Welcome

The Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC) promotes dialogue, discussion, research, and scholarship concerned with women, feminism, gender, oppression, and social change. ORWAC seeks to advance understandings of the intersections of gender and race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexuality, and class, including transgender politics, masculinity, dis/ability, labor, transnationalism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory.

ORWAC is a Western States Communication Association (WSCA) affiliate, sponsors programs at the WSCA convention, and publishes a journal: Women’s Studies in Communication.

Announcements

  • We are proud to announce the sixteenth editor of Women's Studies in Communication: Dr. Marissa J. Doshi, a feminist scholar of media and cultural studies and associate professor at Hope College. Dr. Doshi will lead WSiC's publications of volumes 46-48. We are excited for her leadership and thankful for her service.

  • Congratulations to our 2021 Research Development Grant winners:

    • Brandi Lawless and Yea-Wen Chen - (Re)Connecting with Immigrant Women Faculty During Double Pandemics of COVID-19 and Anti-Black Racism
    • Tamanika Ferguson - Voices from the Inside: Incarcerated Women Speak
    • Lauren E. Peters - Health Care and Re-Traumatization: An Examination of Uncertainty
      Management and Social Support for Survivors of Sexual Assault During Routine Pelvic Exams
    • Teigha Mae VanHester - Cultivating Defiant Sovereignty: Queering the Assemblage of Fat, Black Feminist Ecological Imagination as Liberatory Practice 

  • We are creating a new endowment: the Brenda J. Allen Travel Grant Endowment for Women, Trans and Non-Binary Graduate Students of Color. These grants will fund travel for women, trans, and non-binary graduate students of color who present on an ORWAC conference panel. The endowment is named after Brenda J. Allen, a former ORWAC board member. If you are interested in contributing, please donate.

  • Congratulations to Alyson Farzad-Phillips for winning our 2021 Feminist Scholar award for her article "Huddles or Hurdles? Spatial Barriers to Collective Gathering in the Aftermath of the Women's March" 

  • Find us online! ORWAC now has three channels of social media:

  • Help support the Feminist Language and Communication Collection at the University of Oregon.    

Learn More About ORWAC

Newsletters

Our biannual newsletter contains a message from the president, addresses commonly asked questions about professional development, updates members on recent changes within the organization, includes our calls for paper submissions to the Western States Communication Association annual convention and gender preconferences, announces honors and awards, as well as provides reports from our grant recipients. 

Stay updated by reading our most recent newsletter.

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Journal

The ORWAC Journal, Women's Studies in Communication (WSIC), provides a feminist forum for diverse scholarship addressing the relationships between communication and gender. WSIC invites contributions in the form of research, reviews, and commentary with the potential to advance our understanding of the intersections of gender and race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexuality, and class, as well as the articulations between gendered performances, power, and representation in public culture.

  • Each year, the Feminist Scholarship Award is presented to the top essay published in the journal at the Western States Communication Association's annual conference.
  • Members are able to access the online journal by logging into their account. Click the link for Members Only in the top right corner.
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Grants

The Organization for Research on Women and Communication invites submissions for our Research Development Grants.  Members are eligible to apply for one of three grants that support scholars at different levels of their career: M.A. students, PhD students, and instructors or tenure/track faculty. Each grant offers a maximum of $2,500.00.

Grants are designed to assist feminist scholars completing research or creative projects that privilege and advance understandings about the intersectionality and complexity defining women’s lives.  Broadly speaking, submitted projects are those that:

  • chart new ground in disciplinary knowledge about women and gender
  • offer insights about the challenges and negotiations confronted by women in light of intersecting identities
  • favor the voices, experiences, discourses, performances and lives of women 
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Become a Member!

The Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC) promotes dialogue, discussion, research, and scholarship concerned with women, feminism, gender, oppression, and social change. ORWAC seeks to advance understandings of the intersections of gender and race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexuality, and class, including transgender politics, masculinity, dis/ability, labor, transnationalism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory. ORWAC is a Western States Communication Association (WSCA) affiliate, publishes a journal: Women's Studies in Communication, and sponsors programs at the WSCA convention.

Membership includes:

  • A subscription to Women's Studies in Communication Journal
  • Receipt of a biannual newsletter
  • A voice in managing the business affairs of ORWAC
  • Eligibility to apply for the annual research development grants
  • An invitation to the annual ORWAC reception at the WSCA convention (complimentary food and drinks and a networking opportunity for early scholars)

>> Join Online Today! <<

Please complete our online membership application. You will have the option to remit payment securely via Paypal or select payment method by check.

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