Thomas.E.2561_8.5.2025_Transcript

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0:10
Stephanie Rytilhati: So, can you start out by stating your name, age, and association with the GWS Department at UW-Madison, including how long you've been here?

0:19
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: Hi, I'm Edwin Elizabeth Thomas. I am a soon-to-be second-year PhD student in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies. I've been here a year, and, yeah, I'm also the one behind the oral history program that we're doing, the whole history initiative that we're doing as part of the 50-year anniversary of the department.

0:42
Stephanie Rytilhati: Great, thank you. So, what drew you to gender and women's studies initially, and specifically what was happening in your family, your life, your community, and the larger world context that made this feel important to you?

0:54
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: So my background is actually in public health. I was, I was always working in public health prior to starting a PhD program. I didn't follow the traditional academic ladder or the academic pipeline. Worked for several years in global health, and I think I was disillusioned by the state of the world and how global health operates and functions in an increasingly complex world, and how it perhaps did not look critically enough in how it practices and perpetuates systems of identity and oppression that I think were left, that left a lot wanting. And public health for me was no longer the space that allowed for that kind of work, and when I saw that-- I happen to follow Professor Lee Sendrovich on Twitter, and a couple of years ago, she's a star in my field, and a couple of years ago, I saw her post on her Twitter that, hey, we're offering this PhD, brand new PhD program, and I looked at the interdisciplinary, I was attracted to the interdisciplinary nature of the program, and how it engaged with traditional disciplines while infusing a lens of criticality and a discipline in its own right, arguably. Inarguably, depending on who you ask. So, yeah, as somebody who also occupies a slightly different from the norm type of identity position, and my positionality, so to speak, I've found it kind of troublesome to be in traditional spaces of work and higher education. And so, one of the reasons of coming to Gender and Women's Studies is I didn't want my identity, I actually didn't want my identity to be front and center. I wanted it to be invisible. And I think that's one of the reasons that drew me to Gender and Women's Studies, where I can go behind and blend my identity can no longer, need not matter, but my work and how my identity melds into my work can take center stage. In any other traditional discipline, where people like me are not as present, that may not happen. I would be particularized, I would be othered, I would be visibleized in ways that are not ideal. And for me, actually, which I think is probably a little strange, gender and women's studies actually affords me the ability to actually be an objective researcher in, with all that its, with all that it entails, by taking myself out of the equation in that way.

3:41
Stephanie Rytilhati: So, you've talked about this a little bit, but you did enter, the field was very established at this point, but the program, the PhD program at UW-Madison is new. And you've articulated what drew you to it, and what you've seen as the benefits, but have you encountered any professional risks by folding global health into this framework, and how did others view your involvement in gender and women's studies? So, did you get any reaction from. peers, or family members, or community partners that you engaged with that questioned why you took this path?

4:13
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: Yeah, my mentor, I had a mentor prior to coming to UW-Madison who was my professional and academic mentor, and she was quite disappointed at my decision. It was either this, or I got into a PhD program in global health at Tulane University. And she would be my chair there, and my advisor over there, had I picked that program. But I chose a lesser-known program, a new program, a riskier program. And perhaps a less richer program. Because I needed to, I wanted to change how my work could look. I wanted to see what… I could bring, and what the discipline could give me in terms of expanding my horizons. There were risks associated with that. Not everybody instantly thinks of a gender and women's studies PhD as somebody who's capable of doing public health as is traditionally understood. I remember Keisha, no, actually, I remember Purnell, who was DGS at the time of my admission, saying that, you know, when you go into the workspace, you're gonna have to advocate, when you're applying for jobs, you're gonna have to advocate why a gender and women's studies PhD is actually crucial to the work you're doing. People may not instantly understand. And I was well aware of that. My advisor was disappointed because she felt that I would be getting a very different kind of education. Even though I told her I'm actually taking multiple quantitative courses. I'm doing statistics, I'm doing demography, while doing feminist theory. And that blend is actually what I'm interested in. But she was still concerned that the education that I'm setting myself up for, is actually gonna set me back. And I'm not sure yet, but it's a risk worth taking, in my opinion. The kind of education that I've received so far, if not interdisciplinary, has been multidisciplinary. The interdisciplinary work is what, I think, unfortunately, for better or for worse, the students have to do themselves. And take it to that extra mile. By the time I got here, obviously, gender and women's studies has been, is been, and has been an established field. The major debates, foundational debates of the field have more or less passed. Yet, there are some critical questions that remain as to how the field continues to engage, for instance, with the Global South. Gender and women's studies in America is very American, in that sense, in its viewpoint, in its worldview. And the role of the United States in the world is one that, today, gets a renewed sense of scrutiny and attention. And gender and women's studies resistance to, but also culpability of being part of the wider empire of the United States. And so that is something that we see, and this is perhaps bleeding into another question, but that is also what we see in terms of how the discipline responds to ongoing crises around the world, political upheaval, and its response to, or lack of response to critical issues. We're at a juncture, we're at a juncture where settler colonialism is a renewed conversation, and is now front and center. That perhaps makes many people question the very value of the field in itself. And that in it, I don't think is an existential question, but one that can renew the rigor of the field. So, yeah, it's not, it could be, I think it's both things. It's emerging and established. Established in the sense it's been here for so long, it's part of the institution now. It's emerging in the sense that it's always in flux. It occupies a place from, and this is from my interviews with other people, it seems to always occupy a place of precarity and importance at the same time. And it, therefore, looks at its place in the university with a critical lens, but also one that is always looking behind its back. As one that may or may not come under scrutiny. Even if that's necessarily the case or not. I remember reading a study about this in one of our classes where somebody argued that we need to get out of this deficit mindset. Gender and women's studies is actually here to stay and has been for a long time. In fact, many departments, at the time it was written, many departments were going through a growth phase. I think things have since changed. But yes, we can answer that in another question.

9:24
Stephanie Rytilhati: This question might take you a little bit more into your role as a researcher who's been interviewing people for the last several months about the formation of the program and the field at UW-Madison. And from these conversations, what challenges did gender and women's studies face as part of the larger university structure, and you've gotten to this a little bit, but what do you see as what's changed and remained the same over time?

9:44
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: Yeah, this, my answer to this will largely rely on what I've heard, and it's been interesting, because there are various constituencies that I'm seeing now that respond to this question very differently. I had Professor Janet Hyde, who sent me, who's one of our Emirati faculty, a pioneer in feminist psychology. And when she sent me in her video, one thing she said does, you know, I see a lot of critical questions about the department in the university. And I would like to say that, and she went into her talking about how the department has actually successfully navigated and found its place in the university thanks to some critical people. That, along with Professor Virginia Sapiro, who was once chair of this department, both of them sort of reflected to me how, actually, their goal was this all along. They wanted the department, the program, as it was for them, to eventually turn in the department and actually be an integral cog of the university. One that produces graduates, one that produces leading scholars, and one that is academically rigorous and at the top of its game. And then you have people who are currently in that position. The scholars themselves, and I'm talking about. Either grad students who I've been speaking with, either on record or off-record. And they share a different perspective, where they feel like, actually, the scholarship that we are producing and the scholars we are producing are going through precarious times of their own right now. What does it mean to be a GWS scholar in a neoliberal university that hardly pays them enough for a living wage? What does it mean to be part of a department that may not respond to political situations as and when they arise, even if it's critical to our scholarship? What does it mean to basically perpetuate structures that are kind of inequitable, despite and because of the department's close association with the university? So there is that constituency. There's a third constituency of the, what's gained and what's lost narrative. So this is a group of people who have been here, let's say, the last 10 years, or 5 years. Well, 5 to 10 years, and these group of professors would heavily rely on that very, I would say there's a lot of truth to that narrative, you know? We have gained institutionalization, we have gained the power to award terminal degrees. We have gained, we have grown as a department, a lot more than many other departments around the country. We started a PhD program right after COVID. We are navigating this PhD program during interesting times. We have taken on several tenure-track faculty. That's what's gained. What's lost is perhaps a certain radical nature of the program, which is in its history. The history of this program is one that was fought, and I've had the chance to go through some documents in the archive. Some tough words exchange. The history of the program has its roots in tough words exchanged among very smart people who passionately cared about the existence of this program, wanted it to be there. But not, wanted it in a way that was felt right to them, and that involved emotion, that involved passion, and that involved political engagement. We don't do that anymore, for better or for worse. And that is where the difference lies. And I think I'm noticing a fourth constituency of people, and this answer seems to be going on and on. In times of trouble, there's a group of people who insists that we need to maintain internal cohesion and solidarity, because if we don't have that, then what remains? And so, I can see people who then would want to paper over some of the cracks by saying, but at least we have our scholarship. We have each other, we have community, and that's what'll get us through. And regardless, and that's valid, too. That regardless of whatever issues GWS may have, for a lot of people, GWS is the only place they can call home in the university. They cannot call another's, and mind you, GWS is not the only critical department in the university. Geography is, sociology is, political science is. So it's not as though other departments are not doing critically engaged, politically charged work. It's just that there's a history of not wanting to call GWS home, or other departments home. And in times of trouble, the flock comes back returning. And saying that it's the community and cohesion that'll get us through.I'm forgetting the question.

15:13
Stephanie Rytilhati: I think you did a great job of answering the question, so we were talking about, like, what does it mean to be part of the larger university structure. What is gained and lost by being within the structure, and then, like, how does gender and women's studies exist with this infiltrative frame, but also be part of this larger apparatus, and I think that goes really well into the other question in this section, is when you step outside of that space, what is the relationship between the program and what's happening in the wider world? So, as local as Madison, Wisconsin, and, well, the university would be the most local, but the larger community, and then beyond. And during its formation, when the program started in the 70s, what was Madison like, and were there issues in the community that trickled over into the dynamics of the program, and is that still happening in the same way?

16:17
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: So yeah, a couple of parts to this question. I'll answer the first part first, obviously, which is, I wanted to recount what were some of the key political issues. So, the encampment had ended prior to me joining. Had just about ended, and a few months into my joining the program, our cohort experienced the re-election of the current president. And what stuck out to me was how the next day we had 810, which was Emergence and Transformation of GWS, incidentally enough, which was taught by Professor Keisha Lindsay. And she actually changed her whole class. Because right that morning was her class, 8:15 in the morning, right after we got to know the result overnight. I could sense that she was also a little frazzled. She had, I think, not expected this. She can speak for herself, but we were all raw. I was distantly raw from it. I had a different reaction to it, because I'm not from this country. My peers were a lot more affected, and I remember Keisha just straight up saying, so, how are we feeling about this? It had nothing to do with the emergence and transformation of GWS. But we had to talk about it. You cannot not talk about it. And she had us go through the exit polls, I remember, to complicate for us our understanding of race, gender, and identity, in terms of voting. I think there were some, there are and continue to be, some assumptions about who the kinds of people who vote for certain candidates are, and this election kind of troubled those assumptions. And she wanted us to really engage with the uncomfortable nature of some of those ideas. And while talking through what is perhaps potentially in store. I thought that that was very helpful, and I remember Judy, our chair at the time, writing to us saying that our work is now more important than, I believe that our work is actually now more important than ever before. And I think, so, that was actually one of the big things that happen to us, and what is the second part of the question?

18:59
Stephanie Rytilhati: So, I asked you a lot of questions. What is the relationship between the department and what's happening outside of it? So, in Madison, the larger world, and you're articulating the current moment, but also, like, when it was founded. It was in this incubator stage, like, what was the relationship, like, what if people revealed about what was happening locally, or nationally, or internationally that influenced some of the trajectories and desires that were animating the department?

19:18
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: It was a time of immense social change, from what I could remember, from what people said, and what I could, from what I've read. When the program was founded, it was at the backdrop of several movements. It was trying to create a space for women's issues as we know it in an academy that, number one, was still hesitant on co-education as a concept, but also had a traditional bent to traditional disciplines that did not take into account a certain type of perspective. So women's studies in itself was not the only thing that was happening. And if you look at the archives, you will see that women's, the proposal for women's studies was actually in affirmative action plans that actually proposed a whole number of things. It was increasing, making sure pay equity was happening between faculty. It was making sure that there were sufficient representation of women faculty. It was making sure that there are perspectives that we're currently missing in traditional disciplines and women's, and the development of a women's studies program. So it was a both-and kind of an approach, where the development of women's studies in the United States was then, and especially in this university, was then mixed and co-joined with a couple of other moments in history, in this country's history that was largely got to do with affirmative action, which today is under attack. And it was an interesting moment to get that pushed through. It took a lot of resistance, not in the traditional sense of, no, we don't want to do it, because the federal government was, I think, on the university's behind to get it done, but in the sense that there were procedural issues that the university administration was sitting on, with regard to how it should look, pushing through a report, taking action on a plan submitted by the Association of Faculty Women. And I think this is where Serena Pondrum, I believe, plays a crucial role, controversial role, in balancing that, doing this balancing act between women's groups, but also, and we get to see early on, it's almost like, I would say, very interesting. It's almost like a foresight into the kind of issues, perhaps, that Gender and Women's Studies Department would face. The kind of position that Serena Pondrum, and the kind of question she was getting. Perhaps today a chair of a depart-- of a gender and women's studies department would face similar questions. And some of the founding faculty of te women's studies program was very much on that radical side, pushing for a space in the university. But incidentally enough, the first chair… of the program, Jane Piliavin, who I also had the chance to speak with, was not really a avowed feminist at the time. She never called herself that. Kind of hesitant about it. And yet today, she wore a pin on her during her interview, saying, resist every damn day. How cyclical. And things fell in place. I remember that she…,I read into the, in one of the, I think, I remember, perhaps it was Stephanie who had written that, she didn't expect all her demands to be met with regard to her taking on, she was from Home Ec, I believe. And she didn't expect her demands to be met in order to be chair. But her demands were met and more. Because I believe the university wanted to assuage certain kind of voices by bringing it in, but not completely in. So we were both metaphorically and physically in the periphery. And the 209, not Brooks Street, House, is perhaps a symbol of that. Um, we have since come a long way, we have moved a couple of times, we've moved into the Commerce Building, which is now Ingraham Hall, we're right now in Sterling Hall, next year we're moving into the Irving and Dorothy Levi Hall. And I believe each physical space sort of also represents something about the program slash department, where they are moving into, I mean, it's great. We have a new space, it's a brand new building, we get to be with other programs that perhaps are seemingly more in touch with us than in the location we are right now. At the same time, it's a smaller space. And there are questions to be read about how the university looks at and treats some of its most important departments. We're important because we provide important 100-level and undergraduate courses for an ever-widening student body. Every year, the student body keeps increasing, and the university needs courses, and we do that. But how much we're getting back in return is something that I've heard different perspectives on. I do not know where I went with that answer.

24:43
Stephanie Rytilhati: It was a really nice articulation of the trajectory of the department and growing, and the compromises that immediately had to be made from the beginning, and how they're still present in different ways, and how those tied into space and community on multiple factors. So I think the next question kind of swings a little bit more into, like, interdisciplinary frameworks, but is also really critical to everything you've been discussing. And, it is how has woman, as the subject of then-women's studies to the now, gender and women's studies evolved?

25:15
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: Yeah, I think from my, from talking to the interviewees for this project, the large sense that I've gotten is that, actually, the question of woman has always been the question of gender. And the question of gender, in many ways, is tied into the question of woman, in the sense of how the category is then constituted. I believe, by the time I had gotten here, many of those foundational debates, like I said, were settled. Yet, I feel that the department has a long way to go in terms of dealing with the transnational perspective of women, of gender, of man, of non-binary. Of any category, the department's very comfortable, in an American sense, of how that's constituted. But the minute we go across the borders, we tend to be a little more shaky in its perspective. And from what I understood, speaking with everyone, more or less, everyone's been very comfortable with that transition of talking from, talking to a more expansive sense of gender. Because, and I think I would credit queer theory for that. Because we are then now able to talk about the category of, and that is not to completely do away with the category of women. But it's to then talk about the category of women as constitutive. As one that is historically, again, constituted as one that is a category that's always changing. As one that is not a stable, ahistorical thing that lasts in a particular shape and form across time, but one that constantly has shaky borders, so to speak. And I believe the department does a very good job of doing that, and it has been, so the woman of color in curriculum project, I believe it was called, was one of the major transformations in the 80s, I believe. That was actually one of the major things that helped the then-program to infuse ideas, complicated ideas of race, into the program where it perhaps did not deal with as much before. And I was looking into the archives, and that was something that was actually university-wide, not just for the program in particular. And again, it was responding to a particular moment in time where those kinds of university-wide projects were considered acceptable. Today, we are not in that kind of space. But fortunately, we know, and I think, sometimes there's this perception that gender and women's studies departments are always just fighting with each other about certain foundational aspects, and I think that it's in our strength that we are constantly debating some of the foundational ideas of what we work with, because it makes dealing with external conflict part of our skin, part of our blood, part of our fabric. And so, when we have to work with ongoing challenges on gender, nationally and politically, we know what to say, we know what to do, without having to make it a big fight. We know that we have, we are actually some of the most comfortable people in working through the nuances of gender without having to mudsling anyone. Because this is what we do on a day-to-day in the department with our peers, where we really get into the nitty gritty of things, and sometimes that's uncomfortable. But, yeah, I think that there is always room and scope to play and make uncomfortable the idea of woman. And, yeah, and I think the department will get there.

29:37
Stephanie Rytilhati: So, this question, I think is really interesting from your perspective as a graduate student, and it's how do you understand the gender and women's studies experience at UW-Madison today, compared to other institutions?

29:53
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: I'm sorry, did I tickmark that question?

29:55
Stephanie Rytilhati: You did circle that question.

29:59
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: I think I will pass. I don't know why I did that.

30:02
Stephanie Rytilhati: So the next one, I think is a really, like, I think you've encompassed this in two, like, how you've been synthesizing everything, but what is the promise and potential of a GWS PhD program, 50 years into the department's evolution?

30:18
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: So I found out we actually wanted to do a PhD program for much longer-- so, you just need to click it again. No, that's okay. I actually found out that the department's been wanting to do a PhD program much earlier, and it was because of budgetary concerns during the time of a particular governor in Wisconsin's historic politics that we could not do this, or start this program much earlier. So we're actually much later to the game than a lot of departments around the country, but I think that, and this is interesting, because we are a terminal degree awarding department now. Hey, that's big. At the same time. I think for a lot of people, it was concerning back in the day to then think of what the department is today, as somebody that's just providing credentials, and as somebody that's more focused on pushing out graduates than it is to perhaps provide a radical education. I think it's both. I think a PhD program here, the promise is that we are prepared for an exciting and troubling world with the right set of tools to understand critically how gender operates in conjunction with other social phenomenon. And the trouble with that, however, is that, for some people, that means that we are perhaps not offering enough of a interdisciplinary education by fixating on a gender and women's studies PhD program. I remember speaking to Professor Hyde, and she was very insistent in all her, I've heard a couple of her older interviews. She was actually very insistent that there not be a standalone gender and women's studies program. That it be either a joint program, or you do gender and women's studies major, declare a PhD, minor sorry, in a traditional disciplines PhD program, in order to keep that interdisciplinary nature of gender and women's studies. That is yet to be worked out. I don't think there is a clear-cut answer of how our department's doing on that front, yet, so far, because we are still in a nascent stage. But I believe the burden of making the program from multidisciplinary to interdisciplinary, number one, is largely dependent on the student body themselves. Is largely dependent on advisors who can navigate the system such that you create a program that is interdisciplinary. And for better or for worse, we are a department that has largely younger tenure-track faculty who are first-time advisors. And so, everyone's in a learning curve, so to speak. So that is challenging. And number three, it depends on the kind of traditional discipline you're also drawing from. So, I believe that if you're drawing from public health, from sociology, there is an extra step, a couple of steps to take in order to make a gender and women's studies education interdisciplinary. It doesn't automatically just happen. However, if you're, and one of the concentration areas is LGBTQ studies. I believe it's different. I believe it's not the same thing. And so, it's largely dependent on a lot of things like those. The potential is that each of us are able and have the ability to transform our home disciplines if we have one that is not GWS. Co-home department, so to speak. And that is what this kind of education sets us up to do. We are able to take this back and make it such that we are not just pushing the boundaries of our discipline, but critiquing existing structures as well, both conceptually and structurally. And so yeah, that is the promise and potential. You can use this in the ad for the next PhD cohort.

35:10
Stephanie Rytilhati: That's perfect. So the last question, then, to kind of pull everything together, and you touched on this a little bit with, like, how you were taking the promise and the potential of the PhD in other areas. But really, what does it mean to teach or study GWS during the current moment, which is really marked by uncertain and unprecedented times in the US?

35:33
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: I would like to remind Americans that you guys are not the only ones during uncertain times. Decenter yourselves, is the first big thing I would like to tell people. The world has been going through chance since time immemorial. This country was actually built on violence. I come from a country that's been going through chance since its independence in 1947. We've had an autocratic rule since 2014, officially. And so, for me, to study GWS, is still a privilege, I would say, to be able to study in an environment that I think is relatively free, so far. That has world-class faculty, that is able to translate some of the more difficult moments in ways that are both empathetic and rigorous. You can't have any one. And what it means to study GWS, then, is that you need the empathy and you need the rigor to do this kind of work. And it forces you to have both, or you're just not going to be a good scholar. And somebody once told me this, and this is in the Indian context, I was telling a friend of mine that, you know, actually working in this space is so hard now because of how autocratic things are, we're not getting access to information, structures are being toned down. And she said, yes, all that is true, but it's also the most exciting time to be doing the work we do. Because you get to see firsthand and study firsthand how to explain this moment in a way that is not just about your current feeling about it, but you can locate it in a historical context. You can place it in a transnational perspective. You can talk about the future by looking at its history. You can work with community in ways that are meaningful. And that, I believe, is what it means to study GWS. What it means to teach GWS as a teaching assistant is very difficult. I remember one of our graduate students saying how hard it has been to respond to the current political time and what that means for students, because students turn to us as teaching assistants, we are the first sort of line of control, line of, first in the line of attack, in terms of, well, not attack, but you know what I mean. When students go to, with their questions about, how do I deal with this moment? And we don't have the answers all the time. We, in fact, sometimes get back to them with more questions. But it's not a great time to teach GWS, especially if you're in the lower, if you're lower in the totem pole. You can feel incredibly under attack, you're also severely underpaid. You have a huge load of students, you're doing your own work, and you have students relying on you for a certain kind of emotional care work, which is, I would argue, necessary sometimes to undertake, because for a lot of them, this is the only place where they might get it. And for some of them, very few of them, it could mean life and death. But I want those students to also know that your TAs are many of them in a life-and-death situation. So, teaching GWS then becomes hard, because you're constantly navigating these bombs that you're hoping not to step on. And it should get better, things should get better.

39:29
Stephanie Rytilhati: Thank you. Is there anything, any final comments or thoughts or anything that you want to add that we've gone through in conversations, either your own experiences, or any observations you want to lift from?

39:45
Edwin Elizabeth Thomas: I read someone's thesis about talking about, this was a thesis done, I think, in the '80s, and I found this in the archives, about the women's studies program at UW-Madison, and they were talking about the political survival of a non-traditional program, I believe was the title of their thesis. And they spoke about the dialectical relationship between the program, which was then a program, and the university administration. One that is always and constantly evolving. One that is politically charged, yet not only constitutive of politics, and one that has a mutually beneficial and resourceful relationship. And one of the recommendations in that dissertation was that the program should not lose its political edge, and should actively engage its community, because that actually helps this dialectical relationship more than we think. And I thought that that, and this was in the '80s, so things were much different, but I think that's something that the department can perhaps think of as it thinks of its future, and as it deals with this dialectical relationship with the university, with the community, and with society at large, as one, yes, of balance, but as also one of potential. That's the other thing I wanted to add. Thank you.