Welcome

The Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication (OFRGC) promotes dialogue, discussion, research, and scholarship concerned with women, feminism, gender, oppression, and social change.OFRGC seeks to advance understandings of the intersections of gender and race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexuality, and class, including transgender politics, masculinity, dis/ability, labor, transnationalism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory.

OFRGC is a Western States Communication Association (WSCA) affiliate, sponsors programs at the WSCA convention, and publishes a journal: Women’s Studies in Communication.

Announcements

  • We are looking forward to gathering in Phoenix for WSCA in February 2023. The program will include many great OFRGC panels, including our award winners and travel grant recipients.  

    • 2023 Top Paper Awards:

      • Top Debut Paper: "Engaging Black Feminist Liberation Pedagogies to Address Historical Trauma," by Sarah Keeton, Arizona State University

      • Top Student Paper: "Silent Witnessing: Navigating the Silences of Survivor Rhetoric," by Kaylee Mulholland, Arizona State University

      • Top Paper: "Performing Queer and Trans of Color Afterlives," by Michael Tristano Jr., Towson University

    •  2023 Brenda J. Allen Travel Grant Awardees: 

      • "Muxes se nacen, no se hacen": Education of Gender Radicality through Muxenity" by Dustin Martinez, University of Colorado Boulder

      • "Interrogating Power with High School Students: Care and Humanization through Pláticas Methodology" by Ana Isabel Terminel Iberri, Arizona State University

      • "Engaging Black Feminist Liberation Pedagogies to Address Historical Trauma" by Sarah Keeton, Arizona State University

  • Congratulations to our 2022 Research Development Grant winners:

    • Kirara Nagatsuka,“Half-Breed” Women. Intersectionality of Hafu and Biracial females in Japan and the U.S.

    • Yin Yang, Postpositivist Approach to Gender Inequality in Feminist Media and Communication Studies: A 10-Year Review

    • Meredith Neville-Shepard, Sporting Sexism: An Analysis of Arguments About Regulating Women’s Athletic Attire

    • Raka Shome, Cleansing the Nation: Hindu Nationalism and the Gender Politics of the Clean India Campaign

  • Congratulations to Nicole Williams Barnes, Catherine Helen Palczewski, and Heather Nicole Lund for winning our 2022 Feminist Scholar award for their article “The Only Thing Red About Her”: Personal Intertextual Palimpsests in Lucille Ball’s HUAC Testimony.

  • We are proud to announce the sixteenth editor of Women's Studies in CommunicationDr. Marissa J. Doshi, a feminist scholar of media and cultural studies and associate professor at Hope College. Dr. Doshi will lead WSiC's publications of volumes 46-48. We are excited for her leadership and thankful for her service.
  • Find us online! ORWAC now has three channels of social media:

  • Help support the Feminist Language and Communication Collection at the University of Oregon.    

Learn More About ORWAC

Newsletters

Our biannual newsletter contains a message from the president, addresses commonly asked questions about professional development, updates members on recent changes within the organization, includes our calls for paper submissions to the Western States Communication Association annual convention and gender preconferences, announces honors and awards, as well as provides reports from our grant recipients. 

Stay updated by reading our most recent newsletter.

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Journal

The ORWAC Journal, Women's Studies in Communication (WSIC), provides a feminist forum for diverse scholarship addressing the relationships between communication and gender. WSIC invites contributions in the form of research, reviews, and commentary with the potential to advance our understanding of the intersections of gender and race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexuality, and class, as well as the articulations between gendered performances, power, and representation in public culture.

  • Each year, the Feminist Scholarship Award is presented to the top essay published in the journal at the Western States Communication Association's annual conference.
  • Members are able to access the online journal by logging into their account. Click the link for Members Only in the top right corner.
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Grants

 

Research Development Grants

The Organization for Research on Women and Communication invites submissions for our Research Development Grants.  Members are eligible to apply for one of three grants that support scholars at different levels of their career: M.A. students, PhD students, and instructors or tenure/track faculty. Each grant offers a maximum of $2,500.00.

Grants are designed to assist feminist scholars completing research or creative projects that privilege and advance understandings about the intersectionality and complexity defining women’s lives.  Broadly speaking, submitted projects are those that:

  • chart new ground in disciplinary knowledge about women and gender
  • offer insights about the challenges and negotiations confronted by women in light of intersecting identities
  • favor the voices, experiences, discourses, performances and lives of women 

Brenda J. Allen Travel Grant

Brenda J. Allen Travel Grant Endowment funds travel for Women, Trans, and Non-Binary Graduate Students of Color.

Professor Allen has been a pathbreaker in the field of communication, and has devoted her career to ensuring that communication and the academy as a whole are more equitable and inclusive places. Her scholarship has been foundational in intercultural, organizational, and feminist communication studies, and her mentorship record is unparalleled. She is also a long-time member of ORWAC and has played a leadership role for years, most notably as our first "web spinner." This is why ORWAC wants to endow a student travel award in her name to honor this legacy.

Our goal is to raise $20,000, which will give ORWAC enough funds to provide $1000 annually to be used toward these travel grants. We are asking for your help to make this happen and to show your support of the legacy of Professor Allen.

Please donate to the endowment here
https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=KHZPXY79M4AVN

 

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Become a Member!

The Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC) promotes dialogue, discussion, research, and scholarship concerned with women, feminism, gender, oppression, and social change. ORWAC seeks to advance understandings of the intersections of gender and race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexuality, and class, including transgender politics, masculinity, dis/ability, labor, transnationalism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory. ORWAC is a Western States Communication Association (WSCA) affiliate, publishes a journal: Women's Studies in Communication, and sponsors programs at the WSCA convention.

Membership includes:

  • A subscription to Women's Studies in Communication Journal
  • Receipt of a biannual newsletter
  • A voice in managing the business affairs of ORWAC
  • Eligibility to apply for the annual research development grants
  • An invitation to the annual ORWAC reception at the WSCA convention (complimentary food and drinks and a networking opportunity for early scholars)

>> Join Online Today! <<

Please complete our online membership application. You will have the option to remit payment securely via Paypal or select payment method by check.

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