Category Archives: Announcements

What is Mujeres Talk?

Post by Theresa Delgadillo, member of the Mujeres Talk editorial group

Mujeres Talk is an online, interdisciplinary, edited and moderated forum for the circulation and discussion of original research, commentary and creative work in brief and diverse formats such as blog essays (500-1500 words), multimedia presentations and short video. We focus on Chicana, Latina, and Native American women’s work, however, we continue to welcome work from allies, and diverse racial and ethnic authors within and outside of these categories. All posts represent the views of individual authors. All submissions are reviewed by two members of the Editorial Group to ensure that they are appropriate for publication in this venue, offer an original and interesting perspective, cite relevant research where necessary and meet our length requirements.

Mujeres Talk also publishes simultaneous cross-posts with peer sites provided the essay, multimedia or creative work appears on both sites on the same day and both sites agree to note simultaneous publication.

Mujeres Talk publishes on a weekly basis on Tuesdays. Online since January 2011, we took a hiatus in Autumn 2013 and resumed publication in January 2014. See our “Archive” for past posts.

Mujeres Talk publishes work on a wide range of topics of interest to academics, community members, and the general public. 

Mujeres Talk is governed collaboratively by an all-volunteer Editorial Group. Members include Inés Hernandez-Avila, Theresa Delgadillo, Lucila Ek, Miranda Martinez, Diana Rivera, Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, Seline Szkupinski Quiroga. Please see the “Editors” page for information on our Editorial Group. 

Mujeres Talk solicits submissions and accepts unsolicited submissions. See our “How To Submit” page for further information.

Mujeres Talk believes in providing a space for ideas, research and creativity that may not have a home in print and other publications. We also want to direct readers to important and interesting print publications. Our hope is that we will publish timely reflections, critiques or excerpts of research in progress to foster dialogue among women of color and our allies.

Mujeres Talk believes in the active role that community plays in the production and reception of ideas and we encourage our readers to submit responses to published pieces. Our Editorial Group moderates comments on the site to avoid flaming and spamming. Please act with respect and consideration for each other in blog discussions. All comments are archived with essays to ensure future access by readers, writers, activists and scholars.

Mujeres Talk subscribes to the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs or CC BY-NC-ND. Readers and users may download and share content from this site provided that they credit Mujeres Talk and authors. Readers and users may not change, alter or modify any content from our site in re-use or use content from our site for any commercial purposes.

Renewal at Mujeres Talk

September 30, 2013

We have news of departures and changes at MT to share with our readers today. We hope you will join us in thanking Sara A. Ramírez, Elena Gutiérrez and Ella Díaz for their service!

Our extremely talented Co-Editor/Moderator from 2012-2013 Sara A. Ramírez is stepping down from this role. A graduate student in Ethnic Studies at UC-Berkeley, Sara will be devoting her time and energy this academic year to work on her dissertation, which promises to be a smart, ambitious, and innovative contribution to Ethnic and Gender Studies. While we will all dearly miss working with Sara, we are excited for her that she has reached this stage in her work and wish her wonderful and inspired writing days ahead. If we were thinking only of ourselves, we might be tempted to say that her departure is not good news, but knowing how long and hard Sara has worked to make it to dissertation stage we share her joy in taking this next step. We hope she knows that she can continue to rely on all of us for support in her journey.

Since joining the Mujeres Talk Editorial Collective last year, Sara A. Ramírez has been a phenomenal contributor and collaborator. As both a lead editor and a second reader, she has corresponded with authors and solicited and/or reviewed no less than eight essays during this past year. Her commitment, dedication and collaborative skills impressed us all as exceptional, especially for a young scholar. We know that these will serve her well in her future career in academia. Sara always brought new ideas to our editorial discussions and successfully followed through on them. She was responsible and forthright in consulting with colleagues on the Collective when thorny issues surfaced. She deftly managed to incorporate varied feedback into editing suggestions to authors. Sara is a terrific editor, both careful and caring in her comments to authors. Most importantly, in her every action Sara conveyed her strong feminist ethics to build, contribute, and deepen opportunities for Chicana, Latina, and Native American women, queer and transgender folks in the academy. For these reasons, we want to take this moment to publicly thank Sara A. Ramírez for her exceptional service to Mujeres Talk and MALCS.

A second member of our Editorial Collective is also moving on to an exciting new project. Associate Professor Elena Gutiérrez is leaving Mujeres Talk to take on leadership responsibilities on another digital project: the Reproductive Justice Virtual Library. On the Mujeres Talk Editorial Collective, Elena reviewed submissions, contributed to discussions about our editorial guidelines, solicited essays for the site, and wrote an excellent essay for Mujeres Talk on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade earlier this year. Elena will be curating the Reproductive Justice Virtual Library site with movement activists and scholars across the nation. We have no doubt that Elena’s many talents in editing and writing will make RJVL a great site. We are excited about this new site, which expands the digital and online presence of women of color even further, so we wish Elena Gutiérrez every success in this exciting new endeavor!

Ella Díaz, who has contributed several excellent essays to Mujeres Talk on adjunct faculty, Latina art, sexuality and politics, mentoring, and the importance of digital publication for women of color, and who has also been a careful, generous, and keen reviewer of submissions to Mujeres Talk, will return to her earlier role as an occasional contributor to Mujeres Talk rather than a regular member of the Editorial Collective. Readers may remember that Ella joined the Collective earlier this year and contributed to the further development of editorial policy guidelines for this unique format. Ella’s enthusiasm and energy as well as her expertise in art and performance and excellent collaborative and critical skills will continue to make a valuable contribution to Mujeres Talk in this more limited role. We also wish her every success in her continued role on the MALCS Coordinating Committee and in her academic career — students at Cornell are lucky to have Ella as a professor!

Finally, we’d like to announce that Mujeres Talk will become an independent website as of October 2013! Look for an announcement of our new site soon! We plan to be up and running later this month and will be returning to our previous biweekly publication on Mondays. We developed Mujeres Talk as a project within MALCS to serve the mission and goals of the organization in an online format. In any growth process there are transitions and transformations. We have determined that continuing to grow and evolve Mujeres Talk and its capabilities will be best accomplished as a site independent of MALCS. We support the principles and goals of MALCS as we continue to build space for Chicanas, Latinas, and Native American women in the academy. We have put forward a proposal for preserving a digital archive of our site from its inception in January 2011 through today, September 2013, to the MALCS national leadership. We hope that our regular readers will continue to contribute to and follow the site. We are excited to embark on this new journey with you and your support!

Theresa Delgadillo
Inés Hernandez-Avila
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer
Elena Gutiérrez
Lucila Ek
Lourdes Alberto
Ella Díaz

Comment(s):

  1. Anonymous    October 8, 2013 at 7:17 PM

    Dr. Diaz’ article both impressed me and saddened me, as I remember well my first three years as Lecturer(hired in a tenure-track position), 5 years as Assistant Prof, 21 years as a Lecturer(with employment security). People gave me much advice, but I could not lfollow it. I had a destiny to fulfill. Me and a large number of other people, faculty, staff, and students,working in UC System set out to transform it. Were we demented? Did we make a difference? I have no answers, but would do it all over again if I could. In the academic world, everything is negotiable. ASR

  2. Sara A. Ramírez    October 11, 2013 at 1:57 PM

    Thank you to the MT Collective for being such fantastic mujeres with whom to work. My experience with MT–especially under the guidance of Theresa Delgadillo and Seline Szkupinski Quiroga–has helped me to understand the complexities of feminist editorial work. Many thanks for this wonderful opportunity.

  3. Theresa Delgadillo, Co-Editor/Moderator    October 12, 2013 at 11:54 AM

    Many thanks to the many who have emailed us personally to express your continued support for Mujeres Talk as an independent site — we’re looking forward to continuing to hear from and work with all!

For A New Latina/o Studies Association

June 24, 2013

by Frances R. Aparicio

For some years, the Latino/a Studies scholars who have participated in the Latin American Studies Association conferences have been disappointed at the continued marginality of the Latino Studies Section in the larger association, our vulnerability (our section was revoked one year), and the limitations of this space. Moreover, we all recognize a need to create a larger national and international space that allows all Latino/a Studies scholars to come together and share our scholarship, activism and struggles. Thus, a group of scholars have discussed the idea of forming a Latino/a Studies Association that will address our needs. They have gathered feedback and suggestions in discussions at various other conferences in the past year and are beginning to get organized. Our goal is to create the Association during the 2014 Latino Studies Conference that will be held in Chicago July 17-19. Please join us for this historic moment and participate in the groundbreaking conference that will initiate a new international space for Latino/a Studies.  The Call for Papers for this event follows:

Call for Papers

Imagining Latina/o Studies: Past, Present, and Future

An International Latina/o Studies Conference

July 17-19, 2014

Chicago, Illinois

Under multiple sponsorships from various universities and Latina/o Studies Programs, Chicago will host an international Latina/o studies conference on July 17-19, 2014. We invite individual papers or group proposals from the various disciplines that contribute to Latina/o studies as well as from individuals and groups engaged in artistic, political, and intellectual work outside the academy, including writers, artists, and community activists.

Background

The Chicago conference will serve as an inaugural international Latina/o studies conference where we will launch the creation of a Latina/o studies association. During the May 2012 Latino Studies Section meeting at the Latin American Studies Association conference in San Francisco, scholars from a variety of disciplines decided to explore the feasibility of creating an international Latina/o studies association. Since then, many of these scholars have held informal meetings at other academic conferences in order to gauge interest in such an organization. To date, discussions have been held at the American Studies Association, the Puerto Rican Studies Association, the Modern Language Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Conference, among many others.

Rationale

With this conference we hope to spotlight the dynamic work being carried out in a range of disciplines with a particular focus on the interdisciplinary impulse that shapes and motivates work produced under the banner of Latina/o studies. We recognize the decades-long history and crucial work of national-origin studies, such as Chicana/o studies and Puerto Rican studies, from which many of us have emerged; and we further ask how might we conceptualize the field so that it reflects the complex histories, social formations, and cultural production of Latinas/os even while seeking to imagine a larger sense of belonging that might transcend nationalisms?

By using this question as a benchmark for critical discussion, the conference will serve as a venue to set new research agendas and ask new questions of Latina/o studies. We seek proposals that revisit the genesis of Chicana/o and Puerto Rican studies in the 1970s as well as papers that highlight the emergence of Cuban studies, Dominican studies, Central American studies and South American studies. We invite proposals that compare the history, social formations, and cultural production of Latinas/os. Just as important, we seek imaginative proposals that critically interrogate the possibilities and limits of the category of “Latinas/os” itself.

Location

Chicago serves as a symbolic setting for our conference. Located between the historically Mexican Southwest and the Caribbean East Coast, Chicago has long embraced its diverse Latina/o communities, and is home to several universities with Latina/o studies programs. To that end, we call for scholars, artists, and activists from both within the United States and abroad to join us as we launch our inaugural conference and the founding of a Latina/o studies association, the first organization dedicated to the comparative and interdisciplinary study of Latinas/os.

Proposals

Our goal is to carve out an international space for dialogue and fruitful debate, and invite submissions from all disciplines. We welcome diverse and interactive presentation formats. We envision roundtables that explore recent publications, key developments, or major debates in Latina/o studies; workshops on mentoring, professionalization, pedagogy, or publishing; multi-media presentations such as Pecha Kucha or poster presentations; and performances along with traditional papers. Group proposals with diverse representation–including institutional affiliation, rank, and geographic region–will be given preference. All sessions are 90 minutes long, and must allot at least twenty minutes for discussion.

To submit a proposal, please email the following information to latinostudiesconference@gmail.com. All proposals are due by 11:59pm PST on December 1, 2013.

●      Paper or Session Title.

●      Name, institutional affiliation, discipline, position or title, and contact information of presenter including email address and phone number (for sessions: list organizer first, then each presenter providing requested information for each participant).

●      Abstract of the rationale and content of the paper or session: up to 300 words for an individual submission; 600 words for a group proposal, giving specifics about what each member will contribute.

●      Brief (2-3 sentence) scholarly or professional biography of each presenter.

●      Describe the format of the session (for group proposals) and give indication of any audiovisual needs or special accommodations.

For more information on the Latina/o studies association initiative and the many people and institutions involved in creating it, please visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/latinostudiesinitiative/.

Frances R. Aparicio is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Director of the Latina and Latino Studies Program at Northwestern University. She is the author of the award-winning Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music and Puerto Rican Cultures (Wesleyan 1998), and Co-Editor of several critical anthologies including Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literature (Routledge 2013), Tropicalizations: Transcultural Representations of Latinidad (University of New England Press 1997), Musical Migrations (Palgrave 2003), and Hibridismos culturales (Revista Iberoamericana 2006). A founding editor of the Latinos in Chicago and the Midwest Book Series at the University of Illinois Press, she has facilitated and fostered book publications and new research on Latino/as in the Midwest.