Feminist Studies faculty and students presented their research at the national Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) summer institute. This year’s conference, “40 years of MALCS, Centuries of Activism: La Lucha Sigue for Racial, Reproductive and Decolonial Justice,” took place on July 13-15, 2023, at UC Davis. Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon presented “Reflections on Chicana/Latina Lesbian Feminism from This Bridge to the Digital Dyke Age.” Associate Professor of Feminist Studies Brenda Sendejo, MALCS chair and conference co-chair, presented on a roundtable titled “Chicana Movidas: Reflections on 50 years of Chicana Knowledge-Making” with her co-contributors to the Chicana Movidas anthology. The following students presented papers under the guidance of Sendejo: Myla Benally “Restoring the Meaning of Hózhó Within a Decolonial Framework: A Return to Balance and Beauty” and sof varnis “Weaving as a Decolonial Practice: Reconciliation, Transformation, and Spiritual Activism Among the Mampujan Weavers.”

—September 2023

Associate Professor of Feminist Studies Brenda Sendejo was invited to participate as a faculty mentor in the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Crossing Latinidades engages cross-institutional and cross-regional comparative research, training doctoral students, and new scholarship in emerging areas of inquiry about Latinos. The initiative serves as the anchor of the consortium of R1 Hispanic Serving Institutions at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Sendejo is among a group of Latino Studies faculty across the U.S. who will be paired with doctoral students through the professional mentorship program.

—April 2023

Associate Professor of Feminist Studies Brenda Sendejo and Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala attended the El Mundo Zurdo conference for the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa at the University of Texas at San Antonio from November 4-5. The roundtable that Bahrainwala and Sendejo co-organized was titled “Reflections on Radical Love, Care, and Consent: How Anzaldúa Informs Our Liberatory Praxis.” Bahrainwala presented “Pandemic lessons: Consent as anti-Racism,” and Sendejo presented “Movidas of Healing: The Spirit Work of Movement Era Chicanas.” The roundtable was well attended by lead scholars in the field of Anzaldúan Thought.

—December 2022

Associate Professor of Feminist Studies Brenda Sendejo attended the National Women’s Studies Association annual meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from November 10-13. This year’s conference theme was “Killing Rage: Resistance on the Other Side of Freedom.” Sendejo presented a paper titled “The Spirit Work of bell hooks and Gloria Anzaldúa: Lessons on Radical Love as Resistance,” which drew from her book manuscript in progress.

—December 2022

Associate Professor of Feminst Studies Brenda Sendejo was invited to present her research as part of Mexic-Arte Museum’s Chicano/a Art Movimiento y Más en Austen, Tejas 1960s to 1980s exhibit and lecture series. Her paper was titled “The Chicana Movement in Austin: A Legacy of Activism, Feminism, and Intergenerational Encuentros” and drew on themes from the exhibit that intersect with Sendejo’s work on the Chicana/o movement and emergence of Chicana feminist thought in Texas. The lecture series and exhibit were supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

—October 2022

Associate Professor of Feminist Studies Brenda Sendejo was elected chair of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS), a professional organization for self-identified Chicana, Latina, Native American/indígena mujeres and gender nonconforming academics, students, and activists. Sendejo cochaired the program committee for the MALCS 2022 Summer Institute, held July 27–30 in Fort Collins, Colorado. She also organized and served as a presenter on a roundtable about healing and re-membering as decolonial feminist praxis, informed by the work of Gloria Anzaldúa.

—September 2022

Associate Professor of Feminist Studies Brenda Sendejo presented “Intellectual Genealogies of Chicana Feminist Thought” at this year’s National Women’s Studies Association conference in San Francisco, CA. This presentation was an extension of her work in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era(University of Texas Press, 2018), which won first place for nonfiction multiauthored book at the 2019 International Latino Book Awards.

—December 2019

Associate Professor of Feminist Studies Brenda Sendejo published “Radical Mami Love: Chicana Consejos del Corazón” in Voices from the Ancestors and Beyond: Chicanx/Latinx Spiritual Expressions (University of Arizona Press, 2019). Sendejo presented on her work along with anthology editor Lara Medina and cocontributor Martha P. Cotera at this year’s Texas Book Festival.

—December 2019

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo collaborated with University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Mexican American Studies on the “Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era” panel presentation at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin. Sendejo was among the contributors to the anthology who presented at that event, made possible by a recent grant from the Summerlee Foundation to the Latina History Project (LHP), which Sendejo directs. Sendejo was also invited to present on her research at the University of Texas–Rio Grande Valley campuses in Brownsville and McAllen and at the The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio, which was cosponsored by Trinity University and the University of Texas–San Antonio. The recent Summerlee grant will allow Sendejo to continue the work of the LHP, documenting Chicana/Latina activism and feminism in Texas since the movement era and incorporating this research into the development and implementation of  inclusive pedagogies and methodologies. Forthcoming activities include a collaboration between Sendejo’s classes and those of Dr. Norma Cantú at Trinity University and research with SU students on the history of Chicana feminism and activism in San Antonio and Central Texas since the 1960s.

—May 2019

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo presented a paper titled “Spaces of Resistance: Chicana and Chicano Activism and Feminism in Austin since the Movement Era” in a special session organized by Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long at the Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conference, Oct. 23–26, in Austin. Sendejo also presented at the Texas Book Festival on Nov. 4 on her essay “The Space in Between: Exploring the Development of Chicana Feminist Thought in Central Texas,” which was recently published in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Feminism and Activism in the Movement Era (UT Press). Sendejo and fellow contributor Martha P. Cotera spoke about their essays, putting them into historical and contemporary contexts.

—November 2018

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo presented a paper, “Towards a Mujerista Ethnographic Approach: Embodied Knowledge and Feminist Anthropology in the Borderlands,” for the panel “Critical Chicana and Latinx Ethnography: Reflections from the Field,” which she cochaired at the American Anthropological Association’s 118th Meeting, in San Jose, CA, Nov. 15–18, 2018. Sendejo also served as an invited panelist at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA, on Nov. 8, 2018, where she presented “The Space in Between: Exploring the Development of Chicana Feminist Thought in Central Texas.”

—November 2018

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long coorganized three special sessions on Austin with Eliot Tretter (University of Calgary) for the Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conference. Associate Professor of Sociology Reggie Byron, Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe, Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo, and Simone Yoxall, class of 2019, presented in these sessions. Long also presented a paper in this session titled “Austin in the Era of Climate Urbanism.”

—October 2018

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo published “‘The Space in Between’: Exploring the Development of Chicana Feminist Thought in Central Texas” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era (UT Press 2018).

—September 2018

Latin American and Border Studies senior and Mellon Undergraduate Fellow Esther Ramos ’19 presented “The Shadow Beast Within: La Quinceañera as a Means of Cultural Resistance” on a panel titled “Cultural Expressions, Cultural Resistance” at the 2018 meeting of “El Mundo Zurdo,” hosted by the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa at Trinity University on May 18, 2018. Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo served as moderator for the panel and presented a paper on her own research at the conference as well. Her paper was titled “Cultural Politics in the Borderlands: Exploring the Embodiment of Religion and Spiritual Activism as Resistance.”

—July 2018

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo published “The Space In Between: Exploring the Emergence of Chicana Feminist Thought in Central Texas” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era (UT Press 2018). Through archival and ethnographic research, Sendejo traced the emergence of Chicana feminism to the Chicana Research and Learning Center, The University of Texas at Austin, and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, uncovering a previously unknown feminist intellectual legacy.

—July 2018

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo was invited to present as a part of a panel at the 2017 American Library Association Annual Meeting in Chicago, Ill. This panel, titled “Giving Voice to Diverse Collections Through Digitization,” included other professionals from Amherst College, Washington University, the University of Minnesota, and Washington State University. The panel focused on ways that digitization of material in archives and special collections can help to give voice to underrepresented groups in the historical narrative. Sendejo presented on the Latina History Project, a collaborative project between Sendejo, Professor of Feminist Studies Alison Kafer, and Southwestern’s Special Collections. Over 100 librarians and archivists were in attendance. The panel was organized and planned by Director of Special Collections & Archives Jason W. Dean.

—July 2017

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo presented “The Face of God Has Changed: Mujerista Ethnography and the Politics of Spirituality in the Borderlands” at the Inter University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR) conference in San Antonio on May 18. She was invited to present on a panel titled “Cultural Anthropology in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands: A Texas Perspective.” Sendejo spoke on her current book project and a forthcoming publication on the emergence of Chicana feminist thought in Texas, which she connected to Southwestern’s Latina History Project.

—June 2017

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo presented a paper titled “Spiritual Activist Pedagogies and Methodologies: Oral History as Recovery, Healing, and Resistance” at the Mujeres Activas En Letras Y Cambio Social (MALCS) Conference in Laramie, Wyoming on Aug. 6, 2016. Sendejo also presented her work with students in the Latina History Project at the National Chicana Studies Conference April 6–9, 2016 in Denver, Colo.

—October 2016

Associate Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo and alumna Tori Vasquez ’15 co-authored an article titled “‘Unboxing the Buried Seeds of My Belonging’: Latina/o History, Decolonized Pedagogies and the Politics of Inclusion” for the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology News Column. The article is about their work on the Latina History Project at Southwestern. Project contributors include current students Stephanie Garcia, Class of 2018, Denise Ovalle, Class of 2017, alumna Adriana Romero ’16, and project co-director Professor of Feminist Studies Alison Kafer.

—October 2016

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo presented a paper titled ‘The Space in Between’: Exploring the Development of Chicana Feminist Thought in Central Texas at the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Conference in Denver on April 7. Dr. Sendejo was also on a panel that consisted of contributors to the forthcoming anthology, ¡Chicana! New Narratives of Chicana Activism and Feminism in the Chicano Movement.

—April 2016

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo presented a paper titled, “On Embodied Knowledge and Religious Transformations: Liminality and Nepantla in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands” at the 2015 American Anthropological Association annual meeting in Denver, Colorado in December. Her presentation was part of an invited session titled, “Diaspora, Dreams, And Embodiment: Reflections on Latina/o Migrations, Methods, and the Making of Familiar Roads of Survival” sponsored by the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists and The Society of Humanist Anthropology.

—December 2015

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Brenda Sendejo was invited to do a reading of her recent publication, “Methodologies of the Spirit: Reclaiming Our Lady of Guadalupe and Discovering Tonantzin Within and Beyond the Nepantla of Academia” published in the anthology, “Fleshing the Spirit: Spirituality and Activism in Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous Women’s Lives.” The reading took place on Nov. 22 at 2 p.m. at Alma de Mujer Center for Social Change in Austin.

—November 2014