The Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program is accepting open submissions for the Award for Feminist Scholarship and Creative Work.

We invite submissions of published scholarship and creative works or completed exhibitions and performances from the past five years (2020). 

Eligable applicants must be faculty or research staff. 

Submission Process 
Submit the following in the electronic form:

1. a digital version or documentation of the work
2. a C.V. 
3. a 2-page introduction that contextualizes the work's impact using the review criteia: 
   • impact on field/discipline
   • contribution to the feminist project
   • attention to intersectionality
   • orginality

Submissions due: January 31st. 2026

Award Announced: late March 2026

Award Amount: $500

Award Committee: Members of the WGSS Program Advisory Board

Please submit materials to Halley Conrad (English): conradha@jmu.edu 

For more information on this award, contact Dr. Mary Thompson at thompsmx@jmu.edu or (540) 568-3758. Materials will be returned upon request.

List of Previous Winners

Faculty

2009 - “Quarantined: Women and the Partition” by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard

2010 - “Heroes of Hell Hole Swamp” by Dolores Flamiano

2011 - "Up and Down Purity" by Brillian Besi Muhonja

2012 - “Opposing ‘Both Sides’: Rhetorics, Reproductive Rights and Control of a Campus Women’s Center” by Matthew Ezzell

2013 - "Picturing the Past: Gender in National Geographic Reconstructions of Prehistoric Life" by Julie Solometo and Joshua Moss

2014 - "Enlightened Female Homoeroticism and Social Transformation in Catherine Trotter's Agnes de Castro" by Dawn Goode

2015 - "Sparrow" by Erica Cavanagh

2016 - "Putting Lesbians in their Place: Deconstructing Ex-Gay Discourses of Female Homosexuality in a Global Context" by Christine Robinson

2017 - "Celebrating Simms: The Story of the Lucy Simms School" by Mollie Godfrey and Sean McCarthy

2018 - "The Sound of Life: Or How Should We Hear a Fetal 'Voice'?" by Dr. Becca Howes-Mischel

           "Party Institutionalization and Women's Representation in Democratic Brazil" by Dr. Kristin Wylie

Graduate Students

2014 - "Balkan Women" by Daria White

Undergraduate Students

2010 - “The Romance of the Gas Oven: Academia and the Media’s Love Affair with the Suicide of Sylvia Plath” by Mitch Hobza

2011 - “The Making of a Migrant Mother: Female Okie Identity in Dust Bowl-Era SanJoaquin Valley” by Leela Pereira

2012 - "Only Through Men" by Brooke Covington

2013 - "Mammies and Memoirs" by Anders Bruce 

2014 - "Concepts of Women's Fashion and Beauty in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany" by David Motley

2015 - "Empowering Jewish Women with Water: The Mikveh" by Allison Kaye

There are two ways for classes to count for WGSS credit:

1. Courses that are not in the official WGSS curriculum can still be counted for WGSS credit by using course directives.

If you are teaching a course that is not in the curriculum, it can still be approved to count for WGSS credit (and advertised to WGSS minors). Approval is based on the instructor’s qualifications, the amount of gender/sexuality content in the course, and opportunities afforded to students to focus assignments on gender/sexuality. For more information or to propose a course for WGSS credit, contact the WGSS coordinator. 

2. Propose a cross-listing. 

A course that is established (or in the process of being established) in an academic unit may be cross-listed with WGSS when approved by the instructor, the AUH, and the WGSS Coordinator. Cross-listing creates a new WGSS catalog number to correspond with the home unit’s number (for example, ENG/WGSS 368). For more information about this process, contact the WGSS Coordinator.

Can I propose a special topics WGSS course?

Yes! WGSS 300 is a special topics course whose content varies. Previous topics have included Marriage Equality; Feminist Zines; Gender, Art and the Body Politic; and Sexuality, Power and Violence. To propose a new topic for this course, submit a draft syllabus (including primary and secondary sources) and your C.V. to the WGSS Coordinator for review by the WGSS Advisory Board.

Can I teach WGSS 200 “Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies”?

Yes! WGSS 200 is taught by an interdisciplinary faculty—including some who had not taught it prior to working at JMU—from across CAL and other colleges. Tenure-track faculty who are interested in teaching the course will need permission from their AUHs. For more information, contact the WGSS Coordinator.

Questions? Please email the program coordinator.