Gatherings: Inviting More People to Conversations about Feminism
Among the questions scholars of feminism wrestle with every day, the chief ones are these: Do we still need feminism and, if so, what kind? It is central to the work Professor and Director of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies Farha Ternikar, Ph.D., and Assistant Professor of Criminology Heather (Cleary) Mooney, Ph.D., do every day. It is also an idea that they are exploring in a new journal based in upstate New York, Gatherings, whose content and structure incorporate critical feminist practices.
A collaboration that started with St. John Fisher University grew to include gender and women’s studies faculty from Le Moyne College and SUNY Oswego as well as scholars from Ithaca College, Rochester Institute of Technology and Cornell University. Gatherings is in many ways a successor to another journal, Seneca Falls Dialogue. As its name suggests, the new publication is meant to serve as a place where people can come together to share ideas and inspire conversation. Gatherings will have an interdisciplinary focus; It will tackle a number of issues as they relate to race, gender, class and experiences of members of the LGBTQ community from a variety of mediums and disciplinary perspectives. The journal has been designed to challenge traditional hierarchies in academic publishing. A special emphasis will be placed on sharing the work of emerging scholars, as well as that of students and members of the broader community. As Ternikar puts it, “It will offer more people a seat at the table, particularly those who have not historically had one.”
The first issue of Gatherings, which launched in September 2024, focuses on feminist placemaking. It acknowledges that while Seneca Falls, N.Y., is considered by many to be the birthplace of the women’s suffrage movement, it was not always a welcoming place for feminists. This issue includes articles from Black and indigenous scholars, and invites readers to reflect upon what it means to take up space as a feminist in this particular geographic region. Feminists from varying backgrounds and disciplines consider what it means to be feminist and to claim spaces in the academic, public and political spheres as feminist. Writers explore historical and contemporary biases and exclusions that persist around race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and national origin when it comes to feminist-placemaking. The second issue will address transnational feminist solidarity, and will include reflections on issues such as war, apartheid and genocide, and how feminists come together in scholarship and activism. It is expected to come out in the summer of 2025. Both Ternikar and Mooney say that they would love to see future issues delve into subjects such as girlhood; the environment; collective emotion; and the relationship between feminism and popular culture.
Perhaps more than anything else, though, they are excited to bring the ideas explored in Gatherings to their classrooms.
“I am a passionate teacher, and I know that [Dr. Ternikar] is as well,” Mooney says. “That is one reason why we love being at Le Moyne. We like to be able to work closely with students and gain insights into what a feminist classroom looks like and what feminist pedagogy looks like in 2024 in the U.S. and globally … There are lots of exciting possibilities.”
On Oct. 18, Le Moyne will host a symposium about Gatherings sponsored by the Central New York Humanities Corridor. The symposium will celebrate scholarship, with a panel of experts who will address Puerto Rican feminism, Black and queer feminism, Black feminist placemaking and Muslim feminism. It will also seek to build community, with brainstorming sessions that will allow participants to speak informally and uncover ways they can work with one another. It is something Ternikar says she has not seen in many other regions, and she is especially excited about hosting the event at Le Moyne.
“When I tell my friends at the National Women’s Studies Association or American Sociological Association that we started a journal with a couple of [faculty from local colleges], their immediate reaction is often to ask: ‘Wow! How did you do that?’,” Ternikar says. “The answer is that we did this together. Moving forward, I hope to see Gatherings grow through the young scholars we attract, the topics we address, and the mediums we use to make this work more and more accessible. I am proud that not only is Le Moyne part of this journal’s origin story, but that the College will also play a leading role in its future.”
In addition to their work on Gatherings, Ternikar and Clearly are each working on several additional projects with special meaning to them.
Ternikar, whose past scholarship has focused on gender, race and religious identity, has a book scheduled for release next year, an edited volume titled Transnational Culinaria: Women of Color Rewriting Their Food Stories. Co-edited by scholars Stephanie Evans, Ph.D., and Janaka Lewis, Ph.D., the book is a transnational feminist volume on food studies. She also has a forthcoming chapter on Kamala Khan, also known as Miss Marvel, Marvel Comics’ first Muslim superhero. Ternikar looks forward to using the article to spur discussion on female superheroes in one of her classes, Race, Gender and Pop Culture.
Mooney’s research expands important feminist scholarship in criminology, and she has long been interested in the intersections of race, gender, culture and emotion, especially in their relation to crime and deviance. She is working on a book chapter for the journal Crime, Media, Culture on various communities that form around media dedicated to true crime stories, with a particular emphasis on true crime podcasts. In addition, she is researching and writing about Go Fund Me pages created for people seeking help for substance use disorder to identify the factors that make a given campaign successful. For future projects, Mooney is also interested in studying the role that white women play in political radicalization, particularly into neo-conservative and alt-right movements, in digital spaces.
