Implications and Articulations: The Ph.D. in Women's Studies

Morning, noon, and night we crossed lobbies and hallways decked out with hanging televisions, catching or avoiding voices and images of terror, fear, and war-garish, round-the-clock newscasts aimed at whipping up uncritical patriotism. Despite the trauma suffered on 11 September 2001, and the long shadow of grief it cast over all, the working conference, Ph.D. in Women's Studies: Implications and Articulations, got started on schedule. Sally Kitch, of Ohio State University, stated in her opening remarks that we were gathered in affirmation of thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative learning as stakeholders in women's studies development.' Breaking news of national and international events-the climate of vengeance, the politics of fear, the rush to war-would weave in and out of our conversations and deliberations for the four days that we were together. Just as this summary of those days is one person's perception of the meanings of what was said, the significance of these pages will be different for each reader. I adhere to a tradition within our field that stresses having an ear to the ground of women's lived experiences, critical thinking, and the centrality of the arts. Drawing a wide-angled sketch, I have attempted to be as informative as possible while pinpointing what were for me highly dynamic and daring ideas on the Ph.D. in women's studies. Approaches based on interrogation of the very tools we use, on collaborative research, and on transdisciplinary unboundedness rather than strict disciplinarity compelled my interest most. 11-14 October 2001, Emory University's Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia. More than eighty participants, probably the largest and most diverse group of North American women ever gathered to discuss the highest degree in women's studies offered by universities in the United States and Canada, met to try to understand its possible connections-and oppositions-to the entire educational and sociocultural enterprise. We came from almost all of the institutions that already offer Ph.D.s in women's studies, including York University; Clark University; Emory University; Rutgers University; the University of Michigan; the University of Minnesota; the University of Maryland; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Washington; Ohio State University; and the Union Institute, some with free-standing programs and some linked to other disciplines or programs. We came from community colleges and research universities, private and public, ivy and cinderblock. We were graduate students; emerita, full, associate, and assistant professors. We were African, Asian, Pacific Island, and Caucasian Americans, and Latinas and Canadians as well. Privileged and less than privileged. From the start of the working conference, the fears many people would wish to deny-of the real changes substantive diversity must bring-were subtly underscored. Superficial diversity and shallow multiculturalism were ridiculed. Frances Smith Foster, of Emory University, quoted Toni Cade Bambara's Minnie Ransom in The Salt Eaters, asking Velma Henry, Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well? (3). She was referring to the shouldering of burdens and responsibilities required to engage psychic and social truths in an unjust world. To become fully, critically aware is no easy task. We were implicitly being asked to resist cooptation, to oppose gender and race hierarchies, and to embrace an ongoing, multifaceted consciousness-raising as we pursue our scholarly work. Bonnie Thornton Dill of the University of Maryland referred back to the same question, claiming that we need time to develop innovative theories and to transcend the erroneous notion that there is one Feminist Theory. In so doing we might continuously put ideas from different margins and centers into conversation with each other. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, from Spelman College, suggested we analyze the nature of our complicity in the very hegemonic structures we abhor and asked, If the theoretical bases for the women's studies Ph. …

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