Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala gave an invited virtual talk on March 22 at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities on the topic of feminist collaboration. Bahrainwala spoke with graduate students in the seminar “Feminist Organizing” about possibilities for coalition building and the settler contours of “breaking ground” ideology in the academy.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala steered several student projects that were presented and recognized at a highly selective regional conference. Five Southwestern students traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to present their research at the 2023 Undergraduate Scholars Research Conference hosted by the Western States Communication Association. This marks the third conference Bahrainwala has mentored her students through. Faculty reviewers and the conference Chair commended the students afterward and attempted to recruit them to their graduate programs. These outstanding students also swept the awards, winning three out of the four Top Paper Awards presented at this conference. Katie Love ’23 won a Top Paper Award for her paper “It’s About Damn Time: Lizzo’s Impact on Fat Identity, Fat Celebrity, and Societal Perceptions of Fatness.” Preston Willis ’23 won a Top Paper Award for his paper “Queer Icons & Queering Iconography: Lady Gaga’s Liberal Use of Religion in Born This Way.” Jenna Baird ’23 presented her paper “The Animalization of Blackness within Disney’s Animated Films: New Imagined Ways of Being Racist.” Jordan Preston ’23 won a Top Paper Award for her paper “Miley Cyrus: White Feminism and Queernormativity in Contemporary Pop Culture.” Caden Cox ’23 presented his paper “Shaping Your Type: How Dating Apps Effect and Influence Queer Relationships For Men.” This is the second time Cox was invited to present at this conference and received a Top Paper Award from this conference last year. Southwestern students Nina Mitrofanova ’23 and Alli Ziehm ’23 were also invited to present. Congratulations to these outstanding students!

Professor of Communications Studies Valerie Renegar and Kristi Cole co-edited the book Refiguring Motherhood Beyond Biology, which was published this month. The book features essays that challenge the biological expectations of motherhood and features work by communication, rhetoric, and motherhood scholars across the country, including Southwestern’s Renegar, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala, Professor of Spanish Katy Ross, and her student Bailey Barlow ’23.

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.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala was an invited virtual speaker at the University of Nevada, Reno in an undergraduate seminar on New Media. The talk focused on feminist surveillance studies and surveillance ecosystems in public spaces built for children.