Journal of Feminist Scholarship

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Journal of Feminist Scholarship

The Journal of Feminist Scholarship is a twice-yearly, peer-reviewed, open-access journal published Klobucka, Erin K. Krafft, Jeannette E. Turcotte.

The Journal of Feminist Scholarship is edited at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth by Anupama Arora (Executive Editor), Anna M. Riley (Executive Editor), and Heather M. It is published through the generous support from the College of Arts and Sciences at UMass Dartmouth and the University of Rhode Island. The editors conceive the mission of the JFS as an exploration of the state of feminis

t scholarship at the turn of the new century, and we see this endeavor as part of a larger question of where feminism itself is heading. We wish to encourage a discussion of feminist thought for the twenty-first century. What are its directions today, and what relationship does it sustain with the foundations laid down by feminist inquiry and action in earlier centuries? We aim to publish work that explores the multiple theoretical paradigms and political agendas of contemporary and historical feminist scholarship and the potential intersections and tensions between these paradigms and agendas. We are especially interested in examining productive controversies and divergences between transnational contexts of feminism. We also welcome submissions that focus on feminist pedagogies and activism. Publishing the journal online means that we are able to offer open access to its contents to feminist scholars anywhere in the world where there is an internet connection. It also has an immediacy that allows us to publish articles on topics that are in the here and now and to significantly shorten the time lag from submission to publication for our contributors.

02/18/2025

As we continue spotlighting articles from our most recent issue, today we focus on "Hauntings of Publication Deaths, Possibilities for Our Academic Present". In their essay, Moore and Hare reflect on their haunting by past publications that did not find the reception or audience they had hoped for. Hare and Moore ruminate on how both of their “haunting publications involved [them] reckoning with and learning how to navigate a challenging system to publish critical, feminist thoughts” (31). Using the horror film genre of “spectral incognizance” as a conceptual frame, the authors offer a commentary on the state of academic publishing and feminist scholarship.

Kaye Hare is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts, Communications and Social Sciences at University Canada West.

Amber Moore is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in Library, Literacy, and Teacher Education at University of British Columbia.

02/14/2025

"Today, we highlight another engaging essay from our most recent issue, "Swimming Against the Tide: Resistance Strategies and Agentic Skills Used by Childfree Women" by Carolina Rojas-Madrigal of the University of Costa Rica.

In an age where more women are choosing to remain childfree, an article like Roja-Madrigal's couldn't be timelier. With an eye on pronatalist societies, Rojas-Madrigal explores how "childfree women confront social hostility and defend their reproductive autonomy through resistance strategies and tactics". Through interviews with childfree women from Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Spain, and the United Kingdom, Rojas-Madrigal pulls a variety of real-life experiences and perspectives to illustrate how these women navigate their worlds as outliers to the norm.

02/11/2025

Happy February all! Today we spotlight an article from our most recent issue, "Another Take on the Opposition between Gender Categories" by Ivan Restović of the Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb

From a perspective of philosophical logic, Restović explores the types of relations among gender categories and argues for a different way of thinking and categorizing when imagining and mapping gender spectrums. He argues that "the initial spectrum construes gender categories to be in the logical opposition of “fuzzy contradiction,” while the models with more than one spectrum do not construe gender categories to be in any kind of logical opposition." Restović's use of fuzzy logic, when applied to the nebulous concept of gender identity, makes for a fascinating read.

***racademia

12/31/2024

Happy Holidays !
We are taking a short break and we will see you in the new year!

12/30/2024

Exciting News! The Journal of Feminist Scholarship’s Fall 2024 issue is now available for reading and download.
Swipe to see the articles featured in this newest collection! 👉👉
Access the entire issue, free and open to all, at digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/vol24/iss24/

11/27/2024

This week, we spotlight Meridith M. Kruse’s article, “Was That Ethical? Feminist Critics’ Responses to the ‘Queerness’ of Modernist Women’s Writing.” This author conducts a case study on feminist critics’ responses to the q***rness of modernist women’s writings, emphasizing that the humanities are the most effective for examining and interpreting q***r writing in an ethical manner. This work provides a historical overview of these responses, and then discusses the relevance of having contemporary conversations on ethical readings of modernist women’s literature.

Meridith M. Kruse received her education at the New School for Liberal Arts and teaches in the Writing department at the University of Southern California.

11/20/2024

This week from our archive we spotlight Renée M. Vincent’s article, “Fugitive Knowledge and Body Autonomy in the Folklore and Literature of Zora Neale Hurston and Gloria Naylor.” This article argues that women’s body autonomy is both synonymous and indispensable to women’s health. This is revealed through an examination of historical medical literature, folkloric theory, and literary analysis of authors such as Hurtston and Naylor, that provide coded representations of means for regulating fertility and maternity. The existence of this knowledge within literary representations is significant because it indicates that the demand for women’s autonomy is a perpetual need that has been exhibited throughout generations of women.

Renée M. Vincent received her education at the University of Louisiana Lafayette.

11/13/2024

In honor of National Native American Heritage Month, this week, from our archive we are highlighting “Occupied Land is an Access Issue: Interventions in Feminist Disability Studies and Narratives of Indigenous Activism” by Jess L. Cowing. This analysis examines how Native/Indigenous narratives of environmental activism often intersect with feminist disability studies, highlighting the links between land, health, sovereignty and the history of colonialism. This article argues that a movement that prioritizes Native/Indigenous sovereignty has the ability to broaden the field of access to disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent Indigenous activists and scholars.

Jess L. Wilcox Cowing (they/she) is a multiply disabled scholar and a visiting assistant professor in the Department of English at the College of Wooster. Their research is in the areas of 19th and 20th century literary studies, feminist disability studies, and settler colonialism.

11/04/2024

Today we spotlight Jasmine K. Cooper’s article, Post-Trump Intersections and “Post-Racial” Reflections: A Black Feminist Analysis of Black Women and Navigating Structured Inequality in the U.S., 2012-2017. Through an analysis of interviews with Black American women before the 2012 election of Barack Obama and just after the 2016 election of Donald Trump, this analysis captures black women’s experiences in navigating racism, classism and s*xism during a time of political transition. Building upon Black feminist theory, this analysis argues that black women are still subjected to these intersecting structures. It also analyzes how black women resist and affirm their personhood despite oppressive messages that work to devalue their humanity and identity.
Jasmine K. Cooper received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

11/01/2024

This Friday, we spotlight Hinda Mandell’s article, “She Legislates, He Scandalizes: Renvisioning the Impact of Political S*x Scandals on Assemblywomen in New York.” This article analyzes how New York Assemblywomen were significantly impacted by the 2012-2014 scandals of their male colleagues who were accused of s*xually harassing female staffers and subordinates. Despite the assembly woman playing no role in any of the scandalous events, their reputations were also tarnished. This study reveals how political scandals work as a form of contagion and demonstrates how further exploration is needed in the gendering of scandal. These scandals “represent a unique opportunity to understand the fluid nature of the gendered construction of bodies.”

10/30/2024

Today we spotlight Hinda Mandell and Meredith Davenport’s “Recreating and Reenvisioning Scandal: A Photographic Exploration of the Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner Press Conferences.” This photographic exploration seeks to reimagine political s*x scandals and the responding press conferences through a feminist lens. Traditionally in real-life scandal conferences, male politicians who are caught typically use a gender-normative script in apology, while their wives tend to adhere to a traditionally feminine role by staying silent in support. Through a photographed collection where students reenact these real-life conferences, these authors upend conventional gender-normative scripts. They achieve this by having the female actors who pose as the politician’s wives convey authentic emotion instead of staying silent. They also analyze the media’s coverage of political s*x scandals and the public’s consumption of them. This exploration uncovers gender constructions and power imbalances within the political sphere.

10/24/2024

Today we spotlight the article “Battleground Texas: Gendered Media Framing of the 2014 Texas Gubernatorial Race,” where authors Susan Waters, Elizabeth A. Dudash-Buskirk, and Rachel M. Pipan analyze how gender serves as a construct in political media and influences voters through the application of feminist political theory to a 2014 Texas mixed-gender race. Through an application of a critical intersectional feminist lens, these authors explore how this electoral race was rhetorically constructed by the media, and how this connects to the larger problem of female candidates being restricted from being elected to office. This article analyzes this through examining framing, gendered traits, physical appearance of female candidates, coding of personality traits, and ultimately directions on how to overcome these obstacles in future elections. This analysis is a stepping stone for the future of gender in politics as it concludes by suggesting that “further studies should begin to delineate exactly what relevant gender differences are and how they function in the political sphere” to broaden our understanding of how women are perceived by the political media.

Susan E. Waters has been a member of the department of Media and Communication faculty at East Tennessee State University.
Elizabeth A. Dudash-Buskirk is associate professor of socio-political communication and rhetoric at Missouri State University.
Rachel M. Pipan completed her education at American University.

10/18/2024

Today, we spotlight Jennifer Musial and Judith Mintz’s article "'Because It’s 2015!' Justin Trudeau’s Yoga Body, Masculinity, and Canadian Nation-Building." When asked why he chose a gender-balanced cabinet by reporters, Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau responded, “because it’s 2015!” a forward attitude that resonated with many feminists. He further presented himself as a good-natured patriarch through his practicing of yoga, a choice which was also an incarnation of colonial behavior that he used to maintain an image of a disciplined world leader who was comfortable with racialized practices such as yoga. This article seeks to explore this and simultaneously how the body can serve as a disciplinary tool for national politics and has the potential to challenge the conventions of masculinity.

Jennifer Musial teaches in the Women's and Gender Studies department at the New Jersey City University.
Judith Mintz works as a researcher/policy analyst at the Association of Native Child and Family Services of Ontario.

10/16/2024

With election day just around the corner, we've decided to curate a collection of articles from our archive on the topic of gender and politics where we seek to consider how gender influences political structures, discourse, behaviors, and policy. Check out this sneak preview of articles that we will be spotlighting in the following weeks from the JFS archive. The articles expertly unpack the impact of masculinity in the political space, how gender serves as a construct in political media, the reimagination of political s*x scandals to change our perception of gender dynamics, and more! Look out for our post on Friday to see our first article!

10/11/2024

Introducing our third spotlight from the JFS archive in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, is Josh T. Franco's "Más Rudas Collective, 2009-2016 (An Archival Epilogue to an Epic Pachanga)." This analysis examines contemporary artists — Cristina Ordonez, Mari Hernandez, Kristin Gamez, Ruth Leonela Buentello, and Sarah Castillo — who formed the Más Rudas Collective (MRC) which was active in San Antonio, Texas, from 2009 to 2016. The article looks at archival documents to show how the collective took up symbols and entrenched traditions of their Mexican American context (such as the quinceañera) and fashioned weapons against the limits imposed on them by preexisting meanings embedded therein. This collective analyzed cultural ideals of domesticity, the exploration of the female body, Chicana fashion, and more. Celebrate this National Hispanic Heritage Month by reading along.

Josh T. Franco works as National Collector at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

10/09/2024

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we spotlight Julia Alvarez, a Dominican American poet and author, born on March 27th, 1950. Raised in the Dominican Republic for her early childhood, she was forced to flee from her native country at just 10 years old to the United States. She draws heavily upon her own conflicting identity between her native culture and her American one in her works, which she first explored in her 1991 debut novel How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and later in her sequel, ¡Yo! (2012). Other notable works include her historical fiction novel about a family living under a dictatorship in the Dominican, In the Time of Butterflies (1994) and A Wedding in Haiti (2012), a novel that explores cultural differences. She has been the recipient of many rewards and achievements, including the National Medal of Arts, awarded to her by former President Obama, and the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature.

10/04/2024

Introducing our second spotlight of this week's National Hispanic Heritage month series, is Sabrina S. Yañez’s viewpoint: "We Aren't All the Same": The Singularity of Reproductive Experiences amidst Institutional Objectification in Argentina's Public Maternal Health Services.

This analysis effectively addresses the fragmented and outdated system of reproductive health services in Argentina, in an effort to improve the experiences for women in the future. It explores prevalent issues such as how reproductive care is heavily rooted in the patriarchy’s inaccurate idea of a “tolerance threshold” for women’s pain, women’s disconnection and feelings of failure in their own bodies, and more, all through providing in-depth accounts that “help illuminate how institutionalization and medicalization take a toll on women and their embodied lives.” These individual accounts encompass women’s unique experiences with their own bodies that defy traditional and s*xist standards of womanhood.

10/02/2024

In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we are spotlighting New York Times best-selling author Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican American author. Born on December 20th, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois, she draws heavily upon Chicana cultural themes in her novels with her portrayals of Mexican American identity that serve as both a point of pride and internal conflict. Her most famous novel that is recognized as a modern classic, The House on Mango Street (1984), follows a young Latina woman coming of age in Chicago, and has been translated into over 20 different languages. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories is a collection that follows the struggles of Mexican American women on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Caramelo (2002) is a semi-autobiographical novel that explores over a hundred years of Mexican history. Support Sandra Cisnero and other Hispanic authors this National Hispanic Heritage month by reading along! 📖

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Knowledge is power in the fight against discrimination. Today marks #ZeroDiscriminationDay, a day that celebrates the right of everyone to live a full and productive life—and live it with dignity. Check out our reel that provides insight into this movement and highlights articles from past publications of the journal that challenge bias and inequality. Open access to the full articles at the link in our bio. #EndPrejudice #EducateToEmpower #FeministReads #EmbraceDiversity

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Our Story

The Journal of Feminist Scholarship is currently published through a collaborative feminist relationship between the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and the University of Rhode Island. Anupama Arora, Anna M. Klobucka, Erin K. Krafft, Jeannette E. Riley, and Heather M. Turcotte (Executive Editor) are its current editors.

JFS began at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth by Catherine Villanueva Gardner, Anna M. Klobucka, and Jeannette E. Riley through the Department of Women's and Gender Studies and the generous support from the College of Arts and Sciences at UMass Dartmouth. The founding editors conceived the mission of JFS as an exploration of the state of feminist scholarship at the turn of the new century, and we see this endeavor as part of a larger question of where feminism itself is heading.

We continue to encourage a discussion of feminist thought for the twenty-first century. What are its directions today, and what relationship does it sustain with the foundations laid down by feminist inquiry and action in earlier centuries? We aim to publish work that explores the multiple theoretical paradigms and political agendas of contemporary and historical feminist scholarship and the potential intersections and tensions between these paradigms and agendas. We are especially interested in examining productive controversies and divergences between transnational contexts of feminism. We also welcome submissions that focus on feminist pedagogies and activism. We are a “double-anonymous” peer reviewed journal and publishing online means that we are able to offer open access to its contents to feminist scholars anywhere in the world where there is an internet connection. It also has an immediacy that allows us to publish articles on topics that are in the here and now and to significantly shorten the time lag from submission to publication for our contributors.