Hello Huskies!
Timothy Bussey, a former WGSS Graduate Student, got an article of theirs picked up by the Associated Press!
Titled “‘Rainbow wave’ of LGBTQ candidates run and win in 2020 election”, Bussey explores the 2020 election, and a few of the roughly 1,000 LGBTQ+ candidates that ran for state senate and house seats. The link to the article is below, and we hope that you all take a look!
https://theconversation.com/rainbow-wave-of-lgbtq-candidates-run-and-win-in-2020-election-149066
Please join us for American Studies’ first event to kick off the new year – Monuments to the Past / Structures of t
he Present — on Thursday, September 24 @ 12:00-1:30pm. Panel features Kelly Dennis, Kenneth Foote, Lewis Gordon, Micki McElya, and Cathy Schlund-Vials.
By their nature, monuments collapse the conceptual divide between past and present. They are visual artworks, often of distant vintage, that construct particular sites of memory. In so doing, the figures they marbleize manage to display, in the most quotidian realms, how the social structures of earlier eras continue to permeate everyday life in the here and now.
As a field, American Studies has long focused on the politics of historical memory. To this end, UConn American Studies brings together scholars from a range of disciplinary perspectives whose work engages this issue, the relevance of which is clearer now than ever. They will weigh in on the stakes of the ongoing battles over Confederate and colonial monuments, and address what new sites of memory – monumental or not – we should endeavor to create.
Please contact Chris Vials for more information.
Hello Huskies!
We would like to congratulate our WGSS Affiliate, Dr. Sharde Davis, on winning the OSCLG Feminist Teacher/Mentor Award for this year! Also, WGSS Distinguished Professor Dr. Nancy Naples’ three-volume “Companion to Women’s and Gender Studies” is NOW 
AVAILABLE! These two members of the WGSS Family have done many great things, and we are so proud of them both!
Good Morning Huskies!
One of our staff members, Mick Powell, has posted our 2020 Newsletter to Wild Tongue Journal! The journal, as quoted from their “About Us” page, “is a biannual publication curated by faculty and students in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Connecticut. In the spring, WT will publish the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program’s annual newsletter. In the fall, we will publish an arts journal of contemporary feminist poetry, prose, translations, visual art, and multimedia pieces that focus on, respond to, and/or engage with intersectional feminist themes. Accepting work created by artists across the world, Wild Tongue will be completely digitally published, making the journal widely accessible and affordable.”
Please find the journal here, at https://wildtongue.wgss.uconn.edu/volume-no-1/
For those who want to become active anti-racist allies, this list is full of dynamic readings (longer and shorter), podcasts, and various conversations particularly geared toward this goal at this moment.
This resource was compiled by Autumn Gupta with Bryanna Wallace’s oversight for the purpose of providing a starting place for individuals trying to become better allies.
Choose how much time you have each day to become more informed as step one to becoming an active ally to the black community. On this document are links to the learning resources and a schedule of what to do each day. Click on the following to jump directly to that info:
Additional Resources:
Important Note: This should just be the beginning. Please do not stop learning after you complete this month. Each section (10/25/45 minutes) has somewhat different material and the links under “Additional Resources” also include new content, so go above and beyond to educate yourself.
Want to increase your impact? Find a friend, create a group, and share this content with others.
Share using shortened link: bit.ly/junejustice
**If you have additional resource recommendations or see any errors in the links listed, please send them to autumngupta@gmail.com.
Find this useful? Check out our Go Fund Me page to learn more on how we want to make this more accessible, more permanent and more of a lifestyle.
Over the course of the month, you will have spent 5 hours intentionally learning how to be an active ally of the black community. (That’s less than the amount of time it takes to watch all of Tiger King ~ 5.5 hours.) Remember, the black community lives the reality of the information you will learn- they have a lifetime of fearing for their well being versus 5 hours of you being uncomfortable. All the action items listed in the calendar have linked information below the weekly schedule (see sections Watch, Read, Listen, and Act).
Hello UConn Community,
We are now in a moment to recognize the limitations of the diversity and inclusion paradigm, which has permitted the continuation of anti-black racism. We need to collectively strive to enhance the safety and wellness of Black students, staff, faculty, and community members. We ask that this college-wide call for colleagues to attend this training may serve as a reminder that Black lives matter here.
This is an opportunity to do more than express concern. This is a chance to act in solidarity for structural change through education.
Attached is an invitation by Academics for Black Survival and Wellness to join a week-long training geared towards college campuses beginning on June 19th, 2020.
Full Week Training Registration: 6/19-6/25
OR
Individual Days
We, the faculty and staff of the interdisciplinary Centers, Institutes, and Programs, stand together to express our shock, our heartbreak, and our outrage at the horrific and senseless killing of George Floyd and the ongoing violence against Black people.
George Floyd, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Kathryn Johnston, Ayiana Stanley-Jones, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland. Too many to list and too many to forget.
Each of these names represents a human being, dehumanized, rendered invisible, a Black life cut short by brutality and wanton violence.
We cannot look away. We cannot remain indifferent. We cannot be silent.
We must expose and confront the deep, pervasive, systemic issues that continue to fuel one tragedy after another. We must work together to bring real change. As academic units and programs of the university founded on principles of social justice and human rights we reaffirm our commitment to educating the next generation of healers and freedom fighters. The vision of change, which this crisis on top of a catastrophic pandemic calls for, is a broad, systemic, and intergenerational strategy. We recognize that broad societal change cannot be legislated alone, but must be cultivated community by community, day by day. To that end, we reaffirm our commitment to creating communities of accountability; implementing actions that dismantle the status quo of white supremacy; and amplifying the voices and experiences of people of color.
As a first step, we encourage you to join us in programs that will bring communities into conversation including tonight’s AACC Town Hall Meeting, presented by The H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center:
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Racism in the African-American Community, Thursday, June 4, at 6 PM, https://preview.mailerlite.com/k8h6u0/1435486084640281891/n9g0/ (This event has already passed)
We also encourage you to read the public statement on anti-black violence from the Africana Studies Institute: https://africana.uconn.edu/public-statement-on-anti-black-violence/
We stand together with communities of color across the country as they yet again are subject to pain and suffering at the hands of a racist and unjust system. We support our students, from the African American, Asian American, Puerto Rican and Latin American, Women’s and Rainbow Centers, and Native American Cultural Programs, and all who are struggling to demand recognition of their rights and transformation of the conditions in which they live. We are not silent. We are not indifferent. We are implicated and, therefore, responsible. We will not stand idly by while the blood of our community members cries from the ground.
“Justice is not a natural part of the lifecycle of the United States, nor is it a product of evolution; it is always the outcome of struggle.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter To Black Liberation
You are not alone. We are with you.
In solidarity,
African American Cultural Center
Africana Studies Institute
American Studies Program
Asian American Cultural Center
Asian and Asian American Studies Institute
Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life
El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies)
Human Rights Institute
Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center
Rainbow Center
Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
Women’s Center
Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program
Hello UCONN Community!
~~~
We in WGSS would like to congratulate Ruth Yuste-Alonso, one of our Graduate Assistants, in receiving the 2020 SLA Outstanding Graduate/Teaching Award! As written on the SLA Website:
“Ruth studies Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and teaches in the Women’s, Gender and Sexualities program (WGSS). She strives to implement the best teaching practices to generate student success and maximize learning outcomes for her students. Ruth goes out of her way to find diverse and representative teaching materials. She makes it a priority to learn about her students and takes the initiative to find activities and opportunities related to their passions. Ruth demonstrates a complete dedication to excellence in her teaching and a total commitment to the needs of her students.”
Again, we congratulate Ruth in her excellent work, and you can read about the other rewards here: https://sla.uconn.edu/currentrecipients/
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