National Council for Research on Women and the Center for the Study of Women and Society
Item
CUNY Graduate School and University Center Page 1 of 3
"NATIONAL CUNY Graduate School and University Center
COUNCILEg Center for the Study of Women and Society
RESEARCH hitp://web.gc.cuny.edu/womencenter
ZSwWooMmMenN
Contact Information:
365 5th Avenue, Room 5103
New York, NY 10016
Phone: 212-817-8905
Fax: 212-817-7466
CENTER DESCRIPTION
The Center for the Study of Women and Society within The Graduate Center, CUNY, promotes
interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and training on issues pertaining to women and gender and
the contribution of women to society. The center focuses on women in urban, national, and
international settings. It collaborates with grassroots organizations to develop links between the
urban communities and the university, conducts research, and sponsors a lecture series. Eighty
faculty associates of the Graduate Center's Women's Studies Certificate Program provide the center
with a wide net of expertise in many disciplines, fields, and areas, and on many particular
multifaceted subjects.
AREA(S) OF EXPERTISE
Anthropology/sociology; body theory; environment; feminist thought and scholarship; global
political economy; global technoscience; history; incarceration/crime; literature; mental health;
queer studies; reproductive rights/technologies; Renaissance studies; women's studies.
RECENT PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
e College and Community Fellowship (CCF)
CCF is an experimental program which addresses the transitional experiences of women leaving
prison and returning to communities. It especially focuses on the educational needs of these
women, many of whom had begun college in prison and wish to return to college upon release. A
number of students in the Women's Studies Certificate Program are involved in CCF, acting as
mentors to the women returning to college.
e The Conviction Project
The Conviction Project aims at linking the social activism of CCF with academic studies and
research goals and is an ongoing faculty and student seminar. Now in its third year, The
Conviction Project Seminar will continue to focus on the history of the development of the prison-
industrial complex, addressing both the impact of the privatization of prisons on those imprisoned
and the intensification and extension of technologies of surveillance into everyday life. The
seminar members will study the conditions and the experience of imprisonment of the body, mind,
and spirit- both within and outside of prisons- especially in relationship to race, age, ethnicity,
http://www.ncrw.org/digest/cuny.htm 10/11/2006
CUNY Graduate School and University Center Page 2 of 3
gender, class, and sexuality. This seminar will also be concerned with silencing and censorship,
traumatized memory and bodily discrimination, abjection and abuse, and the role of education in
relationship to these issues- inside and outside of prison. Given these general themes, in 2002 we
are focusing especially on reconciliation and racial relationships both in global and local
contexts.
e With/Out Walls: Incarceration, Education, and Control
As an extension of The Conviction Project, CSWS sponsors a two-day conference that brings
together professionals form social service, policy-making, government and non-government
organizations as well as not-for-profit agencies. They, along with many ex-offenders, discuss
education for persons in prison and outside of prison. Each year this conference allows us to
disseminate to various publics what we have learned through the Conviction Project Seminar. We
have also put up a web site for CCF that we are in the process of developing as a site for public
distribution of data on education in, and after, prison.
e Future Matters: Technoscience, Politics, and Cultural Criticism
A two-day symposium on technoscience to be held April 10-11, 2003, the symposium promises to
be a provocative and productive event and thirty-five scholars are already committed to
participate. In convening the symposium, it is our hope that institutes and centers concerned with
the study of women, sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, nation, and class will lead the way in
rethinking political strategies and cultural criticisms for now and in the future. We are convinced
that in taking technoscience as one of our primary concerns, we will be able to reconfigure the
aims of recent cultural criticisms in order that cultural criticism can address some of the pressing
questions of these times and help inform the future of global political practice.
e Facing Global Capital, Finding Human Security: A Gendered Critique
With the National Council for Research on Women, CSWS received a Rockefeller Foundation
Grant for 2002-2004. Together we will bring scholars from different parts of the world to study
changing relationships of global capital, nation states, civil society, the private and public
spheres, and the way these changes have provoked a need to reexamine definitions of citizenship
and human rights. One of the project's aims is a seminar for 2002-2004 that will be hosted by
CSWS. The seminar begins in Fall 2002 and will address the sites of accountability for human
security around the world, the problems and possibilities that extend across cultural, social, and
political borders, in particular on the gendered dimensions of human security, and their
intersections with race, class, religion, sexuality, generation, and nation.
e New Immigrant Women: Identification and Inventory
New Immigrant Women is a project of the Activist Women's Oral History Project, founded in the
1990's, with archival interviews and ongoing oral histories interviewing women artists who work
with young people in the NYC community. The new project, funded by a Rockefeller Foundation
planning grant, is locating oral histories that document the mobilization and experience of Latina
and Asian American women in three American cities as the foundation of a National Women's
Oral History Consortium.
e Women's Studies Development
http://www.ncrw.org/digest/cuny.htm 10/11/2006
CUNY Graduate School and University Center Page 3 of 3
Women's Studies Discipline Council. The council brings together leaders of Women's Studies
programs and women's centers throughout the CUNY system several times a year for discussions
on new and ongoing issues relevant to students, faculty, and programs for the purposes of mutual
support and networking.
PUBLICATIONS
Newsletter- A semi-annual publication edited by students in the Women's Studies Certificate
Program.
Brochure for the Center for the Study of Women and Society
Brochure for CUNY/BA Women's Studies across the campuses
[Return to home] [Return to Directory by State] [Return to Index of Expertise]
Last updated 09/05/02
Please send comments or corrections to webmaster(@ncrw.org
http://www.ncrw.org/digest/cuny.htm 10/11/2006
"NATIONAL CUNY Graduate School and University Center
COUNCILEg Center for the Study of Women and Society
RESEARCH hitp://web.gc.cuny.edu/womencenter
ZSwWooMmMenN
Contact Information:
365 5th Avenue, Room 5103
New York, NY 10016
Phone: 212-817-8905
Fax: 212-817-7466
CENTER DESCRIPTION
The Center for the Study of Women and Society within The Graduate Center, CUNY, promotes
interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and training on issues pertaining to women and gender and
the contribution of women to society. The center focuses on women in urban, national, and
international settings. It collaborates with grassroots organizations to develop links between the
urban communities and the university, conducts research, and sponsors a lecture series. Eighty
faculty associates of the Graduate Center's Women's Studies Certificate Program provide the center
with a wide net of expertise in many disciplines, fields, and areas, and on many particular
multifaceted subjects.
AREA(S) OF EXPERTISE
Anthropology/sociology; body theory; environment; feminist thought and scholarship; global
political economy; global technoscience; history; incarceration/crime; literature; mental health;
queer studies; reproductive rights/technologies; Renaissance studies; women's studies.
RECENT PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
e College and Community Fellowship (CCF)
CCF is an experimental program which addresses the transitional experiences of women leaving
prison and returning to communities. It especially focuses on the educational needs of these
women, many of whom had begun college in prison and wish to return to college upon release. A
number of students in the Women's Studies Certificate Program are involved in CCF, acting as
mentors to the women returning to college.
e The Conviction Project
The Conviction Project aims at linking the social activism of CCF with academic studies and
research goals and is an ongoing faculty and student seminar. Now in its third year, The
Conviction Project Seminar will continue to focus on the history of the development of the prison-
industrial complex, addressing both the impact of the privatization of prisons on those imprisoned
and the intensification and extension of technologies of surveillance into everyday life. The
seminar members will study the conditions and the experience of imprisonment of the body, mind,
and spirit- both within and outside of prisons- especially in relationship to race, age, ethnicity,
http://www.ncrw.org/digest/cuny.htm 10/11/2006
CUNY Graduate School and University Center Page 2 of 3
gender, class, and sexuality. This seminar will also be concerned with silencing and censorship,
traumatized memory and bodily discrimination, abjection and abuse, and the role of education in
relationship to these issues- inside and outside of prison. Given these general themes, in 2002 we
are focusing especially on reconciliation and racial relationships both in global and local
contexts.
e With/Out Walls: Incarceration, Education, and Control
As an extension of The Conviction Project, CSWS sponsors a two-day conference that brings
together professionals form social service, policy-making, government and non-government
organizations as well as not-for-profit agencies. They, along with many ex-offenders, discuss
education for persons in prison and outside of prison. Each year this conference allows us to
disseminate to various publics what we have learned through the Conviction Project Seminar. We
have also put up a web site for CCF that we are in the process of developing as a site for public
distribution of data on education in, and after, prison.
e Future Matters: Technoscience, Politics, and Cultural Criticism
A two-day symposium on technoscience to be held April 10-11, 2003, the symposium promises to
be a provocative and productive event and thirty-five scholars are already committed to
participate. In convening the symposium, it is our hope that institutes and centers concerned with
the study of women, sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, nation, and class will lead the way in
rethinking political strategies and cultural criticisms for now and in the future. We are convinced
that in taking technoscience as one of our primary concerns, we will be able to reconfigure the
aims of recent cultural criticisms in order that cultural criticism can address some of the pressing
questions of these times and help inform the future of global political practice.
e Facing Global Capital, Finding Human Security: A Gendered Critique
With the National Council for Research on Women, CSWS received a Rockefeller Foundation
Grant for 2002-2004. Together we will bring scholars from different parts of the world to study
changing relationships of global capital, nation states, civil society, the private and public
spheres, and the way these changes have provoked a need to reexamine definitions of citizenship
and human rights. One of the project's aims is a seminar for 2002-2004 that will be hosted by
CSWS. The seminar begins in Fall 2002 and will address the sites of accountability for human
security around the world, the problems and possibilities that extend across cultural, social, and
political borders, in particular on the gendered dimensions of human security, and their
intersections with race, class, religion, sexuality, generation, and nation.
e New Immigrant Women: Identification and Inventory
New Immigrant Women is a project of the Activist Women's Oral History Project, founded in the
1990's, with archival interviews and ongoing oral histories interviewing women artists who work
with young people in the NYC community. The new project, funded by a Rockefeller Foundation
planning grant, is locating oral histories that document the mobilization and experience of Latina
and Asian American women in three American cities as the foundation of a National Women's
Oral History Consortium.
e Women's Studies Development
http://www.ncrw.org/digest/cuny.htm 10/11/2006
CUNY Graduate School and University Center Page 3 of 3
Women's Studies Discipline Council. The council brings together leaders of Women's Studies
programs and women's centers throughout the CUNY system several times a year for discussions
on new and ongoing issues relevant to students, faculty, and programs for the purposes of mutual
support and networking.
PUBLICATIONS
Newsletter- A semi-annual publication edited by students in the Women's Studies Certificate
Program.
Brochure for the Center for the Study of Women and Society
Brochure for CUNY/BA Women's Studies across the campuses
[Return to home] [Return to Directory by State] [Return to Index of Expertise]
Last updated 09/05/02
Please send comments or corrections to webmaster(@ncrw.org
http://www.ncrw.org/digest/cuny.htm 10/11/2006
Title
National Council for Research on Women and the Center for the Study of Women and Society
Description
This October 11, 2006, document provided a description of the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) for the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) website. The NCRW had initially sent the CSWS a letter of recognition circa 1992, asking if the CSWS would like to be included on the NCRW's growing list of centers and institutions. It wasn't until 2006, however, that CSWS's information was made accessible on the NCRW's website. The NCRW had created a platform with the mission of connecting Women's Studies programs across the nation, offering them access to each other's research, publications, and activities.
The description depicted CSWS as advancing interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and training on issues on women and gender, especially in urban settings, both nationally and internationally. It stated that CSWS had 80 faculty associated with the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center's Women's Studies Certificate Program (CSWP) from many fields, including anthropology, sociology, economics, criminal justice, literature, and queer studies. The description then went on to list recent projects and activities, such as the College and Community Fellowship (CCF); the Conviction Project; the Future Matters: Technoscience, Politics, and Cultural Criticism symposium; the Facing Global Capital; Finding Human Security: a Gendered Critique project; the New Immigrant Women Archival and Oral History Project; and the Women's Studies Discipline Council. The description ended with the names of three publications that would give readers more information on CSWS.
The description depicted CSWS as advancing interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and training on issues on women and gender, especially in urban settings, both nationally and internationally. It stated that CSWS had 80 faculty associated with the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center's Women's Studies Certificate Program (CSWP) from many fields, including anthropology, sociology, economics, criminal justice, literature, and queer studies. The description then went on to list recent projects and activities, such as the College and Community Fellowship (CCF); the Conviction Project; the Future Matters: Technoscience, Politics, and Cultural Criticism symposium; the Facing Global Capital; Finding Human Security: a Gendered Critique project; the New Immigrant Women Archival and Oral History Project; and the Women's Studies Discipline Council. The description ended with the names of three publications that would give readers more information on CSWS.
Since 1977, the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS), Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY) has promoted interdisciplinary feminist scholarship. The Center’s research agenda focuses on the intersectional study of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and nation in societies worldwide. The Center co-sponsors the Women’s Studies Certificate Program and, most notably, hosts the only stand-alone Women’s and Gender Studies MA Program in New York City.
Contributor
Center for the Study of Women and Society
Creator
Center for the Study of Women and Society
Date
October 11, 2006
Language
English
Rights
Copyrighted
Source
Center for the Study of Women and Society
Center for the Study of Women and Society. Letter. “National Council for Research on Women and the Center for the Study of Women and Society.”, CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE, accessed March 10, 2026, https://stephenz.tailc22a4b.ts.net/s/cdha/item/1592