Faculty Fellows
PRUDENCE A. MOYLAN, PhD - Spring 2009
Prudence A. Moylan, Professor of History, is integrating her decade long work on women and men as peace activists in Britain into a book on gender and peacemaking in the twentieth century. She explores the collaboration and contention among peace activists, peace organizations and feminist campaigns for equality to explain the century long process of establishing gender equality in law and practice as an essential foundation for building a peaceful society. Feminist peace activism in the twentieth century always included an understanding that peace could only be built on a foundation of equal rights while men's peace activism focused primarily on issues of conscientious objection to military service and armaments limitation. Feminist women supported men in the peace campaigns they initiated and advocated for the inclusion of women's rights as a peace issue. They also recognized that they had to organize on their own behalf to gain equality within the peace movement as well as in national and international law. The book demonstrates the contribution of women's rights campaigns to creating a more inclusive and robust theory and practice of peacemaking for the twenty first century.
ANN M. SHANAHAN, M.F.A. - Spring 2009
Ann Shanahan, Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, is conducting research on the subject of women and creative leadership in relation to domestic space, specifically houses. Celebrating the Gannon Center's "housing" in the beautifully renovated Piper Hall, and a career long fascination with women and houses in dramatic literature, this three-part project relates research and teaching to the potential of staging plays about women in Piper Hall. The work of this program will ultimately solidify a relationship between the Theatre and WSGS, benefiting both in material ways, enrich teaching and public visibility of both the Arts and Women's Studies in campus and Chicago communities, significantly advance the Gannon Center Mission in support of women and leadership, and benefit current students and alumni in education and career building for women in creative leadership. The three parts of the project include formal presentation of research from a book length project on women theatre directors in Chicago through organization of an event/lecture series on women, creative leadership, and concepts of home. In order to link the project to teaching, Ms. Shanahan will re-offer Women's Theatre Workshop and adapt A Room of One's Own, the metaphoric frame for the course, in conjunction. As a part of this course students may access the Women & Leadership Archives for material on women and theatre in Mundelein College as research for final original dramatic pieces. Finally, this project will explore the feasibility of staging plays about women and houses in Piper Hall with potential for creating a formalized program in coming years, housed in the Center, devoted to performing plays about women and supporting women in creative leadership. The final outcome of the fellowship program would be a staging of a pilot production in Fall 2010.
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."