Institute for Research on Women - Rutgers University

09/01/2026

Welcome to a new academic year! We’re delighted to welcome our students, faculty, and colleagues back for another year of learning, collaboration, and research.

Wishing everyone a successful semester!

07/10/2026

A Distinguished Professor of African Languages in Rutgers’ Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL), Ousseina begins her three-year appointment as IRW Faculty Director after a long history with the institute. She was an IRW Seminar Fellow during the 2008–2009 academic year, when the seminar explored The Culture of Rights/The Rights of Culture.

Ousseina is a widely published scholar whose research examines women’s agency, gender, citizenship, and education in African Muslim societies, with a deep commitment to feminist scholarship and community-building.

We’re excited to welcome her back to IRW in this new leadership role.

06/22/2026

This year, we were honored to welcome Brick City Drag to the IRW for an evening of performance and conversation.

Founded by Dr. Kareem Willis and Elijahda Warner (also known as the vibrant drag performer Alisha Day). Brick City Drag creates affirming spaces for LGBTQ+ communities, particularly q***r Black and Brown individuals throughout the greater Newark area.

Together, we explored the future of drag and its role as both a source of joy and a site of knowledge-making. From performance to pedagogy, the conversation highlighted how drag can challenge norms, build community, and open new possibilities for scholarship and cultural expression.

06/01/2026

This June, we honor LGBTQ+ communities, histories, and movements that continue to expand conversations around identity, justice, and belonging.

We celebrate Pride in recognition of those who came before, those creating change today, and the communities shaping what’s possible for the future.

Photo Credit: Seattle Pride

05/26/2026

IRW's Podcast series, Mnemosyne, named after the Greek goddess of memory and language is a space for feminist storytelling, with conversations about feminist work and research across disciplines. Hosts Andrea Zerpa and Ameena Qobrtay interview Dr. Basuli Deb, educator, activist and former IRW Global Scholar decolonial solidarity, her time spent in a monestary, astrology, and more.

To listen to the full episode visit https://tinyurl.com/yst58aha

05/26/2026

IRW’s Podcast series, Mnemosyne, named after the Greek goddess of memory and language is a space for feminist storytelling, with conversations about feminist work and research across disciplines. Hosts Andrea Zerpa and Ameena Qobrtay interview Dr. Basuli Deb, educator, activist and former IRW Global Scholar decolonial solidarity, her time spent in a monestary, astrology, and more.

Click the link in our bio to listen to the full episode!

05/25/2026

In Running into Osun, Fernanda Villarroel Lamoza reflects on an impromptu journey to the Osun River in Nigeria alongside High Priestess Talabi Adedoyin Olosun Faniyi (Iya Doyin) and renowned Africanist Dr. Henry Drewal. Through ritual, offering, memory, and kinship, the essay explores alternate ways of being, healing, motherhood, and spiritual care in a world “in constant disrepair.”

Read the full essay here https://tinyurl.com/yvrv9mda

05/21/2026

This month, we’re highlighting “Decolonial Feminist Genealogies and Futures”, co-edited by Annie Isabel Fukushima, Ph.D. and K. Melchor Quick Hall. This visionary collection explores resistance, collective liberation, feminist futures, and decolonial ways of imagining and building new worlds.

We were honored to welcome back former IRW scholar, Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima to our “Building and Rebuilding Feminisms in the Academy” panel during IRW’s year-end conference, Solidarity Against Authoritarianism, the closing program of our 2025–2026 series Feminism, Academic Freedom, and Democracy. Dr. Fukushima, now Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, and Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic, Gender & Disability Studies in the College of Humanities at University of Utah, was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at IRW/WGSS (2013 – 2015).

05/08/2026

The Spring 2026 issue of Rejoinder, "Ritual, Healing, and World-Making” is now available! Contributors include: Angela Adee Andriesse, Scott Ennis, María Andreína Escalona De Abreu, Tracy Fahey, Swan Ferraro, Sarah Giragosian, Charlene Langfur, Florencia Marchetti, Tzvi Mayer, Laura McCullough, Amy S. Morgenstern, Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang, LaShawnda Crowe Storm, Michelle Valois, Fernanda Villarroel Lamoza, and Kristen T. Woodward.

Rejoinder is an online journal published by the Institute for Research on Women (IRW) at Rutgers in partnership with The Feminist Art Project. To read the full issue visit: https://irw.rutgers.edu/rejoinder

🎨: Kristen T. Woodward

Institute for Research on Women, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey