FOR RELEASE: April 17, 2012

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WOODROW WILSON FOUNDATION NAMES WOMEN’S STUDIES FELLOWS FOR 2012

PRINCETON, NJ—With support from a nationally noted feminist poet, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation has announced the recipients of the Woodrow Wilson Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies for 2012.

A gift from Alicia Ostriker and her husband, astronomer Jeremiah Ostriker, made possible awards to six Woodrow Wilson Women’s Studies Fellows in this year’s competition (see list below). Their work addresses questions that range from the social and political dynamics of gender-segregated spaces in Iran to the ways in which gender and race influenced mid-20th century perspectives on juvenile justice in Chicago.

A designated Alicia S. Ostriker Fellowship in Women’s Studies, American Literature was awarded to Julie Enszer of the University of Maryland for her work on lesbian print culture in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s.

Created in 1974, the WW Women’s Studies Fellowship supports the final year of dissertation writing for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences whose work addresses topics of women and gender in interdisciplinary and original ways. Each Fellow receives $3,000 to be used for expenses connected with completing their dissertations, such as research-related travel, data work/collection, and supplies. In addition, their dissertation titles will be publicized with leading scholarly publishers at the conclusion of the dissertation year.

“As a woman writer, poet, critic who has been a feminist since the 1970s, I am deeply aware of how much we have gained and how much there remains to do,” said Alicia Ostriker of her commitment to the program. “When I became a feminist, I realized I would never have to be bored because the system that had been in place for 6,000 years wouldn’t be changed overnight. I have always supported feminist scholarship and poetry, and helping Woodrow Wilson support feminist work is just an extension of what I do personally.

“For me, of course, the history of women’s poetry in our time has been particularly important. To make sure that that history is known is tremendously important for all of us.”

Dr. Ostriker, author of 15 volumes of poetry and author or editor of seven scholarly books, has received numerous fellowships, prizes, and awards. Her collections The Little Space and The Crack in Everything were both finalists for the National Book Award. She also received the 2010 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry for The Book of Seventy. Her poetry has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The Nation, Poetry magazine, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, and others.

Also funded by the Ford Foundation, the Hans Rosenhaupt Memorial Endowment, and other private donors, the Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowships in Women’s Studies is the only national program supporting doctoral work on women’s and gendered issues. The program has supported more than 500 Ph.D.s in various fields, many of them now on the faculty at major research institutions and noted liberal arts colleges. The roster includes a Pulitzer Prize winner, two MacArthur Fellows, eight Guggenheim Fellows, a number of Fulbright Fellows, and many others who have achieved significant distinctions in their fields.

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The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation identifies and develops the best minds for the nation’s most important challenges. In these areas of challenge, the Foundation awards fellowships to enrich human resources, works to improve public policy, and assists organizations and institutions in enhancing practice in the U.S. and abroad.

Tera Agyepong   •   African American Studies, Northwestern University
Boundaries of Innocence: Race, Sex, and the Criminalization of Black Children in Chicago’s Juvenile Justice System,1896-1940

Kerry Crawford   •   Political Science, George Washington University
Punctuated Silence: Variation in the International Response to Wartime Sexual Abuse

The 2012 Women’s Studies Final Selection Committee has designated the Alicia S. Ostriker Fellowship in Women’s Studies, American Literature to:
Julie Enszer   •   Women’s Studies, University of Maryland
The Whole Naked Truth of Our Lives: Lesbian Print Culture in the United States from 1969 to 1989

Julia Kowalski   •   Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago
Claiming Care: Regulating Gendered Violence in Jaipur’s Women’s Rights Network

Nazanin Shahrokni   •   Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Gender Segregated Spaces: Traversing the ‘Public’ in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Carly Thomsen   •   Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
I’m Just Me: Queer Challenges to Visibility and Identity Politics from Lesbian Women in the Rural Midwest

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