Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies > Research > Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair

Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair

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Tiffany Muller Myrdahl
Ruth Wynn Woodward Junior Chair, 2012-2013

Tiffany Muller Myrdahl is thrilled to be in residence as the Junior Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair in Gender and Urban Studies, 2012-13. Tiffany completed her PhD in Geography and a certificate in Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota in 2008. Since 2008, she has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies and an associate member of the Department of Geography at the University of Lethbridge. She is on leave from the University of Lethbridge during her tenure as the Junior RWW Chair.

Tiffany’s research links urban, social, and feminist geography with a focus on social inclusion and feminist praxis. She employs a community-engaged qualitative research practice to examine the social and spatial processes that constitute and shape cities. Her scholarship has attended to the spatial logics of sport-centred urban entrepreneurial policies; the social geographies and mobilities of marginalized communities, with an emphasis on women and LGBTQ populations; the relationship between urban contexts (histories, economies, and cultural politics) and the formation of gender and sexual subjectivities and communities; and the intersection between municipal social policy and planning praxis. Her academic publications can be found in Gender, Place and Culture; Social & Cultural Geography; Journal of Lesbian Studies; Leisure/Loisir; Leisure Studies; and ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies (forthcoming). Her recent work also includes chapters in Queerying Planning: Challenging Heteronormative planning practice (Ashgate, 2011) and in Stadium Worlds: Football, Space and the Built Environment (Routledge, 2010).

Tiffany’s current research combines critical analyses of urban policy with the development of a queer oral history archive and an examination of the socio-spatial formations of LGBTQ identities. She uses oral history methodologies and analyses of urban social policy and participatory planning schemes to understand urban change in Lethbridge, Alberta. This project, entitled "The lives of (sexual) others: social difference and urban change in Lethbridge, Alberta," is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Lethbridge, and has been supported by the Centre for Feminist Research at York University, where Tiffany was in residence during spring 2012.

As Junior RWW Chair, Tiffany will be teaching, writing, and organizing events around the theme of feminist urban futures. The first component of this program is Tiffany’s fall course, the Advanced RWW Seminar. You can read about and participate in the course here: http://tmullermyrdahl.org/rww-seminar-homepage/. The course website includes lecture and discussion materials, texts, and links to many additional sources that explore questions of and experiments in urban social inclusion. (More links are always welcome!) You don’t need to be enrolled in the course to participate in the online conversation.

Tiffany will also be participating with the Women Transforming Cities initiative throughout the year: http://womentransformingcities.org/. You can meet her at WTC events and at RWW events, which will be announced here and at the RWWP current activities website: http://www.sfu.ca/gsws/community-outreach/current-wwp-activities.html

Public Events  |  In the News
RWW Chair Background  |  RWW Chair Strategic Plan
RWW Chair Terms of Reference 

Previous Chair:

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Dana Mohammed Olwan

Dana Mohammed Olwan
Ruth Wynn Woodard Junior Chair in Women's Studies 2011-2012

Dana Mohammed Olwan began her BA studies in English Literature at Yarmouk Univeristy (Irbid, Jordan). She completed her BA in English at La Roche College (Pittsburgh, PA) and her MA at the English Department of Georgetown University (Washington, DC). In 2009, Dana received her Ph.D. in English Literature from Queen’s University’s English Department (Kingston, Ontario). Her dissertation, “The Politics of Legibility: Writing and Reading Contemporary Arab American Women’s Literature,” examined the practices of writing, publishing, marketing, and reading fictional works by Arab American women writers post 9/11. After completing her doctoral work, Dana became Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Queen’s University where she received the W. J. Barnes Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. In the Summer 2011, she was the Future Minority Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the Women’s and Gender Studies Department of Syracuse University (Syracuse, New York) where she began her book-length project on honour killings in Canada.

Tentatively entitled "Dishonourable Crimes: Murder, Rescue, and the Politics of Canadian Multiculturalism," this project lies at the intersections of race, gender, and feminist studies. Utilizing a broad range of theoretical frameworks, my work maps the ways in which ideas about states, citizenship, belonging, and religion are deployed to code certain acts of violence against women as “honour crimes.” In this work, I explore a range of issues relating to the areas of Islam, Gender Studies, and the politics of Canadian multiculturalism.

During her tenure at SFU, Dana will teach a number of courses, including two courses on transnational feminist theory in the Fall term and one on Islam and feminism during the Spring term. Dana is committed to doing anti-racist feminist work in the classroom and beyond. She has participated in various activist organizations, including Free Queen’s!, OPIRG Kingston, The Ban Righ Center, and Faculty for Palestine.

Olwan Teaching and Public Events

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Teaching - Fall 2011

GSWS 405-5 "Theoretical Issues in Women's Studies"

In April 2011, over three thousand women marched in Toronto Slutwalk. Originating from Canada and organized in response to a Toronto police officer’s advice that women stop dressing like “sluts” in order to avoid rape, Slutwalk is now a global phenomenon. From Toronto to Vancouver, Chicago to Berlin, and Sydney to New Delhi, the movement’s transnational growth offers insights into the status of feminist thought and praxes, as well as their potentials and limitations. Using the discussions and debates that such examples of feminism in action inspire, this course will ask: How do feminisms or feminist theories signify and travel from one place to another? What does being a feminist theorist or doing feminist work look like in national and transnational contexts? What does transnational feminist theory mean? How can this expansive body of academic scholarship help illuminate current political, racial, social, sexual and gendered issues and concerns? These are some of the questions that this upper-level theory course will focus on in order to understand how intersecting and interlocking systems of power and oppression operate at home and abroad. Based on a mixture of lectures, seminar presentations, textual readings, film viewings and class discussions, we will engage critical questions and debates concerning the status and relevance of academic feminist theorizing to our increasingly globalized world realities.

GSWS 822-5 Graduate Seminar in Feminist Theory
The subject being taught will be “Contemporary Trans/National Feminist Theories on Race, Gender, and Sexuality.” This course examines contemporary feminist theories on racism, gender, and sexuality. We will study how feminist theories can illuminate
current political, racial, social, and gendered realities for subjects in national and international contexts. While focused on seeing links between this large and intersecting body of scholarship, special attention will be paid to the ways in which feminist theory can allow us to (or prevent us from) the task of challenging and dismantling multiple and interlocking systems of oppression both at “home” and “abroad.”

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Public Events

September 22, 2011: "New Tricks, Old Hat: ‘Pinkwashing’ Israel, Islamophobia, and the Honour Crime Industry" at Thinking about 9/11 Ten Years After: First Annual Middle East and Beyond Symposium. Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY.

November 1, 2011: "Killed in Canada and Remembered in Israel: Mapping the Geopolitics of the 'Aqsa Parvez Memorial Grove'" Talk at the Liu Institute for Global Issues & RAGA, Vancouver.


November 11, 2011: "In the House of Silence: Feminist Studies and the Question of Palestine" as part of "A Breach in the Wall? Teaching Women’s and Gender Studies through a Transnational Lens" panel discussion. National Women Studies Association Conference, Atlanta, GA.

RWW CHAIR LECTURE AND WORKSHOP SERIES
Spring 2012
Resisting Gendered and Colonial Violence Against Women

Schedule of Events
December 8, 2011: "Demystifying Gender Violence in Muslim Communities" at A Breakfast to Celebrate Activism Against Gender Violence in Vancouver: Red Shoes Green Belts White Ribbons, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC.

Friday, January 27, 2012: Jessica Yee "Marginalization Doesn't Happen by Accident: Colonialism and Violence from the State" SFU Vancouver campus

January 6th-8th, 2012, Panel on Gender Liberation. Tragedy of the Market: from Crisis to Commons. Burnaby, Coast Salish Territories

Saturday, February 3, 2012: Workshop with the Steering Committee on “Gendered and Colonial Violence in Times of War and Empire: A Discussion and Workshop” SFU Burnaby Campus, Diamond Alumni Centre

Monday, February 20, 2012: Professor Chandra Talpade Mohanty. “Imperial Democracies, Militarized Zones, and Feminist Engagements: Keynote Address and Discussion” SFU Vancouver campus

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In the News

Israeli-Palestinian project involves locals

Queen's and Simon Fraser University team receives $223,00 federal government grant. An ongoing multimedia project hopes to bring to life the diverse histories of homes in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Qatamon. A team comprised of professors and students from Queen’s and Simon Fraser University (SFU) will work closely with families displaced by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Read more...

Academics and filmmakers create Israeli-Palestinian artistic research project

A new community-based, multi-generational video project designed by Queen’s and Simon Fraser university researchers will engage the complex bi-national and multi-ethnic histories of a neighbourhood in southern Jerusalem. Read more...

For more information, visit the Dorit Naaman/DiaDocuMEntaRy website.

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RWW Chair Background

In 1984, with a grant from Secretary of State and matching funds from private donations, an endowed chairship in Women's Studies was established. Private donors included Mrs. Mary Twigg White and Mrs. Elizabeth Russ, daughters of Ruth Wynn Woodward; the Vancouver Foundation; and many other individuals and groups.  The Canadian government, through the Office of the Secretary of State, established five regional chairs across the country in women's studies with an endowment fund at Mt. St Vincent University, Laval University, Ottawa-Carleton Universities (joint chair), University of Manitoba-Winnipeg (joint chair) and Simon Fraser University.

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Photo courtesy of Office of the Lieutenant Governor

Ruth Wynn Woodward

The chairship was named for Ruth Wynn Woodward, one of British Columbia's outstanding pioneer women. Through a lifetime of public service and personal accomplishment, she demonstrated the importance of the work of women to Canadian society. As well as raising three children, she was director and vice-president of Woodwards' Stores Ltd., owner/operator of Woodwynn Farm, a founding director of the Junior League of Vancouver, and president of the Women's Auxiliary of Vancouver General Hospital. Ruth Wynn Woodward was also BC’s Chatelaine from 1941-1946, her husband William Culham Woodward was BC’s Lieutenant Governor.

 

 

 

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Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair Strategic Plan

In the 2010 budget year, the matched AP‐4 from FASS was withdrawn. Under instruction from Finance, the FASS budget people transferred continuing unfilled faculty lines into the TA/TI budget in the previous year and were then instructed again to cut TA/TI budgets in the current budget shortfall. Read more...

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Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair Terms of Reference

Past Occupants of the RWW Chair

  • Thea Cacchioni, sociologist and activist, 2010 - 2011
  • Dana Claxton, interdisciplinary artist, 2009 - 2010
  • Dr. Afua Cooper, historian, writer, 2008 - 2009
  • Dr. Susan Stryker, philosopher, writer, 2007 - 2008
  • Kate Braid, poet, non-fiction writer, carpenter, 2006 - 2007
  • Elizabeth Philipose, political scientist, 2005 - 2006
  • Louise Chappell, political scientist & senior lecturer, Spring 2005
  • Dr. Sue Wilkinson, psychologist, 2002 - 2004
  • Dionne Brand, poet, novelist and essayist, 2000 - 2002
  • Dr. Sunera Thobani, sociologist and activist, 1996 - 2000
  • Dr. Vanaja Dhruvarajan, sociologist, 1994 - 1995
  • Dr. Hilda Ching, scientist, 1990 - 1991
  • Dr. Marjorie Griffin Cohen, economist, 1989 - 1990
  • Daphne Marlatt, writer and literary critic, 1988 - 1989
  • Rosemary Brown, politician, 1987
  • Dr. Susan Penfold, psychiatrist, 1985 - 1986

For several years, the department offered RWW post-doctoral fellowships. Other programs funded by the RWW endowment include a traveling speaker series; local, national and international conferences; a bi-annual women's studies retreat for instructors from colleges and universities in BC and the Yukon; and sponsorship and co-sponsorship of invited speakers on campus and in the community.

RWW Invited Speakers have included Nicole Brossard, bell hooks, Evelyn Fox Keller, Joy Kogawa, Teresa de Laurentis, Maria Mies, Himani Bannerji, Madhu Kishwar, and Marilyn Waring, among others.

The Ruth Wynn Woodward Chair enables us to make short-term appointments in areas where we lack faculty and to give courses in addition to those we are required to offer.  As well, it provides the resources to host conferences and to invite high-profile speakers to address issues of current interest and concern.  Below is a listing of some of the activities we have undertaken.

Past Conferences sponsored by the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair:

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The Women's Studies Summer Institute

In 1988 we offered our lst Summer Institute at Harbour Centre on Women, Life and the Planet with Vandana Shiva, an international scholar, environmentalist and feminist.

Our 2nd Summer Institute was held in 1999 on Standpoint Theory through the Work of Dorothy Smith. 
During the Summer of 2002, our 3rd Summer Institute, Poetry Matters, included a gathering of local poets.  

The 4th Summer Institute (2004) was organized by Dr. Sue Wilkinson, "International interdisciplinary conference on Gender Sexuality and Health"

More information coming soon.

Link to Previous Ruth Wynn Woodward Chairs

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Community Engagement