Tag: Judith Raiskin

The Individual: On Lesbian Lands

Presenter: Elle Hopkins − Sociology

Co-Presenter(s): Pippa Simmons

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

The creation of the lesbian homeland called the OWL farm, or Open Women’s Land, happened during the second wave of feminism, a movement which lasted from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. This paper will examine why women, specifically lesbian separatists, chose to create a sanctuary for women that was completely separate from patriarchal influences, how they governed their lands, and why women wanted to visit the lands. This will be done by analyzing primary sources such as journals written by residents on the farm, newsletters published at the farm and other miscellaneous resources from the SO CLAP archival collection. This is an effort to understand why the popularity of lesbians lands peaked over two decades (1975-1995) and has decreased over time and why the views of lesbian separatism don’t fit with the modern views of feminism.

Gender Representation in 1970s Science Fiction: Joanna Russ and Ursula Le Guin

Presenter: Makenna Greenwalt − Mathematics

Co-Presenter(s): Amelia Hartman-Warr

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

Science fiction has long been a medium through which harmful gender stereotypes have thrived. Despite being forward-thinking in terms of science and technology, sci-fi novels and short stories often portray societies that are patriarchal and male-centric. Enter Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ, two women whose writing became highly popular and influential in the science fiction scene of the 1970s. Despite the societal norms of the time, Le Guin and Russ were able to use their science fiction to explore then-unconventional ideas of gender. Yet, despite taking revolutionary steps that transformed the world of science fiction, both Le Guin and Russ struggled to fight the sexist culture they were immersed in and find an understanding of gender within it.

Lesbian Periodicals: Radical Politics and Community Building

Presenter(s): Maya Feldman-Dragich — Political Science

Co-Presenter(s): Kye Martin, Emily Kavanagh

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

Beginning in the 1970s second wave feminism, largely facilitated by lesbian activists, swept through the United States and world at large. A large part of their reach came from their printed media. This era broke away from the grip of mainstream publishers and a network of magazines, newspapers, and newsletters for lesbian feminists was created worldwide. Within these pages were passionate political writings and ideas. The periodicals continued through the AIDs crisis and into the 1990s and were a continuous place for lesbians to share a range of visual and written media, both creative writing and nonfiction. Without this crucial turning point of direct action, the community and visibility lesbians attained in that era would not be possible. Through the Feminist and Lesbian Periodical collection in the Special Collections and University Archives in Knight Library, we each researched a facet of the how the periodicals affected society. Many of the ideas expressed within those pages were still strikingly relevant, though few people are aware of their very existence. For the LGBTQ community and beyond, raising awareness about their impact is essential.

Queer Genealogies

Presenter(s): Maia Abbruzzese, Alex Aguirre, KinsleyBallas, Devon Boom, Olivia Cain, Amelia Clapper Flynn, Avi Davis, Alex Har, Audrey Harper, Forest Kreutz, Jacob Lee, Madelyn Ragsdale, Sorrel Rosin, Ari Sepulveda, Stella Tarnoff, Marcelo Torres, Mason Williams, Maela Wirfsmith

Faculty Mentors: Judith Raiskin, Haley Wilson

ARC Posters 207-211

Research Area: Social Science

LGBTQIA+ Scholars Academic Residential Community

Funding: Undergraduate Studies, Student Life, University Housing

This year the academic focus for the LGBTQ+ Scholars ARC has been “Queer Genealogies.” We have had a number of queer “elders” come in to the ARC to address issues of LGBTQ community, history, and changing understandings of gender and sexual identity. We have also had guest presentations from a several queer faculty members about their work, specifically talking about what “queer research” is, both thematically and methodologically. In the fall and winter we also collaborated with the Intersectional Events Committee to plan the Queer Film Festival and we spent some of our meetings analyzing the representation of LGBTQ people in film over time.

This spring we will be bringing these various strands together in a Special Collections Queer Archive project. We will be working in the Special Collections with Curator Linda Long, examining a number of archival collections relevant to LGBTQ history. Linda will be meeting with the students during four class periods to introduce them to specific relevant collections,

to explain how to handle such material, and to help them in their own research in these collections. The class will divide
into four groups, each researching a particular collection. Among the ones they can choose are the SOCLAP Collection of Southern Oregon Lesbian Land, the Tee Corrine collection, the James Ivory Collection, the James Tiptree Jr. Collection, and the Rochester/Hutchinson papers. While they are having the experience of learning about established collections, they will
be initiating a new collection called the University of Oregon LGBTQ Collection as part of the Documenting University of Oregon History Project (https://library.uoregon.edu/documentinguohistory). They will be contributing their own interviews, ephemera, and papers into this collection as the base for an ongoing collection of LGBTQ life at the University of Oregon. This is an opportunity for the student to learn how collections are developed, cataloged, and made available for scholarly research.

For the Undergraduate Research Symposium, the students groups will present posters of the four collections they have researched and will present together about their work on starting the UO LGBTQ Collection. Among the topics they will address is the need for preservation of queer history, sexual/gender identity and the politics of cataloging, and the hurdles to access of queer history. They will also view the “Patient No More” traveling exhibit about the Disability Rights movement and meet with the Curator of that collection, Catherine Kudlick, from the Paul Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University. After this presentation, the ARC students might be interesting in presenting on the intersections of a variety of “rights” archives from around the country.

The Challenges, Academic Potential, and Personal Power of Qualitative Research

The Challenges, Academic Potential, and Personal Power of Qualitative Research

Gabrielle Aufderheide – Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, Biology

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin, Jessica Cronce

Data Story Session 1CS

Research Area: Public Health

I performed qualitative interviews with ten individuals from the HIV Alliance in Eugene, Oregon to investigate how the agency employs the harm reduction philosophy when providing services and how this impacts their clients who inject drugs. The stories interviewees recalled and the vocabulary they used provided insight to their understanding and implementation of harm reduction. I felt unsuccessful at relaying the profundity of information I obtained from the interviews. However, the information greatly impacted how I did interpret my research and influenced my own definition of harm reduction and my overall opinion on harm reduction interventions targeting HIV prevention.

Define and Defend: Expressing Opposition to the Rajneesh Settlement Through Construction of an In-Group Identity in Antelope Oregon 

Presenter(s):  Alexandra Jansky

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin

Poster 163

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

In the early 1980s, hundreds of members of an East Indian cult called the “Rajneesh” settled in Eastern Oregon, establishing therein a sprawling community of young, wealthy, and sexually liberated followers of their leader, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The cult members were met with swift opposition from the citizens of Antelope, Oregon, a neighboring retirement community of less than 60. This archival research project, developed from the University of Oregon Special Collections, seeks to uncover how the Antelope citizens defended their way of life against the so- called Rajneesh invasion. Through a sociological analysis of the Antelope citizens’ complaint letters to both federal and local entities, as well as examination of the city’s publicized anti- Rajneesh propaganda, I explore how the Antelope citizens’ rejection of the Rajneesh served as a fundamental departure from common xenophobic patterns of social elitism, racism, or religious discrimination. This work aims to explain how the Antelope citizens constructed and implemented an “in-group” identity based on traditional, rural principles, which they used as a tool to successfully resist the influence and assimilation of the Rajneesh. This case study offers a parallel between the Antelope citizens’ response to outside pressure, and that of otherwise insular and conservative communities challenged by the “other.”

“Corybantic Lycanthropy”: Exploring Allen Ginsberg’s Unpublished 1944 Poem

Presenter(s): Lida Ford

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin

Poster 102

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

“Corybantic Lycanthropy” is an unpublished poem by Allen Ginsberg, found during my research in the Stanford Univerisity Archives in Ginsberg’s private journals. When examining the work, I wanted to understand the significance of the poem not only based on its literary merits but to explore what insights could be gained about Ginsberg’s early life through its analysis. The poem was written in 1944, Ginsberg’s early college years, during the early beginning formation of the Beat Generation. When read in light of Ginsberg’s other journal entries, as well as in through a psychoanalytical lens “Corybantic Lycanthropy”’s significance becomes clear. The poem is a representation of Ginsberg’s own struggles with his sexuality during this time, and the many symbols found in the poem represent his own process in understanding and accepting his homosexuality before he was out. This provides a rare scholarly opportunity, to view Ginsberg’s work before he was widely out as homosexual, and discover the very early years of a poet for which sexuality and homosexuality would become a significant defining point of his career. As a whole, “Corybantic Lycanthropy” gives us unique insight into a vital chapter in Ginsberg’s life, which has not been previously academically explored.

Letters to Tip: A Window into the Development of Feminist Language

Presenter(s): Zoe Cameron

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin & Linda Long

Poster 133

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

This research analyzes the correspondence between science fiction writers Joanna Russ and James Tiptree, Jr. in the midst of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s. Unbeknownst to Russ, Tiptree is not a man but a pen name; the woman behind the facade is in fact Alice Sheldon, a 60-year-old with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology living in Mclean, Virginia. It is Alice Sheldon’s use of her male pen name, James Tiptree, Jr. that allows for a open, candid discourse and provides a window into the struggle and development of feminist language. Together, the two engage in a discussion involving Russ’ experience with feminism, Tiptree’s interest in underground feminist writings and the lack of terminology used to describe the woman’s experience. This research, which utilizes letters from the James Tiptree, Jr. collection in the University of Oregon Archives, not only highlights the struggle women faced in defining themselves but the language they lacked to do so.

She’s Straight but She’s a Dyke: Sexuality Discourse on the Lesbian Lands

Presenter(s): Gracia Dodds—Sociology, Womens’, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Faculty Mentor(s): Judith Raiskin

Session 1: Oh, the Humanities!

The 1970s and 80s held tremendous significance in the history of women’s intentional living communities . In Southern Oregon, lesbian lands popped up along the rural portions of the I-5 corridor, running from Eugene to Northern California . These lands served as women’s-only communities that were largely self-sufficient and created an entire subculture of a lesbian network that spanned across the United States . The mid-late 1970s were a period of revolution due to the uptick in second- wave feminism and the gay liberation movement, and these lands served as an intersection right in the middle of these two issues . Lesbian separatism was a radical and controversial political strategy that deserves more thought than it’s been given in the academic sphere .

In this research project, I focus on understanding how women on these lands talked about and understood sexuality and the identification markers of women who loved women . The queer community as we know it is ever-evolving in its understanding of acceptable linguistic terminology, and it is worth understanding where that language began . The Southern Oregon lesbian lands gives insight into one of the first geographic spaces where same-gender attraction could be freely and candidly discussed . I aim to understand and better categorize how sexuality was understood and what linguistic terms meant in the context of their era . In my initial research, I have found that the term ‘lesbian’ is better understood as a catch-all word for all of women’s same-gender attraction– meaning that includes multi-gender attracted women . This research will give better insight into how umbrella terms, like lesbian, affect who is included (and excluded) in both the 1970s and 80s, and in current times . This linguistic evolution will give important context to why certain terms are used and what the implications of those uses are .