politics and aesthetics.
Theoretical interests: Cultural Theory, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Race Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).
www.patriciavalladares.com
Rina Williams
Associate Dean for Social Sciences; Professor of Political Science; Affiliate Faculty, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Sociology, and Asian Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
155A ARTSCI
Rina Verma Williams received her A.M and Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, and B.A. (Political Science) and B.S. (Chemistry) from the University of California at Irvine. She is currently serving as Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences. Her home department is the School of Public and International Affairs, with affiliate appointments in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Sociology; and Asian Studies. Her areas of specialization include South Asian politics; women and gender; ethnicity and nationalism; religion and politics; and politics of the developing nations. She has published extensively in these areas, inlcuding numerous articles and two books with Oxford University Press. Before coming to UC, she taught at the University of Virginia and University of Houston.
Ladan Zarabadi
Asst Professor - Adj, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
CC West Woods Acad Cntr
Emeriti Faculty
Beth S. Ash
Associate Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Beth Ash received her undergraduate degree in literature with high honors from the University of Michigan and holds a MA and PhD in English from the University of Virginia. She is the author of Writing In Between: Joseph Conrad and the Psychosocial Dilemmas of Modernity and numerous journal articles and book chapters on the topics of literary modernism, feminism as critique, and feminist revisions of psychoanalysis. Although a new joint appointment with the Center, she has long been teaching the undergraduate Feminist Theory and the graduate Feminist Theory: Foundations for the Center. She also offers seminars on feminism and psychoanalysis, assists with student advising, and serves on MA committees.
Michelle A Gibson
Professor Emerita, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Michelle Gibson is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Women's Studies. She received her Ph.D. from Ohio University, where her areas of study were American Literature, Composition Research and Pedagogy, and Creative Writing. Her scholarship has continued in all three of these areas. Much of her work applies queer and postmodern identity theories to pedagogical practice and popular culture. She also continues to write and publish poetry. With Jonathan Alexander, she edits QP: Queer Poetry, an online poetry journal, and she and Alexander also edited a strain of JAC: Journal of Advanced Composition entitled "Queer Composition(s)". She co-edited (with Deborah Meem) Femme/ Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go and Lesbian Academic Couples. With Meem and Alexander she is writing Finding Out, an introductory textbook for use in introductory LGBT courses.
Deborah T. Meem
Professor of WGSS, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Deb Meem specializes in Victorian literature, LGBTQ studies, and 19th C. novels by women. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1971 with a double major in English and music, then after a decade away from the academy returned to graduate school in English at Stony Brook University, where she earned a Ph.D. in 1985. Her work has appeared in Journal of the History of Sexuality, Feminist Teacher, Studies in Popular Culture and elsewhere. She has edited four long-forgotten books by Victorian journalist, novelist, and antifeminist Eliza Lynn Linton: The Rebel of the Family (Broadview, 2002), Realities (Valancourt, 2010), The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland (Victorian Secrets, 2011, with Kate Holterhoff), and Sowing the Wind (Victorian Secrets, 2015, with Kate Holterhoff). With Michelle Gibson she has co-edited Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want To Go (2002) and Lesbian Academic Couples (2005), both published by Haworth Press. Her co-authored book Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies (with Michelle Gibson and Jonathan Alexander) was published by Sage Press in 2009; its second edition appeared in 2013, and the third edition is due in 2017. Deb served as Head of the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from 2008-15. When not in that position, she teaches Sexuality Studies in the Department of WGSS and occasionally literature in the English Department. She serves on UC’s LGBTQ Advisory Board, and was also longtime co-chair of the LGBT faculty/staff Task Force at UC.
Kristi Ann Nelson
Professor Emeritus, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Van Wormer Hall
Anne Sisson Runyan
Professor, School of Public and International Affairs and Faculty Affiliate, Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Anne Sisson Runyan, PhD in International Relations, is Professor Emerita in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at the University of Cincinnati (UC). See her full CV at https://runyanas.wixsite.com/polisci.
She founded and coordinated the Political Science doctoral concentration in Feminist Comparative and International Politics, formerly headed the UC Department of Women’s Studies (currently known as the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for which she also served as a graduate director and affiliate faculty member), and served as the Interim Faculty Chair and Director of the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at UC where she is also served as a Taft Research Center Fellow. She previously founded and directed women’s studies programs at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam and at Wright State University (WSU) where she held tenured appointments in political science and chaired the SUNY Potsdam Politics Department. She has also taught in Canada and Europe, including serving as a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in North American Integration at York University in Toronto and a Visiting Scholar and Inaugural Fellow of the Research Centre on International Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam, and studied and guest-lectured in many parts of the world. A pioneer of the field of feminist international relations, she has been a recipient of the Society for Women in International Political Economy Mentor Award and the Eminent Feminist International Relations Scholar Award from the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section (which she helped found and led) of the International Studies Association (ISA), and has served as a Vice President of ISA, currently chairing its Research Workshop Grant Committee. Her authored, co-authored, and co-edited books include Global Gender Politics (next edition in progress), Global Gender Issues (4 editions), Gender and Global Restructuring/s (2 editions, third forthcoming December 2024), and Feminist (Im)Mobilities in Fortress(ing) North America with another monograph in progress on Indigenous women resisting nuclear colonialism, and she has published widely in the fields of feminist world politics and transnational feminisms. She has served on a range of editorial boards and was an associate editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics for which she organized and hosted its fifth annual conference and guest-edited two special issues. In addition to her experience leading a major humanities research center funded by a substantial endowment yielding a $1.3 million annual budget as well as four academic departments and programs offering graduate and undergraduate degrees, she has been a leader in several professional organizations, including ISA, the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). She was awarded the AAUP Georgina M. Smith Award in 2020 for her contributions to raising the status of academic women through her union, scholarly, campus, and professional association work. She has also won multiple external and internal grants and fellowships; completed a $1.5 million capital campaign for UC Women’s Studies; directed or co-directed several collaborative research, international exchange, curricular, and conference projects; and chaired and/or served on countless campus and faculty union governance bodies. She has taught a range of graduate and undergraduate courses particularly in the areas of feminist global political economy and security studies, feminist political and international relations theory and methods, and transnational feminism at multiple institutions as well as chaired and/or served on many MA and PhD committees. For her achievements as a feminist scholar, leader, administrator, teacher, and mentor, she has rec
She founded and coordinated the Political Science doctoral concentration in Feminist Comparative and International Politics, formerly headed the UC Department of Women’s Studies (currently known as the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies for which she also served as a graduate director and affiliate faculty member), and served as the Interim Faculty Chair and Director of the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at UC where she is also served as a Taft Research Center Fellow. She previously founded and directed women’s studies programs at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam and at Wright State University (WSU) where she held tenured appointments in political science and chaired the SUNY Potsdam Politics Department. She has also taught in Canada and Europe, including serving as a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in North American Integration at York University in Toronto and a Visiting Scholar and Inaugural Fellow of the Research Centre on International Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam, and studied and guest-lectured in many parts of the world. A pioneer of the field of feminist international relations, she has been a recipient of the Society for Women in International Political Economy Mentor Award and the Eminent Feminist International Relations Scholar Award from the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section (which she helped found and led) of the International Studies Association (ISA), and has served as a Vice President of ISA, currently chairing its Research Workshop Grant Committee. Her authored, co-authored, and co-edited books include Global Gender Politics (next edition in progress), Global Gender Issues (4 editions), Gender and Global Restructuring/s (2 editions, third forthcoming December 2024), and Feminist (Im)Mobilities in Fortress(ing) North America with another monograph in progress on Indigenous women resisting nuclear colonialism, and she has published widely in the fields of feminist world politics and transnational feminisms. She has served on a range of editorial boards and was an associate editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics for which she organized and hosted its fifth annual conference and guest-edited two special issues. In addition to her experience leading a major humanities research center funded by a substantial endowment yielding a $1.3 million annual budget as well as four academic departments and programs offering graduate and undergraduate degrees, she has been a leader in several professional organizations, including ISA, the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). She was awarded the AAUP Georgina M. Smith Award in 2020 for her contributions to raising the status of academic women through her union, scholarly, campus, and professional association work. She has also won multiple external and internal grants and fellowships; completed a $1.5 million capital campaign for UC Women’s Studies; directed or co-directed several collaborative research, international exchange, curricular, and conference projects; and chaired and/or served on countless campus and faculty union governance bodies. She has taught a range of graduate and undergraduate courses particularly in the areas of feminist global political economy and security studies, feminist political and international relations theory and methods, and transnational feminism at multiple institutions as well as chaired and/or served on many MA and PhD committees. For her achievements as a feminist scholar, leader, administrator, teacher, and mentor, she has rec
Staff
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Business Manager A&S Staffing Unit 5, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
3420 French Hall
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Program Director, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
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