Faculty Fellows
BREN ORTEGA MURPHY, Ph.D. - Spring 2008
Bren Ortega Murphy, Associate Professor of Communication Studies and former Director of Women's Studies, is making a documentary film that examines the wide variety of visual images of Catholic nuns and sisters used in contemporary U.S. popular culture and contrasts these images with the lives of actual women religious, both historical and current. The film will look at the nature, scope and significance of these images as well as possible explanations for their increasing popularity and its impact.
One reason for such a study is that understanding such a widespread and multifaceted cultural phenomenon is valuable in and of itself. Popular iconography reveals assumptions and values that are so generally accepted that they permeate public consciousness without challenge or explanation, regardless of their veracity or consequences. Another is that the types of images which now dominate the depictions of nuns and sisters are in such contrast to the lives of actual women religious, both past and present, that they threaten to erode the rich history and enduring contributions of such women. The documentary's exploration and illustration of significant contrast between popular iconography and actual experience may help viewers discern the difference and better appreciate the contributions of actual women religious.
ANNE LEGGETT McDONALD, Ph.D. - Spring 2008
Anne Leggett McDonald, Associate Professor of Mathematics, is continuing the work begun with Bettye Anne Case (Florida State) in their prize-winning book Complexities: Women in Mathematics. The working title for their second volume is Women of Achievement: U.S. Mathematics Ph.D.'s of the Post-Sputnik Era. Their subject will be women who obtained Ph.D.'s in mathematics from about 1957 (the launch of Sputnik) to some reasonable ending point yet to be determined, possibly the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Complexities focused on how women have dealt with the obstacles put in the way of pursuing careers in math and with how successfully to combine career and personal life; in Women of Achievement, the emphasis will be placed on the many ways in which women mathematics Ph.D.'s have contributed to society, whether as mathematicians or in some other walk of life and on women as leaders in a variety of contexts.
Early in the time period under consideration, federal funding in the sciences was increased greatly, which increased the number of fellowships available in mathematics (not specifically for women, but that rising tide does often lift all boats); the last awards were made in 1969 (with funding available through 1972 or 1973) under these programs. The birth of affirmative action in 1972 continued to increase the number of women who pursued advanced mathematics degrees. The most important books about women in mathematics that relate to this time period are very well written, but are largely anecdotal; their analyses are based mostly on interviews with the women who were willing to work with them. The authors plan also to interview many women of their generation, but in addition plan to do statistical analysis where the existing data permits useful observations. Once they have located as many women in their cohort as possible, they will send questionnaires via email or snail mail to all for whom they have contact info. Also, they will include (perhaps on a companion CD for the book) a listing of all women from their time frame, whether living or not, to provide a more complete repository of info than is available elsewhere.
"Due to the wonders of the WorldWideWeb, I have already located a large fraction of the Ph.D. recipients from the beginning of this time period. Some random observations about those I found thus far in the first decade, 1957-1966: 183 degrees granted to women, 13 nuns and sisters, 31 who have died, and 94 who are definitely still living. The work is never boring: along with many math professors, professors emerita, academic administrators, and so on, I have found a music therapist, a real estate agent who is a Parkinson's Disease patient advocate, the founder of a soup kitchen.... Capable women, women of accomplishment, women who have achieved."
MARCIA K. HERMANSEN, Ph.D. - Spring 2007
Marcia Hermansen, PhD, professor of Theology and director of Loyola's new Islamic World Studies minor, is studying the role of women and the development of female leadership in American Sufi movements.
Sufism is the mystical interpretation of Islam and was brought to the United States early in the 20th century. Today, American Sufi movements range from "New Age" universalists to orthodox practitioners of Islam, and they attract both immigrant Muslims and Americans as members.
"My study will examine the development and styles of female leadership among American Sufis, contextualizing this within the history of specific Sufi order," Hermansen says. The examination of written sources as well as participant observation research will indicate how individual Sufi women have been able to refashion traditional orderings of gendered spaces and constructions of religious authority so as to become leaders and activists.
"This research will help contribute to the study of women's leadership in Islam and especially within the American Muslim community, where American Sufi women have become prominent advocates for more progressive and equitable understandings of gender roles," she adds. The project will form a chapter of her book American Sufis, under contract with Oxford University Press.
HARVEEN S. MANN, Ph.D. - Spring 2007
Harveen Mann, PhD, associate professor of English, is working on an interdisciplinary study of women's leadership in the Quit India Movement of the early 1940s. Focusing on this key historical moment in Indian nationalist history, she will assess the significant contribution of women's radical leadership to both the anti-colonial struggle and the nascent feminist movement in India, as well as consider its implication for the status of contemporary Indian women and theories and praxes of global feminism.
"My project will concentrate on a number of women leaders to underscore the heterogeneity--ideological, methodological, and religion-, class-, and caste-based--of women's resistance," Mann says. Drawing on sources including historical, political, and sociological research, as well as autobiographies, oral history transcripts, interviews, political pamphlets, fiction, and film, Mann will "analyze the ways in which women's insurgent leadership in Quit India subverted the gendered satyagraha movement, the trope of Mother India, and the masculinist revivalism of nationalist ideology, all of which defined the Indian woman as traditional, selfless, passive, and chaste," she explains.
Mann will study how women's mass and communitarian leadership and local mobilization not only demonstrated new ways of leading but also encouraged an indigenous feminist politics.