CWSE Research and Publications
The CWSE maintains one of the largest collections of historic feminist posters in North America. We are currently developing an archival project around the posters, and will be presenting them in future exhibits and online.
Current Research & Projects at the CWSE
As of March 16, 2011, the CWSE is proud to make available our new publication, Becoming Feminists. Edited by Lorena Gajardo (RFR) and Jamie Ryckman (CWSE), Becoming Feminists is an anthology of stories, essays, and poetry collected from a diverse group of women.
Click here to download a free PDF version, or email cwse@utoronto.ca to purchase a print copy for $17.50.
Performance as Pedagogy (2006- present)
Pam Patterson, Associate Scholar
This research, taking Judith Butler, Petra Kuppers and Charles Garoian as starting points, explores the performative – and the act of performance itself- as a site/strategy for feminist learning, research and curricking.
Related presentations: Performing Interpretations, Interpretive Languages (panel) with Boyd White and Phil Rostek, OSEA/CSEA conference, Toronto (2010); The High End of the Experiential: Grounding Performance Pedagogy. Performance Pedagogy Symposium, OCAD University (2010); Pause and play: is this the “um” in curriculum? Centre for Arts- Informed Research, OISE University of Toronto & University of Victoria (2006); Dioramas in the "flesh": Performing (as) feminist pedagogy for women and health, Pauline Jewett Institute for Women’s Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa (2006).
Publications: (En)gendering Difference: A For(u)m for Possibilities, In Inquiry: Perspectives, Processes and Possibilities for Learning Landscapes, McGill University, Spring 4, 2 , pp 233-257. http://learninglandscapes.ca/ (2011); Performing Pedagogy: Communitas in Context (monograph), Toronto: WIAprojects (2011),
A Flash of the Real: Situating a Performative Practice for Action Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change (Eds) Cheryl McLean & Robert Kelly. Calgary: Detselig/Temeron Press (2011).
Woman Abuse Affects our Children: Resources for Elementary Teachers (2005- continuing)
Paula Bourne, CWSE Senior Research Associate and former CWSE Head
The Ontario Women’s Directorate (OWD) funded this project to establish and lead an expert panel of educators (The Education Sector Training Panel) to develop a training package and a strategy for province-wide training on domestic violence for elementary teachers, principals and guidance counsellors to help them identify children who may be exposed to domestic violence or who are at risk, and to provide appropriate supports and/or referrals.
The panel included representatives from the three provincial teacher associations (Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, ETFO; Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, OECTA; Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontarien, AEFO); Ontario School Counsellors Association; Ontario Native Education Counselling Association; Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants; Women’s Multicultural Resources and Counselling Centre of Durham; London Family Court Clinic; Springtide Resources, Faculty of Education, York University. When the work was complete OWD approved additional funding to develop a DVD and website to complement the print based materials. Currently, training is being carried out for teachers through the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (EFTO) and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA); additional training sessions have been held for principals through the Ontario Principals’ Council and the Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario and for Native educators through the Ontario Native Education Counselling Association.
Paula also recently released Canadian Women: A History, third edition, published 2010. The first two editions can be purchased through Amazon and are available through the University of Toronto library.
Trans/gressive Pedagogy (2007-present)
Pam Patterson, Associate Scholar
Using the transabled as a site for developing theory (as one does the transgendered in relation to gender fluidity), I look to imagining the desire for a body with disabilities. How might this enable one to think of the possibilities for an inclusive and aesthetic paradigm for education?
Related presentations: Rethinking a Trans-abled aesthetic paradigm? , OCAD University, (2010) & CSEA (2011); Performance: The Body grotesque as trans/gressive site/sight, Memorial University (2008); gender/TROUBLING for Ontario College of Art and Design (XPACE) (2008); Performing Trans/gressive Pedagogy for Lesley University (2007) & UAAC conference (2007).
A Duty to the Past, a Promise to the Future: Black Organizing in Windsor - The Depression, World War II and the Post War Years
Peggy Bristow, CWSE Senior Research Associate
Three generations of black women in Windsor, Ontario-Ethel Christian, her daughter, Winifred Christian Shreve, and her granddaughter, E. Andrea Shreve Moore- have preserved for us a little known part of Canada’s history during the Depression, World War II, and the post-war years. These records broaden and deepen our understanding of how black men and women, ordinary citizens, comprehended and carried out their civic duties in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
With the Depression, the always-slim prospects for blacks narrowed further and those for working-class blacks, particularly women, shrank drastically. In 1934, British Methodist Episcopal and First Baptist churchwomen, many of whom were at the time active members of the CCA, formed the Hour a Day Study Club. The women (including founding member Ethel Christian) saw themselves not as feminists but rather as duty bound in carrying out their civic duties in a society steeped in racism. Their activism was informed by both consciousness of their status as women and by class-consciousness.
Jewish Women's History & Literature
Frieda Forman is the founder of and has been the Coordinator of the Women's Educational Resources Centre, housed at the OISE library, for over 20 years. Frieda's areas of scholarship include the women's movement in Canada and the US, Jewish women's history and literature, and feminist research and resources.
The Rhetoric of the Body (2001-present)
Pam Patterson, Associate Scholar
Feminist research is applied here directly to performance as a presentation form. This inquiry addresses the body-as-performance as site for research, as pedagogy, and for a reinterpretation which attends to disability, chronic illness, and women and cancer.
Related performances/presentations: Swallowtail Light(Sparkbox Studio), Glenora Crossing (Propeller Ctr.), LATE (Cinecycle)(2010); To the Lighthouse ( Series) Aceartinc, (Winnipeg), DeLeon White, Gibralter Point (Toronto) (2009); Cellu(h)er Resistance: The Body with/out Organs ? FADO, XPACE Gallery (2008); Bodysight: A Reclamation Project, Goddard (2004); Chaired panel, UAAC - Women and Performance: Praxis and Pedagogy (2003); Body as Insight/site for Goddard College, Vermont (2003) & Body as Site (Sight), 7A*11D International Performance Festival, Toronto; (2004).
Publications: (Dis)Regarding Pain? Resituating a Feminist “Cyborg” Praxis, Canadian Women’s Studies, York University (Volume 28, #2, 3, pp 99-104) (2010); Travelling: A Flash of the Real: Re-situating Pain in a Cyber-Practice, Educational Insights, Spring (2009).
Roxana Ng's popular article, A Woman Out of Control, about about sexism and racism in universities can be downloaded as a PDF here.