Chapel Hill, N.C. (September 23, 2015) – The Carolina Women’s Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is proud to announce its Faculty Scholars for the 2015–2016 academic year. Dr. Jocelyn Chua (Anthropology), Dr. Tanya Shields (Women’s and Gender Studies), and Dr. Kumarini Silva (Communication) will use their funding to undertake projects that reflect the Center’s mission to further gender equity.
Dr. Jocelyn Lim Chua’s project, “When War Comes Home: Violence among U.S. Veterans and their Families,” seeks to understand violence among returning US veterans and their families. Alongside the constellation of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI); an overwhelmed VA system; simultaneous treatment with multiple psychoactive drugs, Chua will “also consider how families variously draw on, complicate, and resist medical and social understandings of postcombat violence as they struggle to make sense of, and seek social and institutional support for, life after war,” and she hopes to “develop a gendered reading of homecoming after war.” Chua is an assistant professor in the Anthropology department.
Exploring archives, legal texts, and a range of fictional texts, Dr. Tanya Shields will “reconsider[] the status of women as proprietors and laborers [of slave plantations in the U.S. South and Caribbean] and how these roles have a sustained impact on current socio-sexual economies.” The project, “Gendered Labor: Place and Power on Female-Owned Plantations,” suggests that “[b]ecause earning a living wage free of harassment continues to bedevil most women, it is critical to rethink the institutions that govern labor relations and explore the ways in which women’s participation in work is an intersectional dynamic impacted by historical relations and ‘market’ forces.” Shields is an associate professor of Women’s and Gender Studies.
“Circulating Romance: Global Gendered Fantasies,” Dr. Kumarini Silva’s second monograph, “maps the ways in which contemporary narratives of femininity and the feminine reinforce historical socio-political and economic conditions that disadvantage women, on a global level.” It will examine the material and economic history of Harlequin Mills and Boons as it grows into a global romance novel powerhouse, and she will conduct a “local ethnography” of the buying and reading habits of networks of women readers in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Silva is an assistant professor in Communication Studies.
Previous Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Scholars include Dr. Joanne Hershfield (Women’s and Gender Studies), Dr. Mary H. Palmer (School of Nursing), Susan Harbage Page (Women’s and Gender Studies), Dr. Nadia Yaqub (Asian Studies), Dr. Emily Burrill (Women’s and Gender Studies), Dr. Minrose Gwin (English and Comparative Literature), Dr. Miriam Labbok (School of Public Health), Dr. Sahar Amer (Asian Studies), Dr. Mimi Chapman (School of Social Work), Dr. Rebecca Macy (School of Social Work), Dr. Pika Ghosh (Art), Dr. Jeanne Moskal (English and Comparative Literature), Dr. Kia Caldwell (African and Afro-American Studies), Dr. Ming Lin (Computer Science), Professor Francesca Talenti (Communication Studies), Dr. Kimberly Brownley (Psychiatry), and Dr. Maxine Eichner (School of Law). Senior Faculty Scholar Diane Kjervik (School of Nursing) held the first CWC faculty scholar position.
The Faculty Scholars program is funded through the Office of the Provost. This year, the Faculty Scholars Selection Committee was comprised of Karen Booth (Women’s and Gender Studies), Nadia Yaqub (Asian Studies), and Clare Counihan (Carolina Women’s Center).
The Carolina Women’s Center pursues gender equity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Through education, advocacy, and interdisciplinary research, the CWC builds bridges and enhances the intellectual life and public engagement mission of the university. To learn more about the Center and its mission, please visit the website.
Applications for 2016-2017 funding are also now available and are due Monday, February 1, 2015.