From the FLP mailbox, this notice of two new issues of the interdisciplinary journal Women in Judaism:

Vol. 8:1 features:

Articles

Voicing a New Midrash: Women’s Holocaust Writing as Jewish Feminist Response
Deidre Butler

Reading Jewish Identity, Spiritual Alienation, and Reform Judaism Through the Veil of Abstract Self-Hatred, Racial Degeneration, and Anti-Semitism in Julia Frankau’s Dr. Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll
Luke Devine

Essays

Madam Potiphar’s Boy Toy: No Laughing Matter
David J. Zucker

Biographical Essays

The Correspondence Between Kadya Molodowsky and Rokhl Korn
Zelda Kahn Newman

Book Reviews by Rivka Chaya Schiller, Evelyn Torton Beck, Jeanne Law Bohannon, Sandra Slater, Judith S. Pinnolis, Rachel E. Silverman, Sonia Zylberberg, and Katherine Romanow.

Fiction- Short Stories Brenda Naomi Herzberg

Fiction-Poetry Yala Korwin, Arlene L. Mandell

Vol. 8:2 features:

Articles

Outline of a Gender Conflict: Notes on an Early Story by Dvora Baron
Einat Baram Eshel

Yichud Rachel and Leah: Same-Sex Kabbalistic/Poetic Hermeneutics
Nitsa Kann

Essays

The Goddess, Syncretism, and Patriarchy: Evolution and Extinction of the Goddess during the Creation of Patriarchy in Ancient Israel
Ramona Wanlass

Book Reviews  by  Jane Enkin, Rivka Chaya Schiller, Aviva Atlani, Emily A. Filler, Tamara Mann Tweel, Devi Mays, Phil Gold, Maria Velazquez, and Gabriel Constans

Fiction-Poetry Lillian Bouzane, Pat Hurshell, Barbara Hantman and Carol V. Davis

-Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professors

From the FLP mailbox, this CFP for the 20th Annual Women’s Studies Conference at Southern Connecticut State University:

“Women and Labor: At Home, At Work, Around the Globe”

Keynotes: Dolores Huerta & Lilly Ledbetter

Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21, 2012

Proposal Submission Deadline:  December 1, 2011

INVITATION FOR PROPOSALS ON INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOLARLY AND CREATIVE WORK

Our 20th annual conference addresses one perennial struggle in women’s movements across the globe: labor.  As we witness this spring the surge of labor movements in the U.S. as labor is challenged—specifically, unionized & feminized labor, we also receive findings, just released in May 2011 by Ms. Foundation for Women, that women are bearing the brunt of today’s economic crisis.  More than ever, women’s labor is at the forefront of our struggles.  In a different part of the world, we continue to observe women’s critical contribution to what is now called the Arab Awakening.  Yet we, too, see little representation of women in the wake of the Egyptian revolution.  By all accounts, the report cards on women and labor have made less than significant progress over the decades.  In this annual conference, we invite colleagues and activists to take a close look at all issues concerning women and labor, in both private and public domains as well as globally and locally.  Employed as a category of analysis in women’s and gender studies, feminist analyses of gender and labor do not simply travel throughout diverse communities and academic disciplines in the U.S., but they also travel globally, generating significant connections with other fields.  With this conference, we will have an opportunity to examine the body of activist and scholarly feminist work on women and labor.  What aspect of labor continues to be the struggle that women share across the race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality divide?   How might we begin to talk about women and labor without collapsing the multicultural, heterogeneous, global and transnational within us?  How have women contributed their labor artistically, culturally, and politically, in our communities as well as around the globe?  What challenges do women and girls across races, classes, religions, and cultures face in an increasingly globalized world?  Going forward, what might labor as a site of knowledge production further benefit our work and struggle in the human community?  What are some of the best practices?

More information is here.

-Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professors

From the FLP mailbox, this message from Amanda Gonzalez, Ms. JD Executive Director and guest blogger here at Feminist Law Profs:

Do you feel your creative spirit fading as you work tirelessly to perfect your legal writing skills?  Do you miss composing prose that is not in the passive voice or that does not require bluebooking?  Would you like to  share your experiences as a woman entering the legal profession?

Ms. JD is a non-profit organization that seeks to increase the success of women in the legal profession. They offer programming for women law students and lawyers and also publish an award winning blog. Ms. JD is currently seeking law students and professionals to serve as 2012 Ms. JD Writers in Residence.

The Writers in Residence program consists of a small group of columnists who provide monthly articles on a selected topic. The program launched in 2010 and gave rise to some of Ms. JD’s most inspiring, hilarious, and provocative content to date.

Perhaps you can give monthly advice on applying for clerkships, balancing law school and motherhood, or on the joys (and frustrations) of studying for the bar. Maybe you would like to share your experiences as a law student, recent graduate seeking employment, or attorney practicing in a unique field. Or, maybe you would like to interview a successful women lawyer each month, seeking advice for young women lawyers and law students (what a fantastic way to network with women attorneys in your area!).

Great reasons to be 2012 Ms. JD Writer in Residence:

• To share your knowledge with women across the country
• To be part of an amazing network of women law students and lawyers
• To unleash your inner Ann Landers, Carrie Bradshaw, or Emily Post
• It would look great on a resume!

To view the 2011 Writers in Residence, click here. If you are interested in being a 2012 Ms. JD Writer in Residence, please send an email to wir@ms-jd.org, including your

• Name
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Law School
• A brief description of your column idea, including a proposed title
• A list of any relevant writing experience
• A short writing sample (it need not be legal!)

Applications must be received by November 15, 2011. Applicants will be notified by December 1, 2011.

-Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professors

From Temma Berg (English, Gettysburg College), this “Save the Date” notice:

Saturday, March 31, 2012

2012 Annual Women’s Studies Conference sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Consortium and the Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Programs of Dickinson College, Gettysburg College, and Franklin & Marshall College

“Gender, Sexuality, and Poverty”
2012 Conference to be held at Gettysburg College
8:30 am to 4:00 pm

Keynote speaker: Dean Spade, Seattle University School of Law, Author and Founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project
2:00 p.m

We welcome faculty and student presentations, panels, poster sessions, and exhibits.
Call for proposals: early September
Deadline for proposals: December 1

No other additional information provided at this time, so look for a CFP in September.

-Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professors

From the FLP mailbox:

We’d like to announce a new source of information about philosophy departments in the United States, Canada and England: The Pluralist’s Guide to Philosophy, to be found here.

This Guide is based on a survey of expert opinion on the best places to study select sub-fields of philosophy. Our aim is to provide students and their mentors with some informed, crowd-sourced ideas concerning where any student might productively cultivate an interest in American Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Critical Philosophy of Race and Ethnicity, Feminist Philosophy, and GLBT Studies. This site is totally independent of any philosophical organizations. Its methods and advisory board members are detailed on the site itself, along with the reports.  It will be updated yearly.

The creators of the site are: Linda Martín Alcoff, Hunter College, CUNY Graduate Center; Paul Taylor, Pennsylvania State University; William Wilkerson, University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Update 4:15 p.m.  ‘Tis more complicated than I realized.  Brian Leiter comments (here) about what the guide is and does.  Of particular interest to readers of this blog might be these observations from Brian Leiter:

[T]here is one bit of the new SPEP Guide that I do think is pretty outrageous, namely, the section that purports to be about the “Climate for Women in Philosophy,” which is essentially an anonymous slur, without any evidence adduced, on four departments.  Even more ridiculous, the only departments deemed to have a suitable “climate” for women are SPEP departments, with one striking exception of a top ten PGR department that had a faculty member involved with this ‘assessment.’  (At one time, the SPEP Guide listed the evaluators, but now that list appears to be gone.)  This is both absurd and shameful, and I hope they will remove this nonsense.

Read his full comments here.  Reader of SPEP Guide, proceed with appropriate mindfulness.

-Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professors

Hey, Shorty! is pitched as a resource for parents, teachers and community leaders who want to take action against bullying and sexual harassment in their communities. Learn more here.

Feminist Law Professors

From the FLP mailbox, this Call for Abstracts for an international conference on “Gender and Climate Change”:

Call For Abstracts: Gender and Climate Change – Prato, Tuscany September
2011

Gender and Climate Change is an international conference that will seek to
bring together the latest research in key areas of gender and climate
change, to highlight impacts of climate change on women, and to draw
together a body of knowledge for input into the 2011 United Nations
Framework Convention (COP 17) and the Earth Summit 2012.

The Conference Organisers – Gender Leadership and Social Sustainability
(GLASS) Research Unit at Monash University, Australia, in collaboration with
Worldwide Universities Network, Gender Justice and Global Climate Change
(G2C2) – aim to bring together researchers, advocates, and policy makers, to
form a coherent picture of the differential impacts of climate change and to
convey that knowledge in formats that assist in policy development. The 2011
conference will highlight links to global poverty, sustainability, policy,
and change.  More details here.

-Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professors

From Diana Hortsch, Director of the Law School Initiative at the Center for Reproductive Rights, this notice of a fellowship at Columbia Law School:

The Center for Reproductive Rights – Columbia Law School Fellowship (“CRR-CLS Fellowship”) is a two-year, post-graduate fellowship offered by the Center for Reproductive Rights (“the Center”) and Columbia Law School (“the Law School”). The Fellowship is designed to prepare recent law school graduates for legal aca­demic careers, with a focus on reproductive health and human and human rights. Fellows will be affiliated with the Center and the Law School and will participate in the intellectual life of both programs.

The CRR-CLS Fellowship is a full-time, residential fellowship for up to two full years starting in June, July, or August 2011. The Fellow will be a member of the community of graduate fellows at the Law School and will be integrated into the legal and policy work of the Center. They will have work space at both locations. The Fellow will also have access to law school facilities, including the library and on-line research resources, and faculty events. It is expected that the Fellow will work closely with an assigned Law School faculty mentor.

Fellows will pursue independent research and scholarship in preparation for entering the legal academic job market at the conclusion of their first Fellowship year. During their Fellowship tenure, Fellows are expected to produce a work of publishable legal scholarship that is related to reproductive rights. Fellows will also have responsibility for a range of work at CRR, including planning and hosting of academic conferences or roundtable discussions, drafting blog posts and/or other short advocacy pieces, and creating curricular materials. The scope and details of the Fellows’ work will be agreed upon in consultation with their faculty mentor and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

STIPEND AND BENEFITS: The Fellow will receive a stipend of $55,000 per year for each full year in residence. The Fellow shall be responsible for purchasing and maintaining her or his own health insurance. The Fellow may purchase insurance through Columbia University.

ELIGIBILITY: Applicants must show exceptional promise as a legal scholar and a commitment to entering academia. A strong interest in reproductive or sexual rights, women’s rights and/or human rights is required, although extensive experience in the field is not essential. Applicants will be evaluated by the quality of their application materials, and by their record of academic and professional achievement. A J.D. from an accredited law school in the United States is strongly preferred.  In some exceptional cases, we may consider those with foreign law degrees. Fellows are not required to be graduates of Columbia Law School.

APPLICATION: Completed applications must be received by the Law School by November 1, 2010. Please note that it is preferred that application materials, other than the transcripts and letters of recommendation, be submitted electronically. A complete application must include:

1. CRR-CLS Fellowship Application Form (biographical and contact information);
2. Curriculum Vitae;
3. Unofficial transcripts from college, law school and any graduate schools attended;
4. Statement of Scholarly Interest and future academic projects, including a discussion of how the fellowship will help the applicant in pursuing those interests and realizing those projects;
5. A paper or other writing sample that demonstrates the applicant’s writing and analytical abilities and ability to generate interesting original ideas. This can be a draft rather than a publication;
6. A 1-2 paragraph statement of why you want to pursue a career in the legal academy;
7. Three letters of reference. At least two letters should be from professors who can speak to the applicant’s potential as a future legal academic.

Transcripts and letters of recommendation should be mailed or delivered to:

CRR-CLS Fellowship Program
Professor Carol Sanger
Columbia Law School
435 W. 116^th Street
New York, NY 10025

ATTN: Margaret Symuleski, Faculty Assistant

Other application materials should be sent via email to: msymul@law.columbia.edu

-Bridget Crawford

Feminist Law Professors

Ms. JD has announced a new fellowship opportunity for 2Ls, which will select 20 of the most promising second-year law students in the country and provide them with one-on-one career mentorship from the nation’s most accomplished female attorneys. I’m hoping you will help us spread the word about this opportunity to other law professors to ensure we really do identify the best of the best for this. What follows are the details of the Fellowship and the procedure for nominating and applying.

Who Are The Mentors?

Fellowship mentors will be assigned to the Fellows from among the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession’s alumnae of commissioners and Margaret Brent Award Winners. The list includes U.S. Circuit Court judges and state Supreme Court justices, general counsels from the Fortune 500, managing partners from the nation’s largest law firms, and leading professors and practitioners from around the country.

Mentoring pairs will be made based on geographic location and shared professional interests. We aim to identify the most promising students in a variety of fields and practice areas and pair them with the most successful woman in that field.

What Will the 1-Year Mentorship Entail?

In addition to being identified as one of the nation’s highest-achieving law students, mentees will receive:

* Invitation to the 20th Anniversary Margaret Brent Awards on August 8, 2010, in San Francisco
* Invitation to Ms. JD’s annual conference in March 2011, location TBA
* Mentor review of their resume and writing sample
* Invitation to 2 other networking events with their mentor
* At least 2 additional activities with their mentor, based on mutual interest and availability

How to Apply/Nominate?

Eligibility: Applicants must be enrolled full-time as a second year law student in an ABA-accredited law school.

If you would like to nominate a 2L to be considered for Ms. JD’s 2010 Fellowship, email her name and school to Fellowship@ms-jd.org.

If you would like to apply to be considered for Ms. JD’s 2010 Fellowship, email the following to Fellowship@ms-jd.org.

* Resume
* Transcript
* Writing Sample (legal writing, no length requirement, redacted documents accepted)
* Availability for phone interviews April 12 – 30th (indicate on what days you will be totally unavailable)

We will accept nominations and applications until 5:00 pm PST, April 1, 2010. Finalists will be announced April 9, 2010. Two rounds of finalist interviews will be held April 12 – 30, 2010. Ms. JD’s 2010 Fellowship winners along with their mentor-pairings will be announced May 10, 2010.

–
Jessie Kornberg

Executive Director, Ms. JD
kornberg@ms-jd.org

Feminist Law Professors

**In past FLT workshops we have considered the concept of”Vulnerability,”arguing that it is universal and constant, inherent in the human condition. Further, while vulnerability can never be totally eliminated, society and its institutions confer certain”assets,”such as wealth, health, education, family relationships, or marketable skills that give individuals”resilience”in the face of their vulnerability. Ensuring meaningful equality of opportunity requires that a responsive state monitor access to these institutions, paying attention to and addressing any unequal distribution of privilege, going beyond concern with discrimination based on identity categories. Our shared vulnerability is the basis for claims upon the state.
**In this workshop we will focus on understanding how the relationship between”resilience”and”the state”can be theorized. Thus far resilience as a theoretical concept has been addressed primarily in the disciplines of developmental psychology, terrorism preparedness, and ecology and climate change. These broad fields approach the concept in slightly different ways, but they share an emphasis on hardiness and the ability of individuals to survive despite hardship. Suniya S. Luthar defines resilience as”the manifestation of positive adaptation despite significant life adversity.”Tuppet Yates, Egeland Byron, and Alan Sroufe define resilience as an “ongoing process of garnering resources” that enables successful adaptation when one is confronted with significant transitions, misfortunes, opportunities, or trials in life. When used primarily to describe individuals, resilience is a highly relational concept, emphasizing the importance of understanding individuals within family and community contexts. In its individual emphasis it encompasses more than a catalogue of protective factors. There is recognition that the same individual can display resilience in one circumstance but not another, or at one point in time, but not another. What has not been fully developed, however, is the scope and nature of the state’s responsibility to facilitate the processes of building individual resilience – what is an appropriately responsive state?
** How can feminist law, culture, and society scholars use the concept of resilience to think about existing norms and structures? What is the relationship between those processes and equality? In particular, how should we shape a more responsive state and what would be the implications of doing so for existing institutions such as the family, public education, the workplace, and the financial system?

WORKSHOP CONTACT:
Feminism and Legal Theory Project: Martha L. A. Fineman, Emory University School of Law

SUBMISSIONS PROCEDURE:
Please email a paper proposal of several paragraphs length by February 1st to: mfineman@law.emory.edu and cdomozi@emory.edu

Working paper drafts to be duplicated and distributed prior to the Workshop will be due March 1st.

See also.

Feminist Law Professors