Faculty
Assistant Professor and Academic Advisor
Email:听tina.beyene@csun.edu
Phone: (818) 677-4475
Office location: JR 340E
Assistant Professor
Email:听alyssa.collins@csun.edu
Alyssa's Biography
Alyssa Collins is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Women鈥檚 Studies at 快活林性息. She received her PhD from the University of Virginia in 2019 and served as the inaugural Octavia E. Butler Fellow at the Huntington Library from 2021-22. Her research focuses on black life, black feminist thought, embodiment and humanity, and technology as represented in the work of Octavia E. Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and other black speculative fiction writers.听
听
Assistant Professor
Office location: JR 340
Liliana's Biography
Dr. Liliana C. Gonz谩lez holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature and Cultures from the University of Arizona. Dr. Gonz谩lez鈥檚 work is at the intersections of Chicanx, Latinx, and Latin American cultural studies, gender studies, and queer theory. She teaches courses on masculinities, Mexican culture, Chicanx Literature, and narco culture. Before joining 快活林性息 she was an Assistant Professor of Latinx Literature, Culture, and Theory at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 听Dr. Gonz谩lez is co-editor of the two-volume Journal of Lesbian Studies Special Issue 鈥淐hicana Lesbians: Re-Engaging the Iconic Text Our Mothers Warned Us About鈥� (2023).听
Select Publications:听
鈥淧aint Me a Dangerous Woman: A Conversation About tatiana de la tierra鈥檚 Lesbian Poetics and Librarianship鈥� with Lizeth Zepeda, Grabbing tea. Volume 2, Queer conversations on archives and practice. 听Eds. Smith-Cruz, S. and Howard, S.A. Library Juice Press听
鈥淐hicana Lesbians: Re-Engaging the Iconic Text Our Mothers Warned Us About鈥� Edited with Stacy I. Mac铆as, Special Issue Vol. 1& 2, 听Volume 27, Issue 3 & 4 (2023)
鈥淏order Fictions.鈥� The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction 1980鈥�2020 1 (2022): 1-10.听
鈥淣ostalgia for a Future: Queer Longings and Lesbian Desire in Ana Castillo鈥檚 The Mixquiahuala Letters,鈥� Hern谩ndez, Bernadine, and Karen Roybal, eds. Transnational Chicanx Perspectives on Ana Castillo. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021.
鈥淨ueerness in Latina/o/x Literature鈥� Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latina/o Literature, Oxford University Press. 2019.听
Professor
Email:听sheena.malhotra@csun.edu
Phone: (818) 677-7217
Office location: JR 340C
Website:
Sheena Biography
Sheena Malhotra is a Professor & Chair of Gender & Women鈥檚 Studies as well as Director for the MA in Humanities Program at California State University, Northridge.听
She received her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico (1999) in Communication Studies with an emphasis on gender, media, and intercultural communication. Her academic research and articles focus on the intersections of gender, media, technology and global culture, with a postcolonial analysis of media in India and the diaspora. Her research interests range from Hindi films and call centers in India to racialized implications of silences and bridgework.
Dr. Malhotra has experience in the Indian film and television industries. Prior to earning her Ph.D. degree, she worked as an Executive Producer and Commissioning Editor of Programs for BiTV (Business India Television), one of the alternative, private television networks in India. She has also worked in the Indian film industry as an Assistant Director to Shekhar Kapur (director of听Bandit Queen听and听Elizabeth). Dr. Malhotra began teaching as an Assistant Professor in the Women's Studies department at 快活林性息 in Fall, 2000. She teaches courses on women and media, as well as general GWS classes. In 2024, she was the recipient听of the Satrang Legacy Award for service and advocacy for the South Asian queer community in Southern California.
Dr. Malhotra has served in many administrative roles across the university, including Director of Queer Studies (2019-24) and Academic Director of the MA in Humanities Program (2012 to present). She is also the Faculty Lead for the 快活林性息 Collaboration with the University of Lahore. In the past, she served as the Associate Dean of the College of Humanities (2017-2019), Special Assistant to the Dean (2016-17) and as the Chair of the Gender and Women's Studies from 2009-2013). She was the Founding Director of the Queer Studies Program (serving from 2008-2012) and has also directed the Women's Resource and Research Center, served as advisor to the Women's Studies Student Association (WSSA) and Violent Acts Grounded (VAG).听 Dr. Malhotra was the GWS Departmental Advisor for many years (2004-08, 2013-17, and 2019-21). She also served on the Board of听Satrang, a community organization that serves the South Asian LGBTQ community in Southern California.
Books
Dr. Malhotra has co-edited an anthology on feminism and silence with Dr. Carrillo Rowe, Silence and Power: Feminist Reflections at the Edges of Sound听(2013) (Palgrave MacMillan).
Silence, Feminism, Power: Reflections at the Edges of Sound听interrogates the often-unexamined assumption that silence is oppressive, to consider the multiple possibilities silence enables. The equation between voice and power informs feminist theory and activism, creating an imperative that the oppressed must 'come to voice.' Alternately, this volume explores the diverse and complex ways that differently situated groups and individuals deploy power through silence. Authors engage questions like: What forms of resistance and healing do silence make possible? What alliances might be enabled by learning to read silences? Under what conditions is it productive to move between voice and silence? The book is thematically organized to explore: Intersectionality, Privilege, and Alliances; Academia and Knowledge Production; Community, Family, and Intimacy; Memory, Healing, and Power. Essays feature diverse feminist reflections on the nuanced relationship between silence and voice to foreground the creative, healing, meditative, generative and resistive power our silences engender.
She has also co-authored a book with Aimee Carrillo Rowe and Kimberlee Perez entitled听Answer The Call: Virtual Migrations in Indian Call Centers听(2013, University of Minnesota Press).
Answer The Call听asks what the personal and political consequences of being a "virtual American" in India are.
Drawing from interviews with agents, trainers, managers, and CEOs at call centers in Bangalore and Mumbai,听Answer the Call听shows that workers in call centers are not quite in India or America but rather in a state of 鈥渧irtual migration.鈥� Encouraged to steep themselves in American culture, the agents come to internalize and perform Americanness for Americans鈥攁nd each other.
Answer the Call听takes on the investigation of call centers in India and uses that case study to help us to theorize, in more supple and nuanced ways, the multiple shifts in consciousness and social imaginaries that contemporary globalizing forces enable.
鈥擩ane Desmond, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Associate Professor and Director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program
Email:听khanum.shaikh@csun.edu
Phone: (818) 677-7299
Office location: JR 340L
Khanum's Biography
Khanum Shaikh is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women鈥檚 Studies at California State University, Northridge (快活林性息). She currently serves as Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at 快活林性息. She also co-directs the Civil Discourse and Social Change initiative, a cross-campus and interdisciplinary initiative that foregrounds thinking and action grounded in principles of social justice. She earned her Ph D. in Gender Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2009. Prior to joining 快活林性息 she was a University of California Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and then a Research Fellow at the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas program at San Francisco State University. Her research interests include transnational feminist theories; Islam, gender and religious agency; gender and/in social movements; and race/racialization of North American Muslims. She has published in numerous journals including: Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism; Journal of Middle East Women鈥檚 Studies; Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies; Feminist Formations; and Feminist Studies (forthcoming). She has lived most of her life between Los Angeles and Lahore.
Retired/ Emiritus Faculty
Professor
Email:听florence.kyomugisha@csun.edu
Phone: (818) 677-5662
Office location: JR 340M
Florence's Biography
Dr. Florence Kyomugisha is Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at California State University, Northridge
Florence Kyomugisha received her Ph.D. in Urban Studies in 2003 from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Dr. Kyomugisha also received a Graduate Certificate in Women鈥檚 Studies and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and a BA in Political Science and Public Administration from Makerere University, Kampala Uganda.
Her research, which she has conducted in the USA and Uganda focuses on families and health issues in women and minority populations. Dr Kyomugisha also worked as an Associate Researcher with the Medical College of Wisconsin (1998-2002) and an Administrative Program Specialist, Equal Opportunity Programs at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (1991- 1997).
Dr. Kyomugisha teaches courses on Women and Health, Feminist Research Methods, Intersections of Gender, Race, Class and Sexuality, Women, Gender and Global Development and Community Service. She also teaches Women鈥檚 Studies General Education Courses (Women as Agents of Change and Women, Work and Family).
Professor
Email:听breny.mendoza@csun.edu
Phone: (818) 677-5641
Office location: JR 340
Breny's Biography
Dr. Breny Mendoza is Professor of the Department of Gender and Women's Studies and Academic Lead of the M.A. program in Diverse Community Development Leadership at California State University, Northridge.
She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in City and Regional Planning with an emphasis on feminist theory and Latin American Studies. 听Her BA and MA in Political Science were obtained from the Ruprecht-Karl University of Heidelberg and the Free University of Berlin in Germany. Her research is focused in the areas of feminist decolonial theory, political theory, transnational feminism, and Latin American Studies.听
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Books and articles
Breny Mendoza鈥檚 work has appeared in book chapters in the US, Brazil, Spain, Argentina and Colombia and in journals such as听Signs, Feminist Studies, Feminist Theory, Women鈥檚 Studies Quarterly, feminist@law,听Latin American & Caribbean Ethnic Studies- LACES, Tapuya, Journal of World Philosophies听and听Mesoamerica, Revista Centroamericana de Ciencias Sociales and Istmo.听She has published three books:听Sintiendose Mujer, Pensandose Feminista听(Editorial Guaymuras,1996), a book about the making of the feminist movement in Honduras,听Rethinking Latin American Feminisms听(LASP, Cornell University, 2000),听co-edited with Debra Castillo and Mary Jo Dudley a book based on a conference held at Cornell University in 1999 and the single-authored book听Ensayos de Cr铆tica Feminista en Nuestra Am茅rica.听The book was published in October 2014 by Editorial Herder Mexico as the first publication of their new book series on Latin American decolonial feminisms. The book compiles nineteen essays that offer poignant critiques of Latin American feminisms, Western feminist theories, postcolonialism, queer theory, Marxism, theories of empire and the new theories of decoloniality in Latin America.
Her latest articles are:
鈥淟a Cuesti贸n del Imperio Espa帽ol y la Leyenda Negra鈥� In:听E-Humanista:听Journal of Iberian Studies, College of Letters and Science of the University of California Santa Barbara, United States
"Presentacio虂n. Debate sobre la colonialidad y los feminismos descoloniales en los sures globales鈥� With Karina Ochoa Mun虄oz.听Tabula Rasa, 38,听11-23, (2021)
"Latin American Decolonial Feminist Philosophy of Knowledge Production鈥� with Sandra Harding. In:听The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Philosophy of Science. New York, Routledge pp. 104-116 (2021).
听鈥淒ecolonial Theories in Comparison鈥澨�Journal of听World Philosophies听Vol. 5 No. 1, Indiana University Press (2020).
"Can the Subaltern save us?"听,听听
"Colonial Connections" in听Feminist Studies听Volume 43, Number 3 (2017)听
听鈥淐oloniality of Gender and Power: From Postcoloniality to Decoloniality鈥� 听in the听Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory听in April, 2015,
听Forthcoming book:听Colonialidad, G茅nero y Democracia, Editorial Akal, 2022.
Courses taught:
- GWS 440 Latin American Feminisms听
- GWS 430 Global Sexualities
- GWS 400 Senior Seminar
- GWS 370 Women and Violence
- GWS 350 Gender, Race, Class, and Sexuality
- GWS 340 Women and Global Development
- GWS 305 Women鈥檚 Studies Community Service Learning
- GWS 300 Women as Agents of Change
- GWS 301 Feminist Theories
- GWS 100 Introduction to Gender and Women's Studies
Professor
Email:听marta.lopez-garza@csun.edu
Phone: (818) 677-4785 or 6488
Office location: JR 121A or JR 340
Marta's Biography
Marta L贸pez-Garza (Professor) holds a joint position in Gender & Women鈥檚 Studies and Chicana/o Studies Departments at California State University, Northridge. She co-facilitates the formerly incarcerated student organization, Revolutionary Scholars, and is co-founder of Civil Discourse & Social Change, a campus wide initiative combining education with avenues for community involvement and sustained activism. L贸pez-Garza is a community based researcher, whose most current research is on formerly incarcerated women, the subject of her documentary 鈥溾��.听This film follows the women in their journey from prison back to their communities, and their attempts to rebuild their lives and reunite with their families.
Recent publications include:听
鈥淩ace Classification:The Question of Categorization and Claiming Indigeneity,鈥� co-author Mary Pardo,听U.S. Latino Issues (ed. Rodolfo听Acu帽a);听
鈥淔ormerly Incarcerated Women Speak Out,鈥澨�Journal of Progressive Human Services";听
鈥淓xploring the Intersections between Scholarship and Activism: Our Journey from Community Concerns to Scholarly Work,鈥澨鼵o-authors, Yarma Vel谩zquez Vargasand Mary Pardo,听White Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies (eds.听Buenavista, Marin, Ratcliff, Sandoval);
鈥淔ormerly Incarcerated Women: Stories of Returning Home, to Family and Community,鈥澨�Research Justice: Methodologies for Change听(ed. Andrew Jolivette).听听Forthcoming:
鈥淏endici贸n de Casa: Life and Spirit in Living Spaces,鈥� in听Prayers and Rituals from the Ancestors and Beyond: Chicana and Latina Spiritual Expressions(eds. Lara Medina,听Martha Gonzales).听
Professor Emerita
Email:听nayereh.tohidi@csun.edu
Office location: JR 340L
Nayereh's Biography
Nayereh Tohidi听is a Professor Emerita and former Chair of Gender & Women鈥檚 Studies and the Founding Director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (2011-2021) at California State University, Northridge. She is also a Research Associate in the Program of Iranian Studies at UCLA coordinating 鈥淏ilingual Lecture Series on Iran鈥� since 2003. She received her MA and Ph.D. from the Universities of Tehran and Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. She is also the recipient of several post-doctoral fellowships and research awards, including an NEH grant, a year of Fulbright lectureship and research at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan; universities of Harvard and Stanford, the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and Keddie-Balzan Fellowship at UCLA. Her teaching and research expertise include gender and development; women鈥檚 movements and听feminism; women and Islam; globalization, ethnicity, and nationalism in the Caucasus and MENA. Her extensive publications include editorship or authorship of three books and numerous articles and interviews in peer-reviewed academic and policy-oriented journals.听Some of Tohidi鈥檚 articles have been published in different languages, including English, Persian, Turkic, Russian, Spanish, German, Arabic and Japanese. She has served on the editorial boards of academic journals such as the听Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, the听Journal of Azadi听Andisheh, and听the听International Journal of Humanities and Social Development Research.听Prof. Tohidi has integrated academic excellence with transnational human/women鈥檚 rights activism. She represented women NGOs at the UN-sponsored third and fourth World Conferences on Women in Nairobi and Beijing. She has also served as a consultant for the UN agencies (UNICEF and UNDP) on issues concerning children and women鈥檚 status in the Caucasus and Middle East.听听Dr. Tohidi听has also joined the faculty board of听Iran Academia听of the Institute for Social Sciences since 2015.听
In Memorium
Professor
Biography
R. Dianne Bartlow is a Professor at California State University, Northridge. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego (2000) in Communication with an emphasis on critical cultural/media studies, gender, race, and discourse, cognition and human interaction. Her research focuses on representations of African-American women in popular music, culture, and film, 19th听century Black Feminism, pedagogy and diversity, mothering and violence against women. Bartlow has also worked extensively in television production and is a multiple Emmy Award-winning director/writer/producer. She teaches courses on Women and Violence, Men and Masculinity, and Women and Entertainment as well as general GWS classes including online classes.
Her published work includes "No Throw-away Woman鈥�: Maria W. Stewart as a Forerunner of Black Feminist Thought,鈥� in Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, edited by Kristin Waters and Carol B. Conaway (University of Vermont Press Imprint of University Press of New England, 2007).
She is the author of听 鈥淎frican American Women and the Prison Industrial Complex: A Textual Reading of Neema Barnette鈥檚 Civil Brand鈥� in the International Journal of Africana Studies (Fall/Winter 2007) and, 鈥淒efying Gender Stereotypes and Racial Norms: Naming African-American Women鈥檚 Realities in Hip Hop and Neo-Soul Music,鈥� in Message in the Music: Hip Hop, Music and Pedagogy, edited by Terry Kershaw, James B. Stewart and V.P. Franklin (ASLAH Press, 2010). She guest co-edited with Janell Hobson, 鈥淩epresentin鈥�: Women, Hip Hop, and Popular Music,鈥� in a special issue for Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism (2008).
Dr. Bartlow is also the author of听 鈥淢ocha Moms: Lifting As We Climb鈥� and 鈥淢others of East Los Angeles: Trailblazers in Environmental Justice,鈥� in The 21st听Century Motherhood Movement: Mothers Speak Out on Why We Need to Change the World and How to Do It, edited by Andrea O鈥橰eilly (Demeter Press, 2011),.
She is the author of 鈥淧unishing Abused Women: A Retrospective on a Ms. Magazine Blog,鈥� in Illuminating How Identities, Stereotypes and Inequalities Matter through Gender Studies, edited by D. Nicole Farris, Mary Ann Davis and D鈥橪ane R. Compton (Springer, 2014).
Dr. Bartlow鈥檚 forthcoming publications include: 鈥淛udicial Response to Court Assisted Child Murders,鈥� and she is co-author, with Barry Goldstein, of 鈥淛udicial Response to Court Assisted Child Murders. Part II: Solutions and Recommendations鈥� in听Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody (2nd听edition), edited by Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein (Civic Research Institute, 2014). Bartlow is also co-author with Florence Kyomugisha of 听鈥淓nhancing Diversity through Innovative Pedagogy: Some Challenges and Considerations鈥� (National Social Science Journal, 2014). She is currently developing the documentaries Justice Denied: Mothers Who Lose Custody, and New Agenda: African-American Women and Music.