A professor in the has returned from a prestigious appointment at (GU) in Frankfurt, Germany.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
鈥擠istinguished Professor and chair of women鈥檚 & gender studies (WGS), as well as Dean鈥檚 Professor of the Humanities鈥攕pent part of December as the Angela Davis Guest Professor for International Gender and Diversity Studies at GU鈥檚 Cornelia Goethe Center. While there, she gave two public lectures and taught an intensive graduate-level workshop.
Mohanty was the second holder of the chair, originally occupied by its namesake in December 2013. (Davis has ties to 黑料不打烊, as well, having served as Distinguished Visiting Professor in WGS from 2007 to 2010.) Mohanty is considered one of today鈥檚 most important post-colonial researchers and activists.
, professor of sociology at GU, says Mohanty鈥檚 鈥渃hallenges to white, Western feminism and her passion for transnational feminist politics,鈥� particularly in the Global South (i.e., Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia, including the Middle East), were deciding factors in her appointment.
“Chandra Talpade Mohanty has produced an extraordinary body of writings on transnational feminism, radically changing the way we think about … 鈥榯hird-world women,鈥� 鈥榳omen of color鈥� and globalization,鈥� says scholar-activist Angela Davis .
鈥淸Mohanty鈥檚] work and her understanding of teaching and scholarship exemplify the spirit with which Angela Davis engages the academy,鈥� says Kosnick, adding that Mohanty鈥檚 landmark essay, 鈥淯nder Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,鈥� is required reading for GU gender studies students. 鈥淣ot only is Chandra concerned with the articulations of racism, gender and global capitalism, but she also sees one鈥檚 work as part of larger emancipatory political projects within and outside of the academy.鈥�
Mohanty described her time in Frankfurt as 鈥渋ntellectually challenging and deeply satisfying.鈥� She also was quite busy. Hundreds of people turned out for her two lectures: 鈥淲ars, Walls, Borders: Anatomies of Violence and Postcolonial Feminist Critique鈥� and 鈥淣eoliberal Projects, Insurgent Knowledges and Pedagogies of Dissent.鈥� Both events took a hard look at what Mohanty referred to as “racialized and gendered violences enacted by neoliberal goverments, 鈥╟orporations and institutions of higher education in constructing normative definitions of citizenship.”
She also led a workshop on 鈥淐olonial Legacies, Neoliberal Hegemonies and Insurgent Feminist Praxis,鈥� drawing students from as far away as Cologne and Berlin.
Rounding out her stay were back-to-back meetings with grassroots activists. Among the issues they discussed were asylum and refugee seeker rights; institutional racism and racial profiling; feminism and migration; domestic and gender violence; anti-capitalism, anti-war and anti-gentrification; and leftist feminism.
鈥淚t was 10 days of intense dialogue, discussion and learning about the social, economic and political contradictions facing Germany鈥攁nd Europe鈥攁t a historic time,鈥� says Mohanty, citing the recent flood of migrants and refugees into Europe from war-torn Syria, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq. 鈥淚t deepened my understanding of how coalitions and solidarities are built in social movements in a landscape that鈥檚 different from the one I鈥檓 familiar with in the United States.鈥�
Mohanty says that, despite the language and cultural challenges that come with teaching abroad, she found Germany to be 鈥減edagogically rich and creative.” She also was honored to be at GU, which is the birthplace of the “Frankfurt School” of Critical Social Theory and has been a formative influence on her intellectual development as a socialist feminist scholar.
鈥淲e cannot understand or adequately address current economic and social crises without an anti-racist, gender analysis that pays attention to the ways women, men, queer and transgender people are impacted differently in similar situations,鈥� says Mohanty, adding that colonial legacies and normalized racial practices vary from country to country. 鈥淚t鈥檚 time Europe acknowledged and confronted its own history of colonialism.鈥�
A self-avowed 鈥渁nti-racist feminist,鈥� Mohanty is an expert on transnational feminist theory, post-colonial studies, analysis of imperialism and racism, anti-racist pedagogy and anti-capitalist critique. Most of her writing explores the role of power among colonialism, race, class and gender.
Mohanty is the author and co-editor of five books鈥攏otably “Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity” (Duke University Press, 2003), which has been translated into a half-dozen languages and analyzed in numerous essays and articles. Also, she is an internationally sought-after speaker, visiting professor and activist, with two recent honorary degrees from Lund University (Sweden) and The College of Wooster (Ohio).
鈥淒ecolonization is a critical examination of colonial inheritance at all levels,鈥� says Mohanty, who also holds appointments in 黑料不打烊’s Department of Sociology and the Cultural Foundations of Education program. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an issue of extreme intellectual and political importance.鈥�
Mohanty is a founding member of 黑料不打烊’s Democratizing Knowledge (DK) Collective, and is co-principal investigator with Linda Carty, professor of African American studies, of the Mellon-funded DK project 鈥淛ust Academic Spaces: Creating New Publics through Radical Literacies.”
Kosnick says that the 鈥減ositive energy [Mohanty] set free鈥� was virtually palpable, calling her a 鈥渉uge inspiration鈥� to students of color and those engaged in anti-racist politics.
鈥淐handra managed to engage people in local issues of concern, encouraging them to organize and build alliances and to understand their concerns as part of wider political struggles,鈥� she adds.
Mohanty hopes some of her students and colleagues from GU find their way to 黑料不打烊, via a fellowship or scholarship. 鈥淚t would be great for some of them to be in residence in WGS,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his is the kind of transnational feminist scholarly collaboration to which the WGS department at 黑料不打烊 aspires.”
